The Gospel - The Motivation & Means For A Godly Marriage

About this sermon

Introduction: I have now had the privilege to shepherd God’s people, in one ministry role or another, for roughly 40 years. If one thing has been clear to me after these 40 years, when it comes to the subject of people’s marriages, it would be that what people are in their marriages is simply what they are in the rest of their lives. The way that someone lives in marriage is simply the way they live everywhere else. And this is true even when it doesn’t seem true. Someone is kind, thoughtful, giving, outside of their home, and then they come home, and they are harsh, quick tempered, selfish. You aren’t seeing a different person at home. You are seeing THE REAL PERSON at home. Such a person is just as self-centered and privately self-serving when they are interacting with non-family members, as they are with their spouse. You say, “But how can that be? They don’t seem selfish when they’re not at home. They truly expend themselves for others.” SERVING OTHERS CAN BE GRATIFYING WHEN ITS ON YOUR OWN TERMS, FOR YOUR OWN ENDS, AND TO YOUR OWN GLORY. Family life has a way of testing the purity of our motivations. Family life has a way of exposing the source of the strength in which we are operating — are you operating in the power of God? Are you being filled with the Holy Spirit? Is your life bearing the fruit of salvation, or is your ability merely human? Home has a way of requiring things of us that are NOT on our own terms. Home has a way of requiring us to aim at things that are for the COLLECTIVE BEST. What is best FOR EVERYONE? Home has a way of requiring things of us that don’t provide us with any fanfare. ESV Matthew 13:57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household." THIS IS WHEN WE MEET WITH THE REAL US. “Do I love, do I give, am I compassionate, will I put myself second, when the NEED DEMANDS IT” — not on my terms? “Do I think about what is best for the person I’m married to, what she wants, what would give her joy, what would be best for her spiritually, or is just about me?” “Will I love her, sacrifice for her, care for her, when it is treated as something NORMAL, not something extraordinary?” No one is going to throw a parade for me — now do I desire at home what I seem to desire somewhere else? YOU CAN’T LIVE THE LIFE OF TRUE LOVE AT HOME FOR VERY LONG, IF THAT IS NOT WHAT GOD IS PRODUCING IN YOUR HEART FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. YOU WON’T LIVE LIKE THAT AT HOME IF IT ISN’T IN YOUR HEART TO GLORIFY GOD AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. What we are in marriage (over the long haul), is simply what we are. WHICH IS WHY IT IS VITAL THAT WE EXAMINE WHAT WE ARE. WHICH IS WHY IF WE ARE GOD’S PEOPLE IT IS VITAL THAT WE REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE. IT IS VITAL THAT WE THINK, AND RESPOND, AND CHOOSE, IN AGREEMENT WITH WHAT GOD HAS DONE IN OUR LIVES. This is why Paul can move seamlessly, in Colossians chapter 3, from the household of God to the households of God’s people. THE TWO BIG IDEAS REGARDING MARRIAGE We started out study in Matthew 19 where the Pharisees approached Jesus with their divorce question. Jesus took them back to the book of Genesis. He took them back to the very beginning. That’s what we have done. We’ve gone to the book of Genesis and taken note of what God’s account of His creation of marriage says about the institution. There are many truths that we have learned, but most of those truths could be placed under two major headings. One major heading would be that marriage is God’s doing. He created it. He designed it. He set it forth as the perpetual institution that it is. He protects it. He is the one who joins husband and wife. He is the one who witnesses the covenant that men and women enter when they are married. He alone has the authority to say what marriage is, why it exists, and how it is to be lived out. The second major heading emerges from Genesis 2:24 AS IT’S REPEATED ELSEWHERE in Scripture. Because, over time, a mystery is unveiled. What we learn in the New Testament, is that marriage was designed by God, from the very beginning, to speak of something greater than marriage. Marriage is for time, but what marriage was meant to speak of is timeless. Marriage is for men and women, but marriage was meant to illustrate God’s saving relationship with His people.

Topics

• Marriage