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Marriage
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MARRIAGE AS
MINISTRY POWER
MarriageAugust 18, 1991
Ephesians 5:2133
Ive started preaching a little sermon series on
marriage. We did Immortal, Invisible, God Only
Wise at our wedding. That was our hymn on the way
in. On the way out it was Nobody Knows the Trouble
Ive Seen. As you know, were going through the
book of Ephesians, and instead of a series of sermons
(I dont know when I started these) on Ephesians, what
it really is a series of series on Ephesians.
Because when you get to a particular set of verses
and see it is on a new subject, then what we try to do is
show you when you take a look at a small number of
verses on a subject, there is a tremendous amount that
can be drawn out of there. We try to go through in a
more (not totally) comprehensive and exhaustive way,
looking at that subject.
Now we come to the classic, maybe the locus
classicus, passage in the whole Bible on marriage. Its
Ephesians 5, and Im going to start reading from verse
21 down to verse 33. Its maybe the most famous, its
certainly probably the longest and meatiest passage
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our sins, to meet you and to hear you say to us, I will
restore you. I will forgive you. I will renew you. I will
turn you into a friend. I will turn you into someone
who can love and be loved. Thats what we ask now.
We pray it in Jesus name, amen.
OVERVIEWMARRIAGE AS
COMMITMENT
MarriageAugust 25, 1991
Ephesians 5:2133
Were going through the book of Ephesians. Weve come to the classic text on marriage.
The most detailed, the longest, the most popular, and the most famous of all the passages in
the New Testament on the subject of marriage. What were going to do is look at this for a
number of weeks.
What Id like to do for the next four or five minutes after I read the passage is Id like to
tell you what the basic headings are. Those you who have been around know what I have a
tendency to do is tell you what the headings are, and then spend as much time, as many
weeks as necessary to get through them all.
It would be great if every week I would do a heading and then move onto the next, but I
tend not to do that. I tend to go until the time is up (or even a little bit past where the time is
up) and then pick up the next week. What Id like to do is read the passage and tell you
what I think the basic principles, or elements, or aspects of marriage are that Paul is
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treating. Then well get started and go through them seriatim for the next several weeks.
Its difficult for me to always know until the evening is over just how much of the topic
I preached on, so its a little bit difficult for me to give it a topic ahead of time. Let me read
Ephesians 5:2133, then Ill take four or five minutes to give you the basic principles were
going to be looking at for weeks, and then well try to tackle one more tonight (because we
tackled one last week).
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Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
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Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
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In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He
who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but
he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church30 for we are members of
his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to
his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
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This is a profound mystery[understatement of the year] but I am talking
about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as
he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
This is Gods Word
Pretty overwhelming. There are many ways to break this down, but Id suggest to you that
there are six basic elements or principles Paul lays out here. We looked at one last week,
well look at one tonight, and then well try to move through the rest as they go on. Let me
tell you what they are. Let me go over them.
1. What we looked at last week was Paul lays out what the power for marriage is in
verse 21, where he says, Submit to one another out of reverence [out of fear, literally] for
Christ. The word fear does not mean scared of, in the Bible. It means to be awed before
the reality of. In the Bible it says, for example, in Psalm 130, But with you there is
forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
The word fear does not mean to be scared of. How could it possibly be that the psalmist
says, Because you forgive my sins, I fear you? The word fear means to be in awe, to be
completely controlled by, to be overwhelmed, and to be prostrate before in amazement of.
Out of fear of Christ, out of a relationship with Christ, out of the experience of Christ, you
are enabled and youre able to serve other people. Submit to one another out of reverence
for Christ. Thats the power for marriage.
Thats the first. We looked at that last week, and theres no need to recap it. We said last
week, if you think of this negatively Paul is assuming if youre going to have a good
marriage (verse 21 is the first verse), hes assuming you have a Spirit-created ability to be
unselfish in the way in which you live. Stated negatively, this verse means the main
problem in any marriage is self-centeredness. Thats what kills marriage. Thats what the
heart of every marriage problem always is. Thats the most basic problem you have.
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We dont have to recap it, but what this does is this assumes the gospel. Weve talked
about the gospel before. When we say this is a gospel-preaching church, what we mean is
(heres a little phrase I hope everybody in our church eventually will know by heart) the
gospel is youre more sinful, evil, and weak than youd ever dared believe, but youre more
valued, accepted, and loved than you ever dared hope. At the same time. Churches or
institutions that stress how bad you are without talking about grace, those are legalistic
churches. Theyre always saying, Youd better perform, or God will get you.
Permissive churches are churches that stress how loved and valued you are without
talking to you about the importance and the seriousness of sin. They say, God loves
everybody, so try your best. He basically accepts everybody no matter how you are. The
gospel, instead, does not create a legalistic or permissive kind of message. The permissive
kind of message is the person who says, This is a great arrangement. God enjoys forgiving
sin. I enjoy committing it. The legalistic mindset goes more like this, I know Im in
Gods will because Im miserable.
Instead, the gospel says, You need to repent, not because you need to repent in order to
be saved. You need to repent because you are saved. The mark of the difference between a
Christian and a permissive person is the Christian repents. As Martin Luther said, all of life
is repentance. The difference between a Christian and a legalist is the legalist repents out of
fear and anxiety, and a Christian repents out of gratitude for what Christ has done for him
or her and out of a desire to be like Christ.
When you know youre saved, youre accepted, and youre loved, you have a freedom
to repent. You repent more often. When I feel my acceptance with God is based on my
performance, I really, in a sense, have to repress how bad I am. My conscience cant take it.
If somebody shows me or if my performance shows me something is wrong with me, I
cant repent if Im a legalist. I cant repent if I think thats the basis for my performance,
because if I repent, thats the end of my life. Ill have to admit Im worthless.
When you have gospel self-esteem and love in your life, it makes you more prone and
more able to repent, because its not the end of the world. It makes you more able to do it.
You conscience is framed with grace so it can take a clear look at itself. Thats why we say
the gospel creates a unique kind of person. Every so often we have to recap this because
this is the context and basis for everything we say.
The gospel means, on the one hand, youre a very humble person, but youre by no
means in despair or discouraged. This is all in verse 21. Out of fear of Christ, knowing what
hes done for you, out of awe before what hes done for you on the cross, it makes you, on
the one hand, a strong person, and on the other hand, a humble person, so you can be an
unselfish person and you can live in an unselfish way.
A legalist can serve, but in a codependent way. I have to. Im driven. I have to let
people step on me. Its the only way Ill ever live up to standards. A permissive person can
be selfish, but usually in an oppressive way. I have my rights. You cant tell me what to
do. A person who understands the gospel, who has the gospel in his her blood, is a person
who is strong and yet humble and therefore, out of reverence for Christ, submits and is able
to serve other people and put the needs of other people ahead. Thats the power of marriage.
That is the basis. Thats assumed in verse 21. Everything else that comes after that is built
on this.
2. Paul gives us the definition of marriage, not just the power. The definition of
marriage is it is a covenant. Thats what well look at tonight. Give me a second, and well
be right back. You see it in the word cleave, where it says, Therefore shall a man leave his
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father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife
The word cleave is a technical, covenantal term in the Bible. To cleave means to be
glued to. It means to be bound legally to somebody. Its not simply a word that means to
hold onto in some general way. It means to be bound. It means, essentially, marriage is an
institution of law. Its covenantal. Its designed by God, and you enter marriage through a
public promise.
3. We mentioned this last week. This passage teaches us the priority of marriage. It
says, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife
The Bible teaches us your marriage is more important to you than your job. Its more
important to you than your career. Its more important to you than anything else in your life.
Thats the reason why God can put up the idea of leaving the father and mother. Your
relationship with your father and mother is a pretty fundamental relationship. Its the most
fundamental relationship you have until you get married.
Its the one (whether you like it or not) that has most driven and shaped your life and
who you are. Marriage is more powerful in its impact than your relationship with your
parents, and it must have priority. If you dont leave, if you dont give it priority, it
introduces all sorts of distortions into your marriage, and well talk about that in the future.
Plenty of people have marriage problems because they havent left. In some cases, they
havent left their father or their mother.
You say, I know those kinds, the kinds that are tied to their apron strings. No. If you
hate your parents, you havent left them either. If you cannot enter into a new marriage and
really say, Were going to be a new decision-making unit. Were going to develop new
patterns, but instead you impose the patterns you saw in your own family, you havent left.
There are all kinds of ways in which you can fail to give marriage its priority.
In a place like New York, you have to point out the Bible says marriage has to have
priority over your career. When you live in your house, you go by your rules. Instinctively,
when you get into somebody elses house, dont you instinctively go by their rules? In your
house, maybe youre drinking something and you just put the glass down on the coffee
table. In somebody elses house, you look around. Maybe they always put a cup down on a
coaster. You notice these things because when youre in somebody elses house, you go by
their rules.
When you get into marriage, youve gotten into something that was invented by God. If
you say, Im going to run my marriage my way, youre in for a lot of trouble. When you
enter into marriage, you enter into Gods house, into his institution. Its built his way. To
ignore his laws is something you do to your peril. If you say, No, no, no. Marriage is going
to come second or third in my life, and my spouse just has to get used to it, watch out!
Marriage isnt built that way.
4. Paul lays out the purpose of marriage. The purpose of marriage is the two will
become one flesh. The purpose of marriage is friendship, oneness, and to have somebody
with whom you can be naked. Were not just talking about physically at all. The physical is
really just simply a result. Its a consequence of friendship. Well talk about this later. The
reason the Bible says dont be naked physically with someone until youre naked spiritually
and socially It makes sense.
The reason the Bible says dont have sex outside of marriage is until youve gotten
married and bound yourself to somebody, you havent really made yourself vulnerable. You
havent really bound yourself to them. You havent really, in a sense, stripped. You havent
become naked socially and emotionally until youve married somebody. I dont care what
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you say. Why havent you gotten married? Because you werent willing to bind yourself
like that. You werent willing to be that vulnerable to that person.
The ultimate purpose of marriage is oneness, deep and soul oneness. Physical
nakedness is just a consequence. Its just an image. Its just a result of soul nakedness. This
person has to be your best friend. This person has to be someone with whom you have no
secrets, or youve frustrated the purpose of marriage: oneness, friendship, companionship.
Somebody is going to say, Why are you taking this time? My wife pointed out that
this series is going to end up becoming a series of tapes people will be passing around to
each other. I know how this works. Unless I give the outline here, its going to be very hard
to understand where I am later on. This is the table of contents for the series.
5. This is going to be where we get into a real minefield, the structure of marriage. The
structure of marriage is the body structure. Paul lays out here that the structure of marriage
is the head-body structure. The husband is the head and the wife is the body. It says, no
one ever hated his own body
Its talking about the same illustration Paul uses to describe the church. The church is
like a body with every part pulling its own weight, complementary functions. Do you
remember all that? A marriage is like the body. What Paul is talking about here is
something very deep. He is saying the differences between the genders are complementary.
We need one another to complete one another. We are not equivalent, but were equal.
The differences between genders are much more than biological. The deep structure of
gender difference is something we have to deal with in marriage. The wifes role and the
husbands role are not interchangeable. When we have found our roles, we fit together, we
complement each other, and we complete each other at the deepest level. What does that
mean? Of course, thats where you get into a minefield, but well get there when we get
there.
6. Paul talks about the mystery of marriage. He says, This is a profound mystery
That is, marriage is basically a mirror for the relationship between Christ and his church. If
you look here, youll see basically the entire description of what the wife and the husband
are to each other in marriage is all based on the way Christ relates to us. Paul is saying you
will never really understand the point of marriage, the purpose of marriage, and the internal
deep dynamics of marriage until you understand the relationship of Christ to his church.
In fact, he goes even further. Hes actually saying marriage is sort of like a glass. The
only human institution on earth thats like a glass, that can actually pick up a ray, a beam of
the glorious life of heaven were going to know when we see God face to face. When a man
and a woman are united perfectly and beautifully in marriage, economically and socially
and physically in every way, you begin to taste a little bit of what its going to be like to be
known face to face by Jesus on that day.
