The Essence of Marriage

  

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

-Ephesians 5:21-27

  

1. What is the essence of marriage?

  

The Essence of Marriage is: “A long term binding commitment epitomized by a covenantal contract.”

  

There are two kinds of relationships:

• Consumer: Your individual needs are more important than the relationship. In the dating relationship you are a Consumer.
• Covenant: You serve and give, and serve and give, and they seem thankless, almost entitled. But you would never think of leaving. In marriage, you are in a Covenant.

  

In the Christian marriage, both partners say:

“I now reject the consumer mentality of this relationship and now choose to enter into a covenant relationship.”

My commitment to you will not be based upon the constant ebb and flow of my feelings, but upon a covenant I make with you now.

• I desire to create intimacy and stability in your life.
• I am not merely giving you my word.
• I am binding myself to this covenant!

As God says to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you” in His covenant to me. I now say that to you, not in mere words, but in the action of a covenant agreement, in front of God and man!” I will never leave you for better for worse, in sickness or health, for richer or poorer... I bind myself to you!

Till death do us part.

  

  

In marriage, both partners agree that there will be future temptations to leave the marriage.

• The person is not growing like I thought.
• They are not as mature as I thought.
• She withholds intimacy.He is always working.
• His family brings too much baggage.
• She seldom encourages or touches me.

  

In the Christian marriage two people agree that:

“Love and intimacy are just as much an act of the will as it is an emotion.”

Many people assume that the link between emotion and behavior is one-way: Emotions shape behavior. You love him, therefore you kiss him. You hate him, therefore you hit him. This view is incorrect. In fact, the relationship is reciprocal. Much of the time, behavior actually shapes emotion. Ever wonder why so often the actor and the actress who play a couple in the movie fall in love on the set? Multiple processes are involved, to be sure. Both are usually young and attractive. They have much in common. They hang around each other a lot. All these are known predictors of mate selection. But they also do love scenes together. They have to act like people who care deeply for each other. They look into each other’s eyes, they touch each other. They act out the behaviors of love. No wonder the emotion of love often follows. Recent research in clinical psychology has shown that the fastest way to change an emotion is to change the behavior attached to it.

-Noam Shpancer, “Action Creates Emotion,” Psychology Today

  

How does one act out the covenant of marriage?

• By committing to love the other person “for better or for worse.”
• When things are not going well.
• When there are financial struggles, life struggles, health struggles, emotional struggles.
• You continue express love because of the covenant you made.

When I make a promise I am committing to rise above all the whacky stuff I got from my parents.

-Lewis Smedes

  

2. What is the mission of marriage?

What are you hoping to accomplish in marriage?

What is your marriage for?

  

The mission of marriage is to experience deep character change through deep relationship.

  

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

-Romans 8:28-29

People today are looking for a perfectly compatible soulmate.

-eHarmony

Definition: “Someone who will accept me just as I am and I can appreciate her just as she is.”

Survey says: This is the new definition for soulmate.

• Someone who will not try to change me.
• Someone who will accept me as I am.

  

If that is your definition of marriage—this is the reason you are not married.

  

  

Everyone comes into the marriage relationship—any relationship—with flaws!

  

  

  

The assumption is that there is someone out there just right for us to marry and if we look closely enough, we will find that just right person. This assumption overlooks a very crucial aspect of marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that you always marry the wrong person. Even if we think we marry the right person. Just give it time and he or she will change. One of the challenges of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you so often find yourself married.

-Stanley Hauerwas

  

You embrace the reality and commit to help each other grow.

  

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

-Ephesians 5:21-27

  

How did Jesus love the church?

• He humbled Himself.
• He served her.
• He made her holy.

  

Point your spouse to Jesus! Only Christ can transform.

  

The Christian idea of marriage is that you are falling in love not just with the person but the person they are becoming because of Christ.

  

3. What is the secret of marriage?

  

The secret of marriage is to love your spouse in seasons where you are getting little to no love back.

  

  

You love your kids because they are your kids.

Love your spouse because they are your spouse.

Demonstrate love and the emotion will return.

  

Tim Keller calls this: Love Philanthropy!

  

The only way you can give a lot of love to your spouse is if you are getting a lot of love somewhere else.

• The only way to get that kind of love from someone else without being unfaithful to your spouse is to have a deep, intimate, relationship with God.
• If the love of Christ is truly in you, you can get through the rough patches.
• If your main source of love is your spouse, you will freak out during the difficult seasons.
• If God is the main source of your love income, you will be able to handle it.

   

  

  

3 Non-Neogotiables

  

1. Date Nights

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

-1 Corinthians 7:3-5

  

2. Learn the Love Language of your spouse

  

  

3. Enter a Marriage Ministry

  

Join our Re|Engage Community in the Fall or next Winter, more info below!

  

  

Only one exception for divorce:

Pornia: Sexual immorality

It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

-Matthew 5:31

Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.’

-Matthew 19:8-9

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

-1 Corinthians 6:18

  

Three reasons a marriage can dissolve:

(According to 1 Corinthians 7:1-15)

• Sexual immorality.
• Death.
• One becoming a Christ follower and the other choosing not to follow Christ.

  

No marriage is beyond repair if you stop and remember what the essence, the meaning and secret of marriage is.

  

  

  

What are you main takeaways from this sermon?

Make a Decision The Meaning of Marriage The 5 Love Languages The 5 Love Languages Quiz