Higher Love - Godly Marriage #1
Why did God invent marriage?
As I begin this series of messages about marriage, I want you to know that this material is not intended to condemn or create guilt. This subject goes to the heart of who we are and how we live which creates rich potential for an emotional response.
Here’s the fact: none of us has lived perfectly. So, if you’re divorced, or single, or a single parent - I hope you will hear the truth without shrinking into a defensive angry mood.
Please receive these messages as God’s instruction for the future and not as a condemnation of the past. None of our marriages is ideal, but that should not keep us from hearing what the Word says and asking God to make them better - so that we can glorify Him.
PRAY
Meeting with couples who ask me to perform their weddings is usually a most enjoyable part of my work. In several sessions we discuss the significant step they are taking in marriage. Not so long ago, I sat down with a couple in the Jerusalem Room. I could tell that he was especially nervous, sort of like he had been invited to the principal’s office. I knew that they were already living together, that they owned a home together, so I wanted to find out what was motivating them to get married-
“Why go through this thing called a wedding since you’re already living as a couple?”
I appreciated his honesty when he said something like,
“I’m not really sure why we’re doing this. Mostly, I guess ‘cause she wants to.”
Marriage is less and less important to many couples today. Not so long ago, there was a powerful social pressure to get married. Sex outside of marriage was morally unacceptable. If you were going to have children, marriage was a given. For most people, getting married was one of the first steps towards independent adulthood.
While Scriptural standards remain, social norms have been shaken with an earthquake-sized shift!
In May, 2009, the NY Times reported on a study from the government -
Titled “Changing Patterns of Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States,” the report was released by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From it we learn that unmarried mothers gave birth to 4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States in 2007, a share that is increasing rapidly both here and abroad. ....
Much of the increase in unmarried births has occurred among parents who are living together but are not married, cohabitation arrangements that tend to be less stable than marriages, studies show.
Out-of-wedlock births are also rising in much of the industrialized world: in Iceland, 66 percent of children are born to unmarried mothers; in Sweden, the share is 55 percent. In part this is due to the increasing earning capability of women. Another significant factor is the availability of government support for children which reduces the importance of having a husband/father present.
And, I believe that this is happening because we do not know what marriage really is or why God created this institution. A whole new definition of marriage emerged in the 20th century, centered around romantic love and personal happiness. With changing social norms, we can find personal happiness, romantic love, sex, and even have children without the complication of marriage, so why make the plunge?
My hope is that you’ll have a good answer for that question when I finish this message in about 30 minutes!
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I asked my Facebook community to answer this question - why did God invent marriage?
The answers were quite interesting; some funny, some profound.
Jamie wrote - Ya know what Jerry...I love my husband but I think God has a weird sense of humor!!! Sometimes I wonder why there is marriage....obviously children...maybe to teach us to be tolerant of others and realize the world doesn't just revolve around one person.
Sherrie wrote- So life would not be so lonely. I think He did it to make us happy and to protect us. I heard each uses the opposite sides of our brains, my hubby comes up with stuff I would never think of and I love it.
Dawn wrote - So I would get my coffee with a smooch and a 'have a good day!'
Terry wrote- To teach us patience... but really, I would be very lonely without my wife. Thank you Lord!
Sean, my son, wrote- The obvious reason is so we would not be alone. The more abstract; that we have a "real time" relationship alongside our "spiritual" relationship with Him. A tangible way in which we can experience the benefits and and consequences of decisions we make. Someone to share life with, encourage, support, and sacrifice for. To put into practice putting others above self.
His mother-in-law wrote- “what he said.”
Brent wrote- He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so he created a helper in the garden to work the earth and inhabit it. After the Fall, marriage became a beautiful image of Christ's perpetual pursuit of and love for His people, the church, aka His fiance. As so the husband is to "love his wife as Christ loves the church." Even when she says/acts like she doesn't want to be loved.
And the wife is to submit to her husband as the church is to submit to Christ. Just as Christ submitted to the Father when He came on mission to earth to redeem mankind.
Marriage is a powerful reflection of the Gospel. - the guy lookin’ for a wife
Several others wrote about procreation, patience, and personal fulfillment.
Let’s take a look at the Scripture and see what God says about marriage.
TEXT - Genesis 2:18-25 PB 4
1. God invented marriage to bring human beings completion!
The basic idea of that text is that without Eve, Adam was incomplete! Don’t be put off by that word, “helper.” The Hebrew word is “ezer” (ay-zer) and does not mean someone inferior, reduced to a secondary role. It means someone who provides resources to another, who enriches them. God is called our Ezer in several passages, the One who provides the resources we need in our time of need.
Adam was needy! (And all the wives said, “amen!”) He was incomplete without a woman and so God created a complement to him, the one who made him whole! The same could be said of Eve. So, God created our complement and brought us together to make a new ‘unit’ - a wholly different thing.
Look at 2: 24.
(Read)
God intended that marriage should bring about a new creation - a unit called ‘a family!’ That phrase, ‘they will become one flesh,’ is often read only as a reference, a euphemism, for the sexual union of marriage. It is that but it goes much beyond that. The Hebrew phrase literally speaks of becoming ‘one body,’ united into something new that did not exist before.
God invented marriage to make something new, something that would serve His purposes in the world.