Youve heard me say that before when weve talked about sex. Were going to get into
it in greater detail. You must realize God invented sex and invented marriage as a whole as
a way of giving us a foretaste of heaven and a foretaste of what it will be like to flop into
our Saviors arms on the last day. Until you understand that, you have no idea what the
exalted nature of marriage is, and you really dont understand the purpose of it. The
purpose of marriage is to be washed.
It says here, 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. Marriage has been invented to be a vehicle for your
sanctification and for your redemption. The basic purpose of marriage is to turn you into
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you would ratify a covenant is you would take an animal, rip the animal in half, lay it on
the floor, walk between the pieces, and say, If I do not do all the works of this covenant,
may I be as this dead animal.
I considered rewriting some of our marriage services that way and just suggesting the
bride and groom go and get an animal and cut it up and then walk between the pieces.
Theyd say, usually, Wed rather exchange rings. Thats fine. It doesnt matter if you
jump over a broom. It doesnt matter if you cut an animal in half. It doesnt matter whether
you exchange rings. These things arent magic. What makes a covenant a covenant is its
public and youre standing up in front of your friends, your family, and the witnesses,
which is always a part of every covenant. Theres no such thing as a covenant in the
backseat of a car.
A covenant is something public. A covenant is a way for you to make a promise that
you do not mind who holds you accountable to it. Thats what makes it a contract. Thats
what makes it a covenant as opposed to something else. The modern mind is tremendously
anti-law and anti-covenantal. The covenant talks all about commitment, discipline, and
service. The modern mind values spontaneity, freedom, and choice, not duty, obligation, or
discipline. Theres a tremendous anti-law idea, and when it comes to marriage, the modern
mind doesnt like to think about it that way at all.
Not too long ago, I was watching a TV program that was very typical. It was a drama.
There was a man and a woman. They were living together and, in this case, the man says, I
want to get married. The woman is just furious. She says, Im offended by the idea you
think I need a piece of paper to love you and to express my love and to have a relationship
of love with you. How mechanical! How awful! The man, of course, is cowed by this
because in modern thinking, this is a plausible argument.
In pre-modern times, the way a human being got a sense of meaning was out of
obligations. You were a citizen. You were a father. You were a mother. You were a child.
You were a man. You were a woman. There were duties and there were obligations
expected of you and your family and your society. By fulfilling them, you received honor
as such, whatever you were, and you got a sense of fulfillment from that. In modern times,
modern people get their meaning in life out of the exact opposite. Its not just a little
different.
Modern people get their meaning out of feeling theyre free from any obligations to do
whatever is fulfilling to them. Pre-modern people got their meaning out of obligation.
Modern people get their meaning out of freedom of choice. Very different. Pre-modern
people understood the idea of discipline and service. Modern people think about
fulfillment. As a result, when you come up against the Christian and biblical understanding
of marriage, theres a lot of fear, a tremendous amount of fear.
If you think that lady sounded sensible in the TV soap opera, Im offended by the idea
you think I need a piece of paper to love you, its because you bought this. When a modern
person uses the word love, the word has a very different definition, completely different,
actually, than when the Bible uses the word love. When you read the Bible through the
spectacles of your modern mind, youre going to have a lot of trouble. Im not picking on
soap operas. In fact, it might not have been one. I cant remember where it was. Im picking
on the mindset, not the program.
When the woman said, I dont need a piece of paper to love you with, what did she
mean? She was assuming a definition of love. Can you understand that? The definition of
love is a love that focuses on the inside and me. Its a feeling. When she says, I love you,
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and I dont need a piece of paper to love you with, she means, I feel affection for you. I
feel love for you. I want you. She calls that love. When the Bible talks about love, its
thinking covenantally, always. It defines love not in terms of the inside, but in terms of the
outside, not in terms of you, but in terms of the other.
When this woman says, I love you, she is right in saying you dont need a piece of
paper for this. She is measuring her love according to how much she wants to receive from
this person. When the Bible talks about love, it measures love in terms of how much youre
willing to give to a person. She says, I dont need a piece of paper to love you. It means
she defines love subjectively. Heres how much I want from you. When the Bible talks
about love, its measuring how much youre willing to give, not how much youre willing
to take or receive.
The few times in the early part of my career as a pastor that I let some young couples
write their own wedding vows, I immediately discovered they were thinking about
marriage completely in terms of the modern, popular understanding of love. When they
wrote their wedding vows, heres what they said, I love you, and I want to share my life
with you. I want to share everything with you. Thats not a wedding vow. That person who
says that is saying, Heres how much I want from you. Heres how much I love you.
Heres what I feel about you.
Wedding vows are covenantal. A Christian wedding vow says nothing about the present
and nothing about your feelings. A Christian wedding vow says nothing about the fact that I
feel tender right now, that I want you, that I feel affectionate, that I feel faithful. Thats
assumed. Real love goes way beyond that. Feelings go up and down. Instead, what a
Christian wedding vow says is, I promise to be tender to you. I promise to be loving. I
promise to be faithful. I promise to be cherishing. I promise to be all these things regardless
of how I feel and for the rest of my life.
A real vow is not talking at all about your feelings. Its talking about behavior. Its not
talking at all about your insides. Its talking about your outsides. Its not talking about you.
Its talking about what youre going to give, not what you want to get. Covenantal love is
commitment. Biblical love is always defined in terms of commitment and how much youre
willing to curb your choices as a way of meeting the needs of somebody else. Thats what
love is.
If anybody here is saying, Thats panicking me. That makes me even more scared of
marriage than Ive ever been in my life, what youve done is youve bought the whole
modern thing hook, line, and sinker. The modern world tells you, Dont you dare ever
limit your choices. Keep your options open. Never, never, ever bind yourself and make
yourself vulnerable to anybody that way, never! If youre going to get married, make sure
its mutual and make sure its negotiable.
The Bible actually says if you want to do it that way, thats fine. That great quote I
never tire of quoting (some of you may be tired of me quoting it) by C.S. Lewis says,
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. Do you
remember this quote? He says, If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must
give your heart to no one lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
Make sure you make yourself vulnerable to nobody. Make sure you open yourself to
nobody. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. Do you
remember how that goes? He says, It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable,
impenetrable, irredeemable. [] The only place outside heaven you can be perfectly safe
from all dangers and perturbations of love is hell, where nobody gives their heart to
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anybody.
If you think that if you would commit yourself to somebody else like that, that would be
really be scary, that would really be frightening, and you might get hurt, I submit to you
that youll be more hurt in the long run if you refuse to submit yourself to anybody that
way. If you rule it out, if you take your heart so it will never be broken, if you never
commit yourself and never make yourself vulnerable (which is really what the definition of
marriage is), your heart will not be broken. It will become impenetrable and irredeemable.
You will experience the alienation and dislocation of the modern society you are
listening to in the news as it sings to you, and you march to the beat. Society is full of
alienated and dislocated people because theyre looking out for number one, because they
refuse to find love in terms of commitment and what you will give and how vulnerable you
will be. Love is covenantal. Marriage is covenantal. The only possible way you can ever
really experience the joy of marriage is if you take a tremendous plunge of commitment.
The practical ramifications of this are pretty amazing. Heres what they are.
First, the essence of love basically is love is not a feeling. Its essentially an action. The
modern definition of love is its like a ditch; you fall into it. Its like a virus; you catch it.
Youre passive. You cant help yourself. You get love. The biblical understanding of love is
love is primarily an action. When the Bible uses the word love: love your wife, love your
husband, and love your enemies, its using the same word. How can you love your enemies
if the biblical understanding of love is affection? You dont feel any affection for your
enemy.
When the Bible says love your enemy, that means wish your enemies good, do good for
your enemy, and even be willing to take it on the chin to do good and to serve your enemy
if you can. The Bible doesnt say make it easier for your enemy to sin over you. What its
saying is take the risk and do what you can to serve your enemy. The essence of love is to
put the needs of somebody else ahead of your own. Therefore, love is primarily giving. Its
an action that leads to a feeling, not a feeling first.
You learn this as a parent, and its inescapable. When you give yourself to your spouse,
you have a tendency to still think of love as a bargain, not a commitment. Were just really
upset when we read about the way things used to be. You can see it in Genesis 24. Abraham
wanted Isaac to have a wife, so what did he do? He heard good things about Rebecca, so he
sent one of his servants to make a bid.
Eleazar goes over, finds Rebecca, and says to her father, How many camels do you
want for her? If shes beautiful, well give 50 camels for her. If shes not so beautiful, well
give 25 camels. We say, Thats incredible! Thats awful! It was awful because women
were being treated as property. Weve come so much further today because now we do it to
each other. Shes in the market, they say. He got a bad deal. How in the world did he
ever fall for that sales pitch?
When you look at who you want to marry, you think in terms of a bargain. You say,
Im getting this and this and this. Shes this way and shes this way and shes this way.
Shes a little bit this way, but Im this way and this way. Shes a little better than I expected
to get, but shes falling for me. What you do is you basically say, I think I will get as
much out of this relationship as Im putting in, or maybe a little bit more.
You think in terms of a bargain. What happens is you get into these relationships and
you get married. As I mentioned before, most people think of love in terms of what they
want. That is just emotional hunger. Thats not love. The real way to know how much you
love somebody is how much are you willing to give? How much are you willing to be
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never have any scrapes before you get married, or if accidentally the person who has fallen
for you happens to be the body type youve been fantasizing about for years and years, then
before you get married you might actually have that strong, incredible feeling, bells going
off every day.
That would be the worst thing for you, because when you finally do get married you
will see marriage is covenantal. Marriage is a commitment. The feeling of love will follow
the actions of love. Frankly, the days in which you are most able to honor God by loving
your spouse the way Christ loved the church are the days in which you dont feel much
affection at all. When you feel warm and toasty, its easy to serve. When you dont feel
warm and toasty, thats love.
Thats the way Jesus loved us. On the cross, did he look down and say, Just my body
type. I cant wait to die for these people? Jesus acted. Jesus did not love us because we
were lovely. Jesus loved us to make us lovely. When you love covenantally, you will find,
over the years, your marriage will get more and more stable.
It is astonishing how fast, when you act in a serving way, when you act in a tender way,
when you act in an affectionate way out of love for Christ, out of a sense of obligation, out
of the knowledge that he has forgiven you, even though you dont feel much affection for
your spouse, its amazing how fast your feelings will kick back in. You follow your feelings
in marriage, and youre on your way down in that cycle. The practical implications are
pretty simple. Love is not a feeling first. Its not.
The second practical implication (and its the only other one I can mention tonight) is
the essence of marriage is confrontational. Youll never understand that, know it, and have
the benefits of it until you understand love is covenantal. I just said that most people think,
If we have a great marriage or if I know I should be marrying this person, this is the
person I will always feel affectionate for. Thats ridiculous!
Verse 26 says one of the key purposes of marriage is that we cleanse one another. We
wash one another. We get rid of one anothers faults and flaws and blemishes. We get the
dirt off of each other. The idea of taking a bath is kind of nice. If youre thinking, when it
says the husband and the wife cleanse one another through the washing of water and the
word, and if you think of a bubble bath, youre really going down the wrong track.
If youre already in pretty good shape, a bath doesnt hurt. Has anyone here been
beaten, scraped up, wounded all over the place, and you get into a bath full of soap? Do you
know how it feels? It hurts. It stings. In 1 Corinthians 4:5, it says the coming of Christ
will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of mens hearts.
So does marriage.
If any of you ever been to one of my marriage services, youll know I like to say this,
and this is very important. Heres a bridge, and there are all sorts of structural defects in the
bridge, but you cant see them. Theyre hairline fractures. Nobody can really see them. A
great big five-ton Mack truck comes over the bridge. When it gets on the bridge, it shows
up all the structural defects because it strains the bridge and suddenly you can see where all
the mistakes and the flaws are.
The truck doesnt create the flaws. It doesnt create the weakness. It reveals the
weakness. When you get married, your spouse is this great big Mack truck coming right
through your heart. Before you were married, other people tried to tell you about those
defects. Your parents tried to tell you. Your roommates tried to tell you. You werent in
covenant with them. You could write it off. You werent so intimate and so close that it
really created problems for you: your selfishness, your fear, your pride, your bitterness,
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your worry.
You were never, even with your parents, in such an intimate relationship that those
differences created problems for you. On top of that, if they told you about them too much,
you could always leave. There was no covenant. There was no commitment. There was no
vow. When you get married, it brings out the worst in you. When you get married, you will
find being in that close of quarters, those sins, those structural flaws, will be brought out.
The real mistake people make, almost always, is you feel like the conflict marriage has
brought you into is a conflict with your spouse. Not a bit! The power of marriage is
marriage brings you into a confrontation not with your spouse; its with yourself. Marriage
forces you to look in the mirror. Marriage gets you by the scruff of the neck, pushes your
face in the mirror, and says, Look at these things!
The most wonderful thing about marriage, the way marriage helps you escape from
your sins, is marriage is (relatively speaking) an inescapable relationship. You cant just
walk out. Yes, you can, but its very hard and difficult. Even in this society, its tough. What
happens is your marriage will, for the first time in your life, show you your warts and your
flaws in a way you cant escape them. Youll have to cry out to God. Youll have to say,
Lord, only you can help me, and thats the beginning of your healing.
Ephesians 5:2133
Please turn with me to Ephesians 5. Those of you who come to evening service know this is
part of a series we started 18 years ago or so on the book of Ephesians. Weve been moving
through the book of Ephesians at the pace of a geriatric slug, pretty much. Very, very, very
slowly. Weve come to the classic text, the longest, the most famous text in the entire Bible
on the subject of marriage. Let me read to you again from Ephesians 5:2133, and then we
will take it from there.
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
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word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
This is Gods Word
Theres a lot of stuff to say about this passage. Heres how weve been dividing it. Let me
remind you of where weve been. Were looking at marriage in this passage under six
headings. Were looking at the power of marriage, the definition of marriage, the priority of
marriage, the purpose of marriage, the structure of marriage, and the mystery of marriage.
We mentioned that last week. I wont tell you what all those are, but thats what were
doing. Were moving through it. So far, weve only looked at the first two. Tonight I want
to get to the third.
1. The power of marriage
The power of marriage is in verse 21. For those of you who were here in May and June,
when we were looking at 5:18 and following, on what it meant to be filled with the Spirit.
Verse 21 is a direct link from the passage on being filled with the Spirit to the passage on
what it means to be married and what is a good marriage. There is a link. The one assumes
the other. Do you know what the link is? The link is cause and effect.
The cause of a good marriage is being Spirit-filled. Verse 21, which is the end of the
passage we looked at, is talking about the fact that when youre filled with the Spirit,
theres a Spirit-created unselfishness, a willingness to submit to and serve other people, not
to be defensive, and to have a servant heart. That is the basis for any kind of healthy
marriage. We talked about that, but let me make a couple of observations to make sure
those of you who werent here know where were going and where weve been and those
who were here have it clearly in mind.
There is a spirit of servanthood, a servant heart, which is the foundation for any kind of
decent marriage. Thats why verse 21 comes before everything else. Some people have
asked me, What do you mean? What is the servant heart? What is that? Its kind of vague.
All right. Let me give you at least three critical aspects, without which a marriage will not
run. These three things, which are really just constituent parts of a servant heart, are like the
oil in a car engine. Try to run an engine without oil. Just try it. Dont put any oil in there, no
lubrication.
What basically happens, of course, is the friction, the tension, will destroy the engine so
quickly. It will get so hot. It will overheat so quickly. There has to be something in there
that acts as a buffer. Obviously, friction is what an engine is all about, motion and
movement. Something has to absorb that. What absorbs it? What absorbs it is the servant
heart. Let me give you three constituent parts to it.
First, the ability to hear criticism without being crushed. Thats a lack of self37
defensiveness. Secondly, the ability to give criticism without crushing, and thirdly, the
ability to forgive people without residual anger. In other words, to forgive people and really
let it go. Thats what I mean by a servant heart, the ability to take your mind off yourself
when youre giving criticism, when youre receiving criticism, and when youre forgiving.
Where does that come from? As we said last week (we cant go back into all the Spiritfilledness), what it means to be Spirit-filled means the Spirit of God is illuminating your
heart and making very real to you the work of Jesus Christ. When Jesus work for you
becomes very real. The example that always comes to my mind is when I talked to that 16year-old girl years ago in my church. She didnt have any dates. Nobody was asking her
out.
She said, Yeah, Im a Christian. I know Im going to live forever in heaven. I know
Jesus loves me and cares for me. I know he died for me. I know he gave himself for me. I
know he lives in me. I know Im his child. I know I have his ear. I know he comforts me
and will take care of me. But what good is all that if you dont have any dates?
She wasnt quite that eloquent, but at that moment she was saying, Intellectually, I
know what Jesus has done for me. But right now, my heart is overwhelmed with the beauty
of the prospect of being a desirable woman. Thats what she was saying. Whereas when I
think about the fact Jesus loves me and cares for me, that doesnt thrill me. Being Spiritfilled means youre in touch with reality. Reality is who cares what a drippy 16-year-old
boy thinks about you when the King of the universe says, You are mine, and I will stand
with you and for you for all eternity?
What kind of absolutely insane person could possibly put those two things up against
one another and have the pimply-faced 16-year-old win? Yet theres nobody in this room
who hasnt been through that. What does it mean to be Spirit-filled? It means your head is
on straight. Youre in touch with reality, and you realize what Jesus Christ has done for you
is everything. The Bible says every human being is religious. It says this in Romans 1.
Theres a systemic religious structure to everybodys life.
Every one of us, down deep inside, has a way in which we think if we behave, things
that if we get to them, then well be fulfilled, then well have nirvana, then well be saved.
Every one of us says, I will be able to accept myself if I get this. Weve talked about this
before. Every human being, Romans 1 says, has some form of religion, something they
worship, something they say, If I get that, then Ill be all right. The gospel says not your
performance, not success, not relationship, not love none of those things will ever satisfy
you.
You can know who you are and be secure when you realize Jesus Christ has died for
you and youre resting in what hes done for you. When that happens and when you see the
work of Jesus Christ for you, when youre Spirit-filled, that gives you the ability to submit
to one another out of reverence for Christ. When it says in verse 21, out of reverence
for Christ (literally, out of fear of Christ), you can submit and you get this unselfishness
because Christ is real to you youre continually in awe before the reality of him.
How can you receive criticism without being crushed in your marriage (or anywhere)?
The way is because in your heart youre thinking this: Jesus is my priest. Jesus is my
friend. Jesus is my King. Jesus is my brother. I can handle this. He loves me. He cares for
me. Hell show me. You can take criticism without being destroyed. You have a cradle of
security for your moment of great vulnerability.
How can you give criticism without crushing? You think like this, I am a sinner. I
should be cast off. Youre using the gospel on yourself. But gentle Jesus has put up with
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me for so long. He continually shows me the truth, and I continually turn my back on him,
but bit by bit hes coaxed me, and hes been patient with me, and hes brought me along.
How then could I be any harsher with this person than hes been with me?
Somebody is out there saying, Sure, sure. If your wife yells at you and youre sitting
there thinking about Jesus Christ as your brother and your friend, and your cradle of
security in the moment of greatest vulnerability In the beginning, when youre trying to
reorient your life, when youre seeking to live your life and have your relationships living
out of the matrix of servanthood, out of the matrix of the gospel, you do have to talk to
yourself like that.
I want you to realize this is not a mindset you can turn on this week, right away. Youd
better get started now because it takes time. I tried to refer to this in a sermon in one of the
earlier services. It goes like this. Most of you realize (I guess) that when Im prepared, I
quote from all sorts of people. When Im not prepared for a sermon, I just quote from C.S.
Lewis.
Why? C.S. Lewis is somebody who Ive read. Ive read everything hes ever written
over and over and over and over again ever since I became a Christian. Some of you are
like that. There are a couple of books You just master an author. You know what its like
to do that. Another guy is George Whitefield. I have just read his sermons and read his
sermons and read his sermons. What happens after a period of time is you not only get to
master the persons works, but you actually begin to understand how that guys mind
works.
You know what he thinks. Even though you never read anything he said about the
subject, you know what he would say. When you meet a character you say, I know what
George Whitefield would say about that in a sermon. Why? Because Ive read his sermons
thousands of times. What happens is you get an author who really speaks to you, and you
just read the stuff and you read the stuff. After a while, youve gone beyond just the words
of the book or the sermons, and youve come to penetrate to the way the guys mind works.
Thats what happened in my case with a couple of these authors. Thats the reason why
when Im just speaking extemporaneously and Im just speaking out of my heart, he comes
out. Why? Hes in there. Thats an image. Most of you know how that works. A lot of you
may have people like that in your life, authors, people that have just sunk down so deep you
know how they think, and you know how to look at life through them. Their ideas and
thoughts are in there so deep they just come out spontaneously.
Do you realize what would happen to you and to me if we started to relate to Jesus like
that, if we were so saturated in his promises to us, and his summons to us, and his
encouragements to us, and what he says about us in his Word? If that had sunk down as
deep as what Im talking about, to the place where not just the words but the very way his
mind works and the very way he thinks about you becomes intrinsic, inherent, spontaneous,
reflexive, and instinctive to you, thats when youve developed a servant heart.
When somebody gives you criticism, of course youre not consciously thinking, Jesus
is my brother. Jesus is my friend. He loves me. His opinion matters more than anything
else. I dont have to be scared to receive this kind of criticism. This is not the end of my
life. This isnt the end the world. I know who I am in Christ. You dont think that
consciously, and yet youre thinking that. What its doing is its giving its cast to everything
you do, everything.
Theres a stability I keep talking about. Theres a poise there, a deep kind of cosmic,
spiritual poise, a sense like, I dont have to be afraid of anything anymore emotionally.
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Its sunk down in there. Its part of you. Youre thinking like he thinks. You look at yourself
through his eyes. You look at the world through his eyes.
Its only when youve taken the time through prayer, through Bible study, through
coming to worship, through reflection, through meditation, through fellowship with other
Christians, and continually talking about these things together. As time goes on, it sinks and
it sinks until the gospel dwells in you richly.
Eventually, that will become the power in all your relationships and the power for
marriage. The ability to submit to one another, to really forgive, to give criticism without
crushing, and to take criticism without being crushed is only possible if you believe in
Jesus. I dont just mean believe in Jesus, but that youre thinking about him, thinking
through him, and thinking of him continually, almost unconsciously.
Otherwise, your heart and my heart are so hard, and we are so prone to disbelieve
anything Jesus says, even though intellectually we reject it at a deeper level, that Im afraid
16-year-old pimply-faced kids are continually beating Jesus out in our hearts.
2. The definition of marriage
Since I spoke on that last week, I can give you a little concise thing. The essence of
marriage is a covenant, a legal commitment. Somebody afterwards said to me, That still
doesnt tell me. What makes a marriage a marriage? Is it a minister? Theres a difference
of opinion between Catholics and Protestants on this, and I absolutely believe the Protestant
approach is right. The Catholic Church will say only a priest can marry somebody.
Protestants will say a priest can marry, a minister can marry, or a justice of the peace.
Marriage is marriage. It doesnt matter whether its a captain on a ship. It doesnt matter
whether its a justice of the peace. Why? Because look in the Bible where marriage comes
up. Originally, it was given to Adam and Eve. It wasnt given to only Christians. It was
given to human beings as human beings.
Therefore, its not a church ceremony that makes you married, though it can. Its not
jumping over a broom that makes you married. Its not stomping on a glass that makes you
married. Its not the rings that make you married. What is it that makes you married? A
permanent, exclusive, public, legal commitment to share all aspects of your lives together.
It has to be permanent. It has to be exclusive.
Some people say its time to have renewable contract marriages. You get married for
three years, and you have an option for three more. That might be interesting, but thats not
a marriage. By the Christian definition even a prenuptial agreement (to be honest with you)
radically cuts at the root of the Christian definition of marriage.
The Christian definition of marriage is a permanent and exclusive promise to share
every part of your life with somebody else. It has to be a permanent, exclusive, public, legal
commitment to share every part of your life with somebody else. If you say its not
permanent, its every three years, thats not marriage.