Marriage cannot exist without two becoming one. Sexual intercourse is the physical moment of that union and is also the unique relationship of marriage. An unconsummated can be annulled because there is no ‘one flesh’ relationship.
Don’t be offended by the thought that you are incomplete if you’re single. Singleness does not imply you are a person of lesser worth. You are completely male or completely female. We recognize and praise the fact that some are called to remain single and serve God very effectively in that state. However, the complete family unit that becomes fruitfully reproductive, that is intended to be a place of intimate and deep relationship, requires two, and those two are male and female. And, the Bible sets this as the norm for humanity.
Serious science is confirming the ancient wisdom of Scripture about the importance of marriage. We know have research that proves that -
1. Marriage promotes both a longer and healthier life, especially for men.
2. Children raised in an intact, healthy two parent home enjoy measurable benefits socially, academically, and emotionally!
One of America’s major crises in 2010 are fatherless children! A website called www.fatherhood.org reports some arresting facts:
∙ Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 38.4 percent of children in female-householder families.
∙ Even after controlling for income, youths in father-absent households still had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds.
∙ Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.
∙ Researchers at Columbia University found that children living in two-parent household with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink, or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Teens in single mother households are at a 30% higher risk than those in two-parent households.
God is very serious about your marriage. In fact, it is a covenant relationship in which His honor at stake, right alongside of yours! Just how seriously He sees our marriage vows is shown in the words of Jesus.
TEXT - Matthew 19: 1-12 PB 1528
2. God invented marriage as a life-long, irrevocable covenant between a man, a woman, and Himself.
The Lord Jesus lauded the covenant nature of marriage and called his followers to do the same.
God’s directive is ‘one man - one woman - for life!’
If that strikes you as an unbelievably difficult demand, you’re not alone. His own disciples heard that way, too. Their response was that if such was the demand, it was better not to marry.
His answer to them in the KJV and NIV is more than a little murky. The Message brings the concept to us more clearly.
"But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you’re capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.”"
(Matthew 19:11-12, The Message)
He did not soften the demand! He challenged them to grow up in how they regarded it. IF that was His challenge to that time, I can only imagine what He would say to our culture.
God invented marriage, not simply as a means of making us happier people or for making sex legal and moral, or even to meet our personal need for a companion. In addition to these things, He gave us marriage to be a laboratory where we learn to LOVE DEEPLY, learn to be better people, learn to rely on Him, and learn to set aside ourselves.
None of us marries a perfect person. Every marriage has times when the sizzle fizzles, when hunk becomes a lump, when the babe factor fades. But, if we die to Self, ask the Spirit to work deeply in us, we will learn to love each other in a way that is not reserved for the young, the beautiful, the naive, or the sexy!
Truthfully, marriage is the great revealer. The daily interaction with another person rubs away our pretensions and masks. God uses this to heighten our self-awareness which provides us with the opportunity to grow. The tragedy is that for many people that growth is not something they desire. So, when their relationship moves past the fantasy stage, when they begin to see the other person and themselves in the harsh light of reality, they opt to quit and start over with somebody else.
God hates divorce! That’s what He said, not me. Godly marriage requires GREAT FAITH in God’s abilities. I don’t say that as a cynic or critic of marriage. I love being married and deeply love my wife. I say that as a man who knows the difficulties of pursuing the will of God, saying “No,” to my selfishness and “Yes,” to God’s way.
All this would lead me to say that ...
3. God invented marriage as a tool of personal and spiritual development.
Often when I am counseling those about to wed I remind that when they say, “I Do,” the person they called “Me” ceases to exist and “We” is the new reality. Sounds good in theory, but in fact, many people live in marriages where one or both partners are self-centered. Everyday is a perpetual struggle to get their own way. It shows up in so many different ways.
- He says, “I’m not ready for kids” refusing to understand how important having a baby is to her. She manipulates him with guilt or withheld affection because she really wants them.
- She says, “Get a better job” even though he is deeply satisfied with his work. She refuses to be content and withholds respect from him. He responds by accusing her of being materalistic, “just like your mother,” a phrase he knows wounds her.
- He wants more sex. She doesn’t understand his desire and tells him to ‘learn to control yourself.’ He responds by not talking with her unless absolutely necessary.
The Word urges us to get past that way of life.
TEXT - Ephesians 5:21-33
Since it is so familiar to many of us, let me read it to you from the paraphrase called “The Message.”
It says,
"Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands. Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting.
Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage. No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.”
This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband." (Ephesians 5:21-33, The Message)
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Here’s the challenge as I close today.
∙ Does your Christianity work in your marriage?
∙ Is love growing? Is it Biblical love- self-sacrificial, forgiving, serving, hopeful, and encouraging?
∙ Is something like the intimacy God planned for you growing in your home or are you just existing together, trying to make the best of a bad situation?
My prayer is that you will invite the Lord of life to be Lord of your marriage. Pray that the Holy Spirit will not only let you enjoy His invention of intimacy and wholeness, but that He will make your relationship a holy, treasured one, that causes others to say, “Praise God for this wonderful gift.”
Next week - our topic – Marriage Myths and Expectations
Jerry D. Scott - 2010
Source material includes Essentials of Marriage - Focus on the Family, Tyndale, 2009