If you say its not every part of your life, just here and here and here (because of the
prenuptial agreement, you dont get this or that), all those things get at the root of marriage.
The Christian definition of marriage is permanent. Its exclusive. Its a legal, public,
binding, permanent, exclusive commitment to share every part of your life with somebody
else.
How you do that, whether its with a minister, whether its with a captain or a justice of
the peace, whether you jump over a broomstick, whether you exchange rings, it makes no
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difference. Therefore, even in this culture which is deathly afraid of obligation and
commitment and responsibility and discipline It likes to talk about self-realization and
self-actualization and growth and potential, but it hates talking about discipline and
submission and obligation, this is the place in which the Christian understanding of
marriage has a head-on collision with society.
You should not give yourself to somebody unless you have that kind of promise and
unless youre willing to give them that kind of promise. If youre not willing to make a
permanent, exclusive, public, legal commitment to share your entire life with somebody,
then you dont really love them enough to be married, and the Bible says you should not
give yourself to that person until that person is willing to make that promise to you and you
are willing to make that promise to that person. Thats the definition. Its kind of scary, but
there it is.
I must tell you a number of people questioned me about it. The implications of this idea
that marriage is a cleaving (thats in verse 32), its that public commitment and essentially
love is a commitment, therefore. Somebody says, Youve de-romanticized marriage in my
eyes. What does that mean? What did I say last week? I said, therefore, the essence of love
is a commitment. Love is an action first. Its a commitment to invest yourself in another
person and meet their needs. Its a feeling second.
One of the weird things about becoming a pastor is when you become a pastor, for the
first time in your life you are bound and obligated to be friends with all sorts of people who
you really wouldnt choose to be friends with. I dont really know of anybody else whos
obligated. Doctors, for example, have to treat people they wouldnt ordinarily like, but they
dont have to like them. They dont have to be friends with them.
I dont know anybody else who basically suddenly gets a body of people and the job
description is you have to be friends with a lot of people who you would not ordinarily
choose to be friends with. Therefore, in a sense, pastors kind of have a unique experience to
talk about. You would be surprised at how selective you are. People who you dont like that
much, you just dont spend time with.
You dont invest yourself in them. You dont give yourself to them. You dont listen to
their problems. You dont go to see them at three in the morning. One of things I found
interesting in my earliest days Kathy and I moved into a new situation. I got a job as a
pastor. I had basically 100150 people, and I started to pastor them.
There were a good number of them who were people who if I was just living as a
private individual in that town, I would have chosen as friends, and there were a lot of
people I would have never chosen as friends. Not so much I didnt like them You just
dont have that much in common. Youre not quite the same. You dont have the same
interests. Theres no spark.
It doesnt matter if theres no spark. This person is a member of the church. Youre the
pastor in a small town. This person has a problem; youre there. This person is in the
hospital; youre there. This person has to talk to you at two in the morning; youre there.
This persons son runs away; you get in the car and go chase him. This mans wife has run
out on him; you get in the car and go find her.
Thats the way it is to be a pastor, especially in a small town and in a small church. You
invest yourself. You give. You do the actions of love for people who you really have no
particular affinity with. Then after a couple of years, a big surprise comes to Kathy. Every
couple of months, Id take a day off. On the day off, she would say, What do you want to
do? What do you just want to do socially, for fun?
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I would say, Lets have John and Mary Doe over. She would say, Why? Why in the
world would you want to have John and Mary Doe over? Thats work, isnt it? The reason
you see John and Mary Doe, everybody knows all the problems they have and how
obnoxious they are and the difficulties they have. When you dont have to be with John and
Mary Doe, why in the world would you choose to be with John and Mary Doe?
I realized Id come to like them. I was the only person in town who liked them, but I
really did like them. Was it just because, Obviously, as a pastor, of course you just have
this natural ability to like people and love people because youre more holy, youre godlier.
Thats why youre a pastor. Its your job to be more spiritual? Thats not true at all. It
really happened. Do you know why? Id been loving them even when I didnt like them.
You dont have to bother whether you like somebody. Thats not what a Christian
worries about. What a Christian does is if you love people, eventually you come to like
them. It works in reverse, too. Do you remember I told you the one thing I once read where
it said at first the Nazis killed the Jews because they hated them, but then after a while they
hated the Jews because they killed them?
What happens is in the beginning, you love somebody just because you have to. The
more you love them, the more you give yourself, and the more you make a decision to
invest in them, the more you find your heart tied up in them. Do you know why? The Bible
says where your treasure is, there will your heart be. When you invest in somebody, youre
putting your treasure there. Youre putting time, which is tremendously valuable. Youre
putting emotion, which is tremendously valuable.
You invest and invest in that person, and of course you may still feel a hostility if that
person absolutely tramples you and is very cruel and harsh. Thats not what usually
happens. Usually you find that people who arent terribly lovely, if you love them, you will
come to love them. Im using the word love in an equivocal way. The way the modern
society thinks of love, youre thinking of a feeling. Thats not the way the Bible ever uses
the word love.
You love them, and you come to like them. You invest in them, and you find they get
lovelier and lovelier to you. Im trying to tell you this. You dont go ahead and get married
to somebody who you dont like, but I can guarantee you this. Whoever you marry, you will
fall out of like with. It is an absolute necessity. Not only that, you will start to fall out of
like with that person, in most cases, before you marry them, in the courtship or in the
engagement. Thats where most people say, I guess I shouldnt marry this person. Ive
fallen out of like with them.
Friends, your emotions come and go. If the essence of marriage is a covenant, a
commitment, then you will find that in spite of the fact you kind of love this person, you
feel a lot for them, you might be attracted to them, youre great friends, the fact is your
emotions will come and go. At a certain point, a marriage or even a potential marriage will
not work unless you make a decision to invest in that person.
When you find that your heart gets dry and you look at the person and you dont feel
any particular like, you invest in them, you give to them, you love them, you are tender,
you are cherishing, you listen, and you serve. What it does is it gets you through dry times.
Not only that, but it begins over the years to eliminate the dry times. Thats not the way
most of us do it.
When the dry times come and we fall out of like, we start to say, I guess this isnt the
one for me. Does that de-romanticize marriage? No. Do you want a marriage that sings?
What you do is you decide to love. Thats the way it has to go. It starts with romance. It
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will end in despair unless, at some point, you make a decision to invest. For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.
3. The priority of marriage
This is actually the shortest of all of the topics. Thats the reason I thought I could get away
with the longer recap. The priority of marriage, which is the one thing I just want to say
something about, comes when it says, a man will leave his father and mother and be
united to his wife This is what the Bible teaches about the priority of marriage. Its
very, very important.
In our society, its hard for us to understand the importance of the relationship between
a child and parent. If you came here from another non-Western society, if your parents
came from an Asian or Latin society, you can understand this better. Theres no society like
America and Western society that more de-emphasizes the obligation of children to parents.
Almost everywhere else in the world, and almost everywhere else in history, your
obligation to your parents is a tremendously strong one, and it makes sense.
Just think of how foundational your relationship with your parents is. It shapes you so
profoundly. You live with it forever. What could be a more profound and more primary and
more foundational relationship than the relationship between a parent and a child? God
serves notice in Genesis 2:20 and right here in Ephesians 5:31, where he says, a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife Hes serving notice. Hes
saying it in the strongest possible way.
Oriental and Asian readers who originally read this were probably shocked by it. Youre
not shocked by it, but you should be. What its saying is God did not put a parent and a
child in the garden. He put a man and a woman in the garden, a husband and wife. What
that means is the primary relationship in your life once you get married has to be your
marriage. The primary person has to be your spouse. No other person should you be
investing more time and money and energy and creativity and emotion in than your spouse
and in that relationship.
It comes out a couple of ways. It says, for example, in verse 28, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. You know your health is foundational to everything
you do. If you decide to put your work ahead of your health, what happens? If you decide,
Its more important for me to get this job, to make money, and to do my career than it is to
eat properly and sleep well (if you put work first and health second) youll eventually have
neither work nor health.
This is Pauls way of saying marriage has to have the first priority. Ill put it this way.
Marriage is the vortex. Its the center of your life. When youre married, it has the power to
set the course of your life as a whole. Some of you have heard me say this. If youve ever
come to a wedding, I try to say it constantly at weddings. Its the center of your life. If
everything around you is weak, but your marriage is strong, it doesnt matter about the rest
of life.
You move out into the world in strength. If everything around you is strong, but your
marriage is weak, it doesnt matter whats out there. You move out into the world in
weakness. Your marriage is the center of everything. Its the vortex of your life. If you
neglect it, youll lose everything. Therefore, when Paul says here, a man will leave his
father and mother what hes really simply saying is be really careful that nothing comes
before your marriage in your life, or it will introduce tremendous misery and pathology into
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your life.
What are the things that can come before your spouse? One, of course, is mentioned
right here. Your father and mother (Ill talk to you about that in a minute). Your career. Put
your career before your spouse, and what happens? You lose both. Another one is your
children, and this is a particularly bad one today. Because the marriages are so bad, more
and more people are getting their primary emotional and personal nurture through the
parent-child relationship instead of the husband-wife relationship.
If your children come before your spouse, if you love your children more than your
spouse, if you get more out of your children and their love than you get out of love for your
spouse, that breaks the biblical principle. Biblical principles bite back! When you break
them, they break you. Its not like this is busywork that God just lays down. This is the way
things are. You break them, and things go wrong in your life.
An awful lot of research on child abuse has revealed that so many of the people who
beat their children and are abusive to their children dont hate their children too much; they
love their children too much. Their child is the person from whom they get most of their
love in the world. If their child does not love them or behave properly or give them the
things they need because theyre not getting it from anybody else, they go crazy.
Children are children! Children are not going to be mature. Theyre not going to be able
to give you the love you need. If your children become more important to you than your
spouse, youre in for tremendous pathologies and dysfunctions (as they say) and all those
sorts of things in your life. If your career comes before your spouse, youre in trouble. If
your children come before your spouse, youre in trouble.
If your friends come before your spouse, youre in trouble. If you have friends of either
gender who you enjoy being with more than your spouse, who you can share with, who you
feel understand you more than your spouse does, youre already in a tremendous amount of
trouble (well talk about this next week) because the main purpose of marriage is
friendship. Therefore, again, you havent left. Your spouse is not the number one and main
thing in your life, in that relationship.
Maybe the most important thing is (this is what I to mention before the time is up) when
the Bible says you have to leave your father and mother to cleave to your spouse, its a
profound statement. There are many ways in which peoples marriages have been
absolutely destroyed because of leaving problems, because they havent left. There are
many ways in which those problems can take shape.
Some people think, I know somebody like that. I know somebody who theyre
married, but theyre still financially dependent on her father or his mother or something,
and thats created all sorts of problems in the marriage. Or, I know somebody who is still
emotionally dependent on his or her parents. They dont make a move without finding out
what Mommy or Daddy thinks, and of course, that creates problems.
Thats right. Those are obvious. When you have a marriage and one spouse or both are
still very concerned to find out what the parents want, more concerned to find out what the
parents want than what the spouse wants, that creates all sorts of problems. Conflict
management is hard enough with two. Its impossible with three or four or five.
Not only that, intimacy is destroyed because when you feel the person who youre
supposed to be opening up with completely really is probably going to tell the parent much
or most of what you just said, you cant do it any more. Thats obvious, but its a little bit
more profound than that. Careful! You may have a problem leaving your parents
psychologically. Youve left them emotionally. You dont talk to them all of the time.
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this church true? Is it right? Is it good for my kids? Instead of thinking about this on its
own merits, hes controlled by his father. Hes not doing something because his father did
it.
A woman who says, I will not lay a hand on my children because my mother beat me
unmercifully. Instead of sitting down and saying, Would corporal punishment be a good
idea or not, she cant do it because her mother did it. Somebody says, Im never going to
marry her because she reminds me of my mother. Im never going to marry him because he
reminds me of my father. So what! Youre still being controlled by that? You leave your
father and mother, and you cleave to your wife. Marriage is a fresh start. Marriage is a
vehicle of redemption.
Marriage is so much like salvation that Paul starts eventually (we cant look at it now,
but later) to say, The more I think about marriage, and the more I think about the dynamics
of marriage, the more I have to think about salvation and how were redeemed.
Redemption is a fresh start. Old things are passed away. Behold, the new has come. I know
this all sounds very psychological and deep. Youre supposed to think about your parents
patterns and you shouldnt impose your parents Thats real modern, isnt it? No, its
not. Its ancient.
The Bibles wisdom was here before psychotherapy, and it was saying long ago, a
man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife Marriage has the power
to set the course for your life as a whole. You cannot neglect it. It has the power to change
you. It has the power to show you who you are. It has the power to tear you down and then
eventually build you up.
Friends, if you are married and you are getting scared by the things Im saying, youre
saying, What have I gotten myself into? I want you to know marriage is not a human
invention to make you happy. Thats what youre going to hear. Marriage is not a human
invention to make you happy so if its not making you happy anymore, you just discard it.
Marriage, instead, was invented by God to sanctify you. Thats the purpose of it, as well
see, to make you holy, without spot, and blameless.
I never, ever, ever, ever, ever would have seen the depths of my sin that I have seen if I
wasnt married. I never would have been in a position to see it. Its ironic that God actually
takes your selfishness in marriage and uses it against you for your own good. The reason
you have to finally come to grip with your faults, with your selfishness, with your
prejudices, and with your biases is because theyre ruining your life in the marriage.
The trouble is you have to do something about it. Why? Its simply the desire for
emotional survival. Finally, for the first time in your life, you cant run. God brings you into
confrontation with yourself and then says, If youre willing to be filled with the Spirit, if
youre willing to come to me, if youre willing to let my son, Jesus Christ, be your Savior,
wait until you see what will happen.
A lot of people who are not Christians and who dont understand this dynamic have
slipped through marriage and have made a pretty good go of it simply by just putting a kind
of wall around their heart so the things theyve seen that are really painful, they just bargain
with each other. They say, You stay away from that. Ill stay away from that. We just wont
ever bring that subject up. Theres just tremendous potential for change in marriage, but
really only people who understand the fullness of the Spirit will ever be able to capitalize
on it.
Those of you who are not married and youre saying, What does this mean to me?
Come on! If you have a head on your shoulders, all these things were talking about have to
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do with relationships in general. Marriage is the most intense one. Look at the relationships
youre in right now. Apply these things now. Love is an action first. Its a feeling second.
Love will always be something that only a Spirit-created unselfishness can possibly
maintain.
You have to practice in your relationships now. You have to practice so youll be ready
for the time in which your life depends on it, which it does in marriage. What is Paul
saying? a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two
will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery The more we look into it, as we will
continue to, the more well understand our salvation. The more we understand our
salvation, the more well understand marriage. Well continue this next week. Lets bow in
prayer.
Our Father, we thank you that you have shown us tonight, again, more and more of the
mysteries of this great institution. All of us have been touched by it. Those of us who have
not been married are surrounded by marriages. Were the product of marriages. We have
all sorts of fears and hopes about marriage.
We pray you will take this Scripture were studying now, these words were looking at right
now, and you will mold us with them so the people who are considering marriage will walk
into it wisely, without distorted understandings of it, so the people who are now sitting in
marriages can turn around and not be afraid of the faults that are being revealed by it, not
be afraid of the conflicts that are coming up, and can begin to reorder the relationship
along the principles youve laid down here.
Father, transform us, change us, and make us more like your Son. Teach us more of your
salvation as we continue to study these words about this greatest of all institutions,
marriage. We thank you most of all that through Jesus Christ weve been married to you,
that we are in your family. Now Lord, make us more and more like your Son, for we ask it
in Jesus name, amen.
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Ephesians 5:2133
Turn to Ephesians 5. Starting somewhere in August (I guess about three weeks ago; this is
the fourth week, obviously), we have been looking at this passage in Ephesians 5. Were
looking at verses 2232, which is really maybe the classic text in the whole Bible on
marriage. Were spending about six to eight weeks looking at this subject. Lets proceed.
Let me read it again to you, starting in verse 21.
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
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29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
This is Gods Word
Now I always must do a little recapping, but a little bit less each week. Marriage is
something people talk about in the church all the time, but I must admit Im tired of
listening to sentimental, slurpy talks on marriage during weddings and in the church and in
Sunday school and in sermons. They are slurpy. They are sentimental. They have about as
much depth and reality to them as a Hallmark card.
The fact is, marriage is many things. In fact, its everything except slurpy and
sentimental. Marriage is glorious. Its all a burning strength and joy. Marriage is hard. Its
blood, and its sweat, and its tears. Its defeats, and its victories. Its almost everything
except sweet. In fact, many a night married people go to bed, and as theyre falling asleep
after a hard day of marriage, about the only part of this passage on marriage they can
remember is the verse that goes, This is a profound mystery
Were going to go and see the Bibles view of marriage is completely realistic. Its
great. Its terrible. Its glorious. Its blood, sweat, and tears. It is not sweet. Now what weve
looked at so far are three headings in this passage. The first one was the power of marriage.
We saw that was in verse 21. Just the quickest reminder, and yet in some ways the scariest
and most profound thing the passage says is this passage on marriage is built on the
previous verses on being filled with the Spirit.
Paul is assuming there is in your life a Spirit-created unselfishness. The result of being
filled with the Spirit in verses 18 and following is verse 21. Submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ. Because theres reverence for Christ because you have awe and fear
and trembling before the greatness of his gospel, that he has saved you, that he has died for
you.
When you take the gospel into your heart every day so that it becomes a reality, thats
what we mean by being filled with the Holy Spirit. That creates an unselfishness, a
willingness and ability to serve one another, to give up your rights, to put the needs of the
other person first. We talked about that. The first principle we looked at at great length,
which we just remind you of now, is the main problem in marriage is self-centeredness. The
main disease that eats away at marriage is self-centeredness.
All other problems are derivative or secondary to that. Its selfishness. Only the Spirit of
God can get rid of that. There are people who have relatively decent marriages without the
Spirit-created unselfishness, but its a little bit more like peaceful coexistence. You scratch
my back; Ill scratch yours. You stay away from that area, and Ill stay away from that.
This assumes the power of marriage is the gospel creating a spirit of unselfishness. Selfcenteredness is the main problem. If youre married, its the main problem in your
marriage. If youre not married, it will be the main problem if you ever get married. If
youre divorced, it probably was the main problem in the marriage you left. I think any kind
of reasonable and fair-minded analysis will see that.
Number two, the definition of marriage was cleaving. We looked at that a couple of
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weeks ago, but its always a helpful thing to remind people, not only the married people but
especially the singles. I think a couple of weeks ago I tried to show you. I said, If there are
so many single people here in the evening, why should I speak on marriage? The answer is
you dont know how to go about deciding whether to be married or who to be married to
unless you know what the heck marriage is.
You know, Jesus says before a man goes and builds a tower, he counts the cost. He
knows what it costs. Before a king goes off to war, he counts the cost. He knows what it
will entail. You cant go off to war until you know what it means and what it entails and so
on. You cant even make a decision about being married unless you understand something
about what the Bible says marriage is.
Heres one of them. The definition of a marriage we said is a covenant. Its a public
promise. Remember this? This is something worth remembering. The essence of a marriage
is a permanent and exclusive legal commitment to share your entire life with someone else.
Every single church, every tradition (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, the Jewish tradition,
the Islam tradition), all these religions agree on this.
Unless you have someone who is willing to give you a promise like that and that same
person you are willing to give a promise to, you mustnt give yourself to that person.
Marriage is a permanent, exclusive, legal commitment to completely share your life with
somebody else. If you dont have a promise like that or youre not willing to give a promise
like that, you dont really love that person enough to be married to them.
The modern way of talking about love is totally different. It has a completely subjective
meaning. When people say, Why dont we live together? Why do we need to be married? I
love you. Why do I need a piece of paper to show you that love? Well, if you define love
as feeling, thats right. Thats not what the Bible ever means when it means love. Biblically
if somebody says, I love you, but I dont want to marry you, what they mean is, I dont
love you that much. Theres no way around that.
A person who says, I love you, and I want to marry you loves you more than a person
who says, I love you, but I dont want to marry you. Period. Why? Because love, by
definition biblically, is commitment, the ability to make an exclusive and a permanent
commitment. Thats what love is. Thats what you most want, and you know that. So when
somebody says, I dont need a piece of paper to show love, yes, you do.
If you love a person the way the Bible says two people are supposed to love one another
in order to share their lives together that means you have no problem making a legal,
permanent, exclusive commitment to them. The reason I think this is very important for
singles is this. Therefore, what the Bible means by love is a commitment. At some point,
love is a decision simply to serve somebody and be committed to somebody regardless of
your feelings and regardless of how that person acts.
Your feelings can take you to the door. You know, the person attracts you. There are a
lot of things you like about the person. You have fun together. That takes you to the door. At
a certain point, the door will not open unless you simply make a decision, Im going to
love this person, because your feelings will always come and go. Weve talked about that.
The problem is a lot of people dont get married because theyre sure, If this is the one,
my feelings will never ebb. If this is the one, then Ill just know its the one because Ill
never have any problem. Ill never look at that person and feel ugh. Ill never look at that
person and feel yuck. Ill never look at that person and find a problem there. Ill always,
always feel like giving myself to them. You will wait till hell freezes over if you wait for
that. If thats true, then those of you who are married and those of you who are considering
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like The Dirty Dozen. There are a whole slew of movies that go like this. Here are a bunch
of guys, and they hate each other because theyre so different. You know, one of them is a
Harvard guy, and one of them is an ex-convict. They dont like each other. They dont get
along.
The early part of the movie sets up all the tensions and all the conflicts and how
different they are, and yet they develop the same vision. One way or the other, they all
develop (maybe underneath a particular leader) a common goal. They all start to look to the
same horizon. We have to take Pork Chop Hill. Or, We have to journey to the center of
the earth. Or, We have to win the pennant for the Gipper. I guess that was something
else. That was another sport, wasnt it?
Anyway, along the way, what happens to these guys? They become friends. Theyre
different, but they have a common goal. Along the way, they start to rescue each other from
tight scrapes. They lose fingers for each other as theyre trying to rescue each other, and
they become friends. They become the deepest of friends. All those movies are great.
Theyre wonderful. Poorly acted, but great.
Biblically philos is the first stage, and eros is supposed to grow out of philos. In other
words, thats what happens even in The Dirty Dozen-type movies. Its not actual erotic love
in the sense of sexual love, but what happens is, because they have a common horizon and
theyre moving in the same direction, deep oneness begins to develop. After awhile, they
can actually look at each other and like each other and love each other.
Friendship is deep oneness that comes from having a common horizon. All right.
Biblically what is this common horizon in a marriage? This is critical. This is one of the
reasons why two Christians have the potential for a marriage that is so far greater than two
non-Christians. It beggars the imagination. Non-Christians can have pretty good marriages.
They can have good marriages. They can have very happy marriages and harmonious
marriages, but they have no idea
Its like getting into the Millennium Falcon and going along and not knowing about
hyperdrive. Youre moving along all right. You say, Hey, this is great. You have no idea
about what it means to jump into hyperspace. Now look. What is the common horizon a
man and a woman in Christ can have in a marriage? Its actually laid out here when it talks
about what the husband is supposed to be doing, but its mutual as we can see and Ill show
you later.
It says, 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
Now Paul is going back and forth between Christ and the church and a husband and a
wife, but look. This is it. The common horizon. The journey is to the throne. The deep
oneness comes from the mutual journey to get one another into a holy and blemishless and
blameless state. Ill put it another way. Kathy helped me on this one a lot. In a Christian
marriage, each person looks at the other and penetrates and sees a beautiful thing God is
bringing about in that persons life.
Kathy will often give this kind of advice. Most people when they get married are
looking for a statue when actually you ought to look for a wonderful block of marble. What
she means and what Im trying to say is you have to look into the caterpillar and see the
butterfly. If you want to get married because this person is just perfect, you do not have the
ability to understand this journey.
The passion and the goal of a Christian husband and wife is to get to the throne, and
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along the way, to offer one another up and to cleanse one another with the washing of water
of the Word. You look at that other person, and you say, I see underneath your flaws,
underneath your imperfections, underneath your weaknesses, underneath your
dependencies. If you dont see those flaws and weaknesses and dependencies, youre not
even in the game.
Its underneath that I see something absolutely ravishing that God is making you into. I
see flashes of immortality. I see flashes of glory. I want to be part of helping you to become
the person God wants you to be. I see your potential. I want to be part of that, and I know
you can do that to me too.
We want to present one another before the throne spotless and without blemish. When
two Christians understanding this stand before the minister all decked out in their wedding
duds, they realize what theyre doing is theyre playing dress up. Have you ever seen little
kids get ? Heres a little boy and a little girl, and they get into the daddy and the
mommys outfits. They look kind of silly in them because, you see, theyre not big enough,
theyre not wise enough, theyre not mature enough to really do it for real.
When you get in front of the minister all done up in your wedding duds, what youre
really saying is, Someday billions of years from now, were going to stand before the
throne, and our souls and our character are going to be without spot and blemish.
God is going to look at us and going to say, Well done, good and faithful servants.
Over the years you lifted one another to me. You sacrificed for one another. You held one
another up with prayer and with thanksgiving. You confronted one another. You rebuked
one another. You hugged and you loved one another and continually pushed one another
toward me. Now look at you. Youre radiant. Youre presentable to me without spot and
blemish.
When two people get up there in front of the minister and theyre both Christians, they
realize billions of years from now, theyre going to be standing alongside of each other with
the joy and the satisfaction of knowing they have been vehicles for redemption in the other
persons life. Thats where youre going. The ultimate purpose of marriage and the ultimate
purpose of your marriage is the deep oneness that comes from journeying together toward
holiness, toward making one another holy.
Thats what youre after. Thats what youre there for. Romance, fun, all those other
things are just results. Theyre dessert, but theyre not the staple. Theyre not the thing the
marriage really runs on. Youre committed to the other persons holiness. Youre committed
to the other persons beauty. Youre committed to the other persons greatness and
perfection. Youre committed to the other persons honesty and committed to the other
persons compassion and all those things.
Thats your job. Thats your job in one anothers lives. Any lower goal than that, any
smaller purpose than that, youre just playing marriage. Youre not really, really doing it.
Now look. What does this mean in practicality? Here are a couple of practical applications
if all this is true.
1. How do you go about choosing a spouse?
How do you go about choosing a mate? I have a bone to pick with most of you singles on
this point. Some of you Ive picked it with you in person. You see, heres how you go about
looking for someone to marry. You walk into a room. There are 20 people of the opposite
gender. The first thing you do is what? The first thing you do is you rule out about 17 of
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them.
Why are you ruling them out? Theyre not slick looking. Theyre not cool looking.
Theyre not fetching. They dont turn you on. Theyre not your body type. Theyre not
polished looking. Theyre too tall or too short or too fat or too thin. Their face just doesnt
remind you of the kind of face youve been looking for.
So okay. Out go 17. There are three. So you go over, and you start to talk to those three.
Maybe one of them wants to go out with you. In other words, now lets see. We have
romance. Lets see if we can turn this person into a friend. So you start with romance. You
start with a kick. You start with the affection, in a sense. You start with the eros. Im talking
about Christians. Im not talking about people who simply jump into bed with each other.
Im talking about Christians who dont think they should do that.
You still start with the eros because youre facing one another like this. Instead, frankly,
you may have ruled out all the people in the room who could be wonderful spouses for you
because they could be great friends for you. Now Ill define friendship here in a second, but
youve already ruled them out. Theyre gone. Instead, what youve done is youve
narrowed them down to the ones you think you could have this romantic kind of sensation
or rush for.
Now lets see if any of them might happen to be friends. Maybe one of them could be a
good friend, but youll never know. Its very, very possible youve already ruled out your
best spousal material and timber. You start with friendship. You start with it. By that I mean
you start finding out, Does this person have a common vision? Does this person have
common passions? Is this person looking for the same horizon? Is there depth in this
person?
Thats what youre looking for. Is this a person who probably could understand me? Is
this a person I could be vulnerable with? These are all the questions you ask when youre
trying to find if you should be a friend. How you are going about eliminating people?
Thats what I want to know. You probably, in many cases, for years have been eliminating
some wonderful people who could be wonderful husband and wives.
2. Be careful with your friendships
Now heres what I mean by that. What I mean by that is when a male and a female enter
into a certain kind of friendship, thats fine. Thats actually how you discern what kind of
people out there with whom you might have a future. All right? When you enter all the way
down and you become very good friends and then very, very good friends, and then very,
very good friends, biblically you are dating, and you might as well admit it.
Youre dating! What do you mean Im dating? We havent gone out to eat. Ive never
taken this person to a restaurant. We havent stared at each other over a candle. Im not
dating. Yes, you are because, you see, youre doing (whether you know it or not) exactly
what the Bible says youre supposed to do. Youre in the first stage of moving toward
marriage. If you can open your heart to someone, if you can share your life with someone,
if you can be vulnerable and if you find them understanding you, that is friendship.
Friendship between a man and a man, friendship between a woman and a woman, is
one thing. Friendship between a man and a woman is different. There is something about a
man and a woman because of the way God invented Adam and Eve as two polarities. He
divided up the characteristics of humanity. He didnt put them all in one person, but he
divided them between male and female so Adam was alone.
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In the beginning when Adam wasnt sinning, when Adam was perfect, when Adam had
a perfect relationship with God, he was lonely. God had to create Eve to complete him. That
means a friendship across the gender line has an unusually profound and mysterious
completion component. There is a kind of completion and a kind of satisfaction, something
deep and something very mysterious.
You realize youre in the presence of a friend, but youre in the presence of the Other.
Youre in the presence of someone who is different, and you find that particular person,
when they look at you, when youre vulnerable to them, when they look at your problems
and your sin and they say, I understand, youll find in many ways that fulfills and that
completes in a way someone of the same gender cant fulfill and complete you.
You are on your way into marriage when you have a really deep friendship with
someone of the opposite sex, and you are dating. What that means is youd better be careful
deeply careful because when you get somebody that vulnerable and yet you are not
starting to make a social commitment to that person, youre starting to use them.
If you dont think thats true, if you say, Hey, I have one of those relationships, and
that person doesnt feel used, make sure! Talk to that person. Watch out, because youre
dating. Youre dating the way the Bible says youre supposed to be dating. You just dont
think youre dating. Okay?
3. What is friendship?
If you go to the book of Proverbs and you pull out (and I did this some years ago) every
single verse that has anything to do with friendship Were not talking about marriage;
were just talking about friendship. Marriage is the most intense friendship. If you pull out
everything on it, I tried to work it out into categories. I tried to break them down and cluster
them together and say, What does the Bible say are the characteristics of friends? I came
up with four. Im not saying there arent more or less. This is just the way it broke down for
me.
First, a friend is consistent. A friend is there for you. A friend is always there. If you
need that person, except in extreme situations, that person is there. That person listens. That
person is committed. Theres a consistency. If that person is not consistent, theres not
friendship. That person serves. The person is someone who is disciplined in that
relationship.
Secondly, honesty. This means honesty with you and honesty about you. There are
some people who are honest about you, but theyre not honest with you. Theyll tell you
whats wrong with you, and theyll tell you whats right with you. Theyll talk about you,
but they wont talk about themselves very much. They certainly wont be revealing. Thats
not a friend. Okay? Thats a lot of things, but its not a friend. A friend is honest.
Thirdly, theres vulnerability. It gets deeper. By vulnerability, that means youre able
and youre willing to some degree to be naked. Now, you see, in marriage, you have the
ultimate friendship. Physical nakedness is supposed to go along with every other kind of
nakedness. Biblically, you must not be physically naked until youre naked in every other
way.
See, to be naked means, Im totally vulnerable. Im showing you everything I am. I am
completely vulnerable and open to you. Youre seeing everything. Im hiding nothing. Im
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holding nothing back. Thats physical nakedness, but thats nakedness in general because,
see, for example, if somebody says, I dont want to marry you, theyre not letting
themselves be economically and socially naked, are they?
If somebody says, I want to marry you, but Im going to sign a pre-nuptial agreement,
theyre not being naked yet. Emotionally is this person someone you have to keep secrets
from? Are there things this person would never understand that are close to your heart?
Then youre not naked with that person yet, and youre not really a friend with that person.
Now, of course, the friendship Proverbs is talking about is not the absolute and ultimate
and total nakedness and friendship of marriage. Thats the ultimate friendship, but you see
the pattern is the same. The dynamics are the same. Its in marriage that its the most
dynamic. Vulnerability. I can open up my center. I can open up my heart. I can show you
everything. I can hold nothing back, and I will hold nothing back.
Lastly, blessing. Its hard to come up with a good word for it, so I gave you this one, but
Ill explain it. A friend is someone who is continually blessing you. Its a shame that word
now is so opaque in the English language. Right now the way its used on the street, to
bless somebody means to curse them, doesnt it?
What it means to bless someone in the Bible See what blessing is. See what happens,
for example, when Joseph is dying or when Jacob is dying, and all of his children and
grandchildren come around, and he blesses them. What is he doing? He says, I see great
things for you. I understand you. I know what God is doing in your life. Yes, its
affirmation, but oh my gosh. You know, in psychological jargon, affirmation is so weak
compared to what this is talking about.
Its deep affirmation. It means, frankly, I open myself completely to you. You look all
the way into the inside, and you say, I love you. I affirm this part, and I love you in spite
of that part. See, a good friend is someone who knows you better than you know yourself
and who understands you better than you understand yourself and has a better idea of where
youre supposed to be going.
It doesnt mean in every instance, it doesnt mean in every single argument, in a good
marriage between a husband and a wife you know the other person understands you better
than you do at that moment, but its a general conviction. What does it take to become a
friend like that? It takes consistency. It takes honesty. It takes vulnerability. It takes
understanding affirmation/blessing.
G.K. Chesterton says the meanest fear is the fear of looking sentimental. He says so
many times we say, So long, when we mean, I miss you, and I love you. Were afraid
to say it. A person who is afraid to say it, a person who cant express it, is not yet able to
really be a blessing to someone else.
If youre married, do everything you possibly can to become best friends. If it means
sitting down with your spouse and saying, To be honest with you, there are many things I
cant talk to you about. To be honest with you, I know if I talk to you about whats close to
my heart over here, Im going to get a yawn or a laugh. I have to talk to you about those
things that are keeping me from really being naked with you. We have to do something
about it.
Now your spouse will probably do the same thing back. Its extremely rare for one
person to say, Im totally open to you, and the other person say, Oh really? Im not
totally open to you. It doesnt happen that way. You must do everything. You must pay any
price to become best friends. Like I said, if you have secrets from one another, youre not.
You have to decide what to do about it.
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do this with the Spirit of Jesus Christ who called us friends. We thank you, Lord, in his
name, the one who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for
many. In Jesus name we pray, amen.
MARRIAGE AS FRIENDSHIP
MarriageSeptember 15, 1991
Ephesians 5:2133
I feel soberness tonight because We have a very interesting church. As some of you
realize who have been around for a while, its really an interlocking chain-link fence of
small churches, and there are grapevines. A lot of you dont know Donna at all or Jerry, but
we prayed tonight because they were evening Redeemerites, if there is such a thing. There
was a lot of prayer for Donna. I visited her in the hospital. Its a shock for a young and
sweet spirit to pass on like that.
I guess once you break into your 30s, you begin to actually lose friends, and it gets
worse and worse and worse. Tonight at the 4:00 service, Chris sang a song that means a lot
to me because it was a favorite song of a friend of mine who died when he was 31, a
wonderful man of God, tremendous future. He had two little children.
The non-Christian world is a world without windows. Its a world that says we have
time and space, and everything else is unimportant. Its called secularization. Its called
secularism. The word secular means the now, the time and the space, the present.
Secularism says, Im going to live today as if the now is all that matters. The problem is
at times like this, especially when we confront death, we begin to realize a world without
windows is really a very, very difficult world to live in.
The Christian world is a world with windows. Thats the reason why one great Christian
minister, once when he was very old, said to somebody in an interview He knew he was
sick. His name was Dwight Moody, by the way. He said something like, Listen, it wont be
many months now before youll read in the newspapers that Dwight L. Moody is dead.
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Dont you believe it! Im dead now compared to what I will be then. Im a vegetable right
now. My knowledge, my understanding, my level of being is Im a vegetable now
compared to what I will be when you read that obituary.
Thats a world with windows. Thats a world that realizes the here and now counts
forever. Its extremely significant. Its more significant than a world without windows. Its
more important to live a life knowing this is just the anteroom. Youre going to live for
zillions of years. You only have a few dozen here. Its a very important anteroom to your
real life.
Thats a completely different approach to things. Its a world with windows. It makes
you able not to give pat answers when somebody so young dies, but it gives you a
framework in which you can ultimately and finally handle it, after you cry a lot. You have a
framework. You have an understanding. You have a way of dealing with it. You have a way
of understanding it and thinking about it.
What weve been looking at in this series on Marriage, Im trying to give you a view of
marriage with windows to it. Especially last week and this week you see it so clearly, and
we want to continue. Last week we were reading through this passage in Ephesians. Ill
read it here in a second. As we were looking through this passage Weve been looking at
it for weeks.
Last week we began talking about Marriage as Friendship, marriage as spiritual
friendship, friendship with eternal dimensions. Id like to read again to you the passage, and
then Id like to continue and hopefully finish this subject of understanding Marriage as
Friendship. We spent a couple of weeks understanding Marriage as Commitment and
Marriage as Ministry.
We have more to go, but right now were looking at the subject of Marriage as
Friendship. Its a cosmic friendship, a spiritual friendship, a friendship in a world with
windows. Lets read the passage again until you know it very well, and then we will
continue to expound the subject of marriage as cosmic friendship. Verse 21, chapter 5, of
Ephesians.
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
The basic thesis we started with last week is marriage basically is friendship. Ill put it
another way. Marriage is not basically romance garnished with friendship. It is basically
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friendship garnished with romance. Its not basically romance and attraction, and friendship
is thrown in as a wonderful little option, a wonderful little plus if you can get it. Rather,
biblically marriage is essentially friendship with romance garnishing and flavoring it.
The way we put it last week is if youre going to marry somebody, you should marry
someone who is now or has the potential to be your very best friend. You should not marry
somebody who you realize just would not be the sort of person who could understand you
to the bottom. We talked about that last week.
We also introduced the idea of the structure of friendship, and thats what I want to
show you. Thats how I want to try to move through the subject. Friendship is not just a
feeling of affection. We said a friendship is a particular form of love. Friendship has this
structure. There are three components to it, and we see it in this passage.
The structure is friendship is deep oneness that comes from two people journeying
toward a common horizon. Do you see those three things? First, the oneness; secondly, the
walking together, the interacting; and thirdly, the common horizon or goal youre going to.
You have the body illustration. That is something I havent really talked about till
tonight, and I need to bring it out now. If you look carefully you will see this entire passage
is based on the idea of the husband and the wife being parts of a single body. It says the
husband is the head, and the wife is the body. Its the same illustration Paul uses in
describing the body of Christ, that were all members of one another.
He says the way in which a husband and wife ought to deal with each other is the way
in which you deal with your body. It says the two become one flesh. Thats one body. The
goal is to present the body perfect and without spot and blameless, without blemish or stain.
The way you get there is by nourishing and cherishing your body and washing your body.
The illustration is a fascinating one. You are not really separate from your body, and
yet, in a way, you can think of your body as something distinguishable from you, because
you can act toward it. Youre not separate. Youre not distinct. What happens to your body
happens to you, and yet at the same time you can look at your body.
You can work on your body. You can say it has all sorts of flaws and all sorts of
blemishes. Its out of shape. It needs to be clothed differently. It needs to be washed
differently. It needs to be conditioned differently. You work at that body. Your goal is to
present it to be in a certain condition.
The Bible says marriage is like that, only you see how the passage goes back and forth
between how Christ relates to his body, which is us. Whats clear here is its the job of the
husband and the wife to sanctify one another. The common horizon two people in marriage
have, the thing that really is the axis mundi, the thing in which everything in the marriage
revolves around, is the fact we both have a vision for what we can be in Christ, what the
other one can be in Christ, and were on our way to get there.
Last week we talked about the horizon. This week I want to restate the horizon and then
talk about what it means to nourish and cherish and wash your body. How do you get to
that horizon? Then maybe Ill make a couple of comments on the deep oneness that occurs
if you are journeying together toward that horizon. Do you see the three?
1. The horizon
The way we put it last week, is you get a vision of what the person is becoming. You get a
vision of the glory self. You get a vision of a perfect, radiant being God wants this person
to be, you get excited about that, and you get committed to seeing that person developed.
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Now this is not something, of course, that is particular to just marriage. This is the way all
Christian friendships ought to be. This is friendship with windows.
If you get to know any Christian well, getting to know a Christian is a little bit sort of
like trying to look for a mountain on a cloudy day. Youll watch and youll watch and youll
see the wind swirls and blows things around, and at a certain point you can make out the
peak. At other times, its completely cloudy. All of a sudden, the wind could just whip right
through a cloud, and you see the snow on the mountain. You see the sun briefly shining on
it, and it takes your breath away. The next thing you know back has come the fog.
Getting to know a Christian is like that. Getting to know you is like that, and you
getting to know somebody else is like that. You get a glimpse every so often of the
gorgeous, radiant, perfect the glory person, the glory self this person is becoming.
You get a vision of what this person would be if this person was not shackled and fettered
by his or her sins and faults.
You get an idea of the beauty of it and the glory of it. You catch glimpses at certain
times, and you get committed to it, and you say, The Spirit of God is working to make that
person become that, and I want to be part of the synergism. I want to be part of the
process.
What it really means biblically to fall in love and to want to marry somebody is you get
a tremendous sense of that glory self, that real self, and you say, Im committed to that. I
want to be like a candlestick on which this candle is placed. Through prayer and service
and helping, I want to find the light The radiant person whos locked inside here, I want
the light of that to be evident. I want other people to see the beauty of this person. I want
this person to grow and develop in that direction as fast as possible.
That, we said, is the way any Christian friendship should go. Do you do that? Or do you
just try to find out whether this person also likes the same kind of music you like? By the
way, on top of that, they believe the Bible. Wow! Now look, thats a world without
windows. That is not a relationship thats constantly looking beyond time, constantly saying
we want to be friends for a few billion years.
That is very hard for you to think about in New York, when your friendships last eight
months, and then somebody moves. Thats the way all friendships should be, and in
particular thats the way marriage has to be. It has to be that kind of friendship. Thats the
horizon.
2. The implications
What are the implications? The implications of this are marvelous. I mentioned some of
them before. I didnt mention others. If thats the horizon, if thats the thing youre after,
first, it means
A. You will constantly find yourself falling in and out of like. Please dont say youve
fallen out of love. Do you remember? We talked about what love is. Love is commitment to
that glory person. Love is a commitment, but like is the feeling.
The fact is youll fall in and out of like with somebody you are in a relationship like this
with. Why? Because you really, in a sense, have the real self, the permanent self, and you
also have attitudes and personalities and traits and things like that that will burn off in the
light of Gods glory over the years. Theyre not permanent. Theyre temporary. Therefore,
there are going to be times in which youre looking at dross and youre mad about it.
In the process of marriage, marriage is actually a furnace. There are sparks, and not the
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romantic kind. There is heat. Whenever you take a piece of metal ore that has beautiful,
pure metal inside it and also a lot of impurities that have to be burned off, what do you do
with it? You put it through a furnace. In the furnace, the dross goes away, and the pure, real
metal stays.
In marriage, two people come to understand and agree what that real glory self is and
what the dross is. You understand it. You can point to it. You can say to one another, This
is the real you. This is the real me. This is the thing we know God wants us to be, and this is
the dross. This has to go. This is going to show up. This is going to crop up. We have to
work together against it. Of course, there are going to be times when you fall out of like,
because there is a lot of dross there.
There are times in which youre trying to say, Thats dross that has to go, and the
other person wrestles and says, Right. The beautiful thing about this is in a normal
marriage, not a Christian marriage, not a marriage that has these eternal horizons that are
the context and the framework for everything, in a normal marriage, when you come up
against the imperfections, which are there in spades, in droves, when you come up against
the warts and the imperfections, you dont think of it as dross, you just say, I wish I had
somebody better.
You come up against the imperfections, and you can imagine someone better. Whats
interesting is when two Christians are in love, theyre thinking along these lines, theyre
married, and they have these kinds of horizons, they also can envision somebody better, but
the person they envision better is the person theyre married to.
You want perfection, but you want her or his perfection, the kind of perfection only that
person will ever become, because you want them. You want the radiant them. You want the
perfect them. You want the holy them. You dont want somebody else. Of course, youre
mad at them right now. You dont want somebody else, you want the them, and you know
the only way youre going to get them is to stick with them, because theyre Christians and
youre a Christian.
The Bible says, Paul says, to the Christians in Philippi, Hey, I am convinced that the
one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ. How
can he say that to an entire church? Does he know them? He has never even met them. He
says, If youre a Christian, if youre a real Christian, I know the good work he began in
you he will bring to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.
You can expect yourself to fall in and out of like, and yet the commitment grows, even
when you hate the imperfection you see because its dross. You want to get rid of it. You
also want a perfect person, but you want this perfect person.
B. Beware of the normal cultural pattern. We mentioned another implication last week,
but there are more of you than last week so I ought to mention this really briefly. You have
to beware of the normal cultural pattern. The way we usually do it, do you remember? I
said basically marriage biblically is friendship spiked with romance, not romance spiked
with friendship.
The way we ordinarily choose our spouse is we look for sexual attractiveness first and
eliminate anybody whos not polished enough, not my body type, not attractive to me. We
eliminate all those people, all the people who might be wonderful friends, and all those
people we might have a wonderful marriage with. After all, the Bible says, Beauty is vain,
charm is fleeting, and there are only so many face-lifts you can have. In the end, youre
going to look alike anyway.
What we tend to do is we say, Lets eliminate all the people except the ones Im
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sexually attracted to, and who knows? Maybe I can make some of these into friends,
instead of looking the other way around and saying, How can I find somebody who Im
attracted to their character, to the nobility, to their bearing, to their balance, to their
wisdom?
Frankly, there is a sexual attraction that comes from deep oneness with someone whose
character you admire to the sky and who incredibly admires yours too. There is nothing
sexier than that. Its a very different kind of sex. Its a very different kind of attractiveness,
and its amazing how it is not completely independent, but its semi-independent from the
looks of the other person.
As the years go by, it gets deeper even as your own looks fade. After all, what the heck
do you want? So be careful about the order. If its really true that marriage is friendship
spiked with romance, not romance spiked with friendship, why start with sexual
attractiveness first in doing your elimination process?
C. There are people who have a gift of singleness. This is something I only touched on
last week, but my wife has told me I need to say it, and shes my friend. She knows Im a
chicken. That is the Bible says there are people who have a gift of singleness, 1 Corinthians
7. What that means is if you go back to the Old Testament, youll see when Adam was
created he was lonely because he was male.
What God has done when he created human beings is he divided up his attributes and
his qualities into men and women. Men are different than women, and women are different
than men. Therefore, when Adam finds Eve, he feels a completion that can only happen in a
friendship across the gender line. He feels a completion that only happens when he has a
deep friendship with somebody of the other gender.
There are people, the Bible says, who have a particular gift that they can make it even
though theres a loneliness. They dont need that deep consolation many of us absolutely
have to have if were going to be happy. There are some people who have a gift of
singleness. They dont need that. They dont have that deep need for completion in the
same way.
What about the rest of us who have that deep need, need the complement of deep
friendship across the gender line, but dont have it because a) we just havent found
somebody to marry or b) were scared to death of marriage? There are some dangers, and
that is the dangers are you will try to get that kind of completion without a marriage
covenant.
The Bible says the only safe place to have it is in a marriage covenant. We talked about
that, a permanent and exclusive commitment of a man and a woman to one another, to
share their lives totally, permanent, exclusive, legal, binding. Its the only place you can
have this deep oneness. Its still not a fail-safe thing, but the Bible says its the only safety
net thats strong enough in which to do this stripping, this vulnerability stuff marriage is
supposed to be.
As many of you know, you can still get ripped apart in a marriage, but you certainly
shouldnt even try it outside of that safety net of a binding covenant. Yet theres a danger of
us trying to get that intimacy, trying to get that kind of comfort, and trying to get that
completion without the marriage covenant. Why? Because either nobodys willing to give it
to us, or because were afraid of it ourselves.
What are some of the ways to do it? One is pretty obvious and that is, Even though this
person is not a friend, I will have sex with them anyway. Superficially, it feels for the
moment youre getting that completion, but thats another subject, another sermon. Weve
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talked about that before. The Bible says thats not the way ultimately to satisfy that at all.
Youll find yourself becoming lonelier when you use sex outside of a covenant.
The second way to do it is when a man and a woman, for whatever reason, decide to
have that deep oneness, that best friendship, and yet refuse to try to get romantic. Heres a
person who is of the opposite sex who is my very best friend, no one is close, and yet either
that person nor I, one or the other, or both, refuse to be romantically committed. Were not
going to date. Were just going to have this deep friendship.
For a while that works, and I just suggest to you eventually somebody gets killed. It
could be the man. It could be the woman. That means one person says, This is great. Were
not possessive. Were not romantic. Were not dating. Were just good friends, and the
other person is dying because that person feels married, needs the covenant, and needs the
exclusive permanent. If you try to get that completion outside of the covenant, somebody
gets killed. Sometimes its the woman; sometimes its the man. It can work either way.
Theres another approach, and that is two people of the same sex can try to get that deep
kind of completion through a sexual friendship, which is homosexuality. Again, thats
another subject, of course, but I can tell you the Bible says you cant get that kind of
completion, the completion were talking about in marriage, from somebody of the same
sex. A friendship with somebody of the very same sex cannot complete you in the way that
Eve was built to complete Adam.
Some people can try to deny that and say, Thats not my experience. Ill be very
happy to argue with you, but we cant do it here. All Im suggesting is unless you have the
gift of singleness you must be careful about trying to get the kind of completion that
happens through a friendship between the genders, which we need and we want. We cant
try to do an end run around marriage.
If we dont have a marriage, if we dont have a marriage covenant, basically we have to
grin and bear it. How? The real consolation is through good same-sex friendships, not
same-sex friendships that try to replace marriage, but good same-sex friendships. Do they
do the job? Do they completely console the longing?
You know they dont, but theyre the consolation. Theyre the way youre supposed to
be tided over until you can be married, unless you find God gives you the ability to not
need marriage and not even want marriage, which he in many cases does, and thats fine
too. That can happen permanently, or it can happen for a season.
D. How to tell if its a friendship on which to base a marriage. The last implication of
this idea that marriage is about two people committed to the glory selves, marching to the
throne of God, wanting to present one another radiant and spotless before the throne, is
heres how you can tell whether you have a friendship on which you can base a marriage.
A lot of people come and say, Look, were attracted to each other. We have a good
friendship. Thats great. But how do I know if this is the kind of relationship youve been
talking about? How do I know if this is the kind of relationship I really, really ought to
have? Ill tell you what it is.
You can agree on what the real self is and what the dross is. That means as you talk to
one another, and as you spend time together in your relationship Let me take the mans
point of view for a minute. You find as you talk to this woman, not only does she have a
terrific insight into who you really ought to be, who you can be, the glory self, the thing
God wants you to be, the best about you, not only does she see it, but in some ways she
sees it to some degree better than you do.
As you speak to her, you find you get a better idea about who you should be, and you
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get ignited about it. You get passionate for it. In other words, the bottom line of knowing
whether this woman is a good enough friend to marry is does she make you want to be
holy? Does she give you a vision of what you could be in Christ that excites you so much
you want to get there? Do you find you know it better and want it more by being with her?
The real test is does it work backwards? In other words, if shes the one who helps you
see it, and shes the one who knows you, your glory self, but you dont really do a very
good job of helping her with hers, again, thats detrimental. If its happening both ways, if
the vice is truly versa, if you can agree on what that real self is, if you can agree on what is
dross and what is metal, you have the makings of a friendship on which to base a marriage
with windows on eternity.
The question is How do you get there? Ive had a number of people come after and
say, The problem with this is I didnt get married with any of this in mind. The fact is,
were not friends. I married him or I married her because we looked great together. We felt
great together. We had a lot of fun. People said we made a great couple. The fact is, I can go
talk to my guy friends about things I could never bring up to her, and vice versa.
The woman says, I can go to my girlfriends and talk about things I couldnt imagine
him ever understanding, but I guess I always thought thats just the way it was. Thats a
non-Christian understanding of marriage. So what do you do? The answer is right here in
the Scriptures. Theres no reason why you have to despair. What you decide is, Im going
to make this person my friend. Im going to work in that direction.
The Bible shows us there are really two parts to that. Its going back to the body
metaphor. You notice it says, on the one hand, In this same way, husbands ought to love
their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever
hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it
It says, nourisheth and cherisheth it in the Authorized Version. Up a little
further, it says, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word To be friends, you have to be willing to do the negative and the positive. The
negative is cleansing your body. The positive is nourishing and cherishing it. Think for a
minute. Youre not going to be friends unless you have both.
I can only outline this now, and Im going to so we can get ready to come before the
Lords Table. These are very important, and some of you, if youve been to any of the
marriages Ive done lately, youll recognize them as seminal parts in any talk I give when I
perform a wedding.
On the one hand, think of what it means to clean your body. Its a private thing. In other
words, you have to work on your teeth. When you excrete, you wipe yourself. You clean
your fingernails. You deal with the problems of your skin. You shower, and you bathe. The
fact is, the most private thing you do is to keep your body clean.
The Bible says when you get married your spouse has that kind of access to you, to the
most private part of your life. That means your spouse will see and take part in cleaning the
dirt. To put it in Star Trek terms, your spouse goes where no man has gone before. If you
hate that and if you resent that, you dont understand marriage, and this person will never
be your friend.
One of the ways in which this person cleanses you is simply by him or her being there.
Are you a moody person? Are you prone to mood swings? Are you an indecisive person?
Are you a scaredy-cat person about certain things? Are you a kind of abrupt and critical
person? Are you an impatient person? You could always, in a sense, clean yourself in
private.
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If youre really mad, if youre really scared, if youre really grumpy, if youre really
irritable, if youre really moody, you could pretty much hide it from people, but now youre
constantly humiliated. Youre humiliated because these things are things your spouse sees.
Youre excreting spiritually all over the place. Your spouse sees that. Now your spouse says
something about it.
In other words, your moods, your indecision, and your fears create problems for your
spouse too. Youre moody together. Youre indecisive together. Youre scared together.
What this does On the one hand, its so cleansing just to have somebody there, just
seeing it, because for the first time in your life, you cant live in denial anymore. Every
mental health counselor will tell you thats the worst thing for you. If you live in denial,
you cant do a thing about it.
On the other hand, the spouse can say things to you and help you with it if youre
willing to realize its the nature of marriage that your spouse has access to cleansing you.
On the other hand, you have to be so gentle. You all know what its like to cleanse. Youre
so gentle with yourself. Can you imagine somebody else flossing your teeth? That would be
pretty scary. Can you imagine somebody else cutting your nails? Can you imagine
somebody else doing those things?
The reason youre scared is because its very hard for somebody else to be sensitive
enough. If youre married, its your job to do those things. You go in where no one has ever
gone before, but how do you do it? You do it, oh, so gently. To deal with one anothers sins,
to cleanse one another from sin, to point out sins, to admit sins, and to be accountable for
sins.
If that isnt happening, youre not friends, and you certainly dont have the horizon in
mind. If you have a relationship in which you just have to stay away from each other
because youre too testy, that means youre not committed to this understanding of
marriage, and you can never be friends.
Then theres the positive side, and heres where we have to conclude, but I want to read
you something. The positive side is it says you nourish and cherish your body. You find out
what really builds it up and nourishes it and makes it happy and makes it strong. At this
point, you really live out with your spouse the actual salvation of Jesus.
What Jesus does is he comes to you and he says, You are my beloved child, in whom I
am well pleased. Let me read you something. A lot of you may have heard this because
Ive brought it up in other situations, especially at weddings. This is a paper written by
someone I went to seminary with long ago. Let me just read it, and then were done.
Marriage is re-creational. In the context of marriage one encounters the possible
redemption of the full life, the retrospective healing of your personal history. The thorough
conversion of ones biography is a divine work begun in this life, and it would seem that
God has invested the marriage relationship with sufficient emotional power to challenge the
authority of accumulated biographical verdicts and thereby redeem the past.
Do you know what hes saying? You may have heard me say this before. When you get
married to somebody, yes, the other person has the right to cleanse you and point out your
faults, but heres also what happens. When you get married to someone You know that
place in the Bible says, For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart ? Do
you know why it says that?
There is a very important analogy. God invented marriage with this power. If your
spouse tells you youre gorgeous, you feel gorgeous no matter what anybody else says, no
matter what the culture says. If your spouse tells you, I dont care what your father or
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mother said. I dont care what your teacher said. You are great. I dont care what they said.
You are someone I admire, this is what the paper says, and I think this is true.
What the passage is saying is you have massive ability to completely reprogram the
self-appreciation of your spouse. Your word has the power to completely overturn all the
verdicts that have ever been passed on your spouse. Your spouse believes about himself or
herself whatever he has been told over the years. Hundreds and thousands of people have
told him what hes like, and now you have the power to completely turn that over.
If your hearts condemn you, your spouse is greater than your heart. That means if
everybody in the world calls you ugly and your spouse says youre beautiful, youll feel
beautiful. It also means if everybody in the whole world calls you beautiful and your spouse
calls you ugly, youll feel ugly. You have that ability to redeem. You nourish and cherish
one another. You find out what is good in the other, and you call it out. You affirm.
The only reason we know how this works is because Jesus Christ himself has done it for
us. Jesus is the Friend. Jesus is the one of whom its said, A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoking flax he will not quench till he brings forth judgment to victory. What that
means is he is a person who will come into your life and bring you forth to victory.
In the meantime, if you are so bruised, youre like a bruised reed, hell treat you so
gently you wont break off. If you are so dim youre like a smoking flax, like a candle that
has basically gone out, but theres just a glimmer of a flame there, he wont quench you.
Thats a friend. There is someone who will bring you to victory, who is committed to you,
who wont let you go, who will tell you about your faults, but is so completely committed
to you and who continually says to you, I love you. I care for you.
Hes greater than your hearts. He overcomes everything anyone else has ever said of
you, and in the marriage relationship youre living that out. My dear friends, have a
marriage, prepare yourself for a marriage if youre not married, and get yourself a marriage
if you are married with windows on eternity. Lets pray.
Father, as we go to the Lords Table, as we partake of the bread and the cup, we pray that
well remember your friendship, Jesus Christ, how you died for us, how you love us, how
you are committed to us, how you are consistent with us, how youre vulnerable to us, and
how you communicate to us, so we might become the kind of friends who can build other
people up toward the throne and prepare us to be the kind of husbands and wives who will
also bring you glory and joy. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.
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Ephesians 5:2133
This is our sixth talk on this passage, the classic text in the Scripture on Christian marriage,
Ephesians 5. I would just like to read it to you and then continue our exposition of it. Its
Ephesians 5, and well read verses 2133. Its a great passage to know by heart.
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
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two weeks.
The modern world says, Dont get married. Live together, but if you have to get
married, you always make sure the relationship is continually fulfilling your needs. Make
sure you maintain your own economic, financial, and social infrastructure, so if things dont
work out you have something to fall back on.
Thats a complete antithesis to the idea of one flesh. Can you imagine the legs deciding,
Look, we need our own nervous system, and we need our own blood supply in case the
hands develop an infection. We dont want anything to do with them? Thats exactly what
prenuptial agreements are.
How is it that this one-fleshness can be developed? Let me ask it another way. Why is it
that one-fleshness, this kind of deep oneness, doesnt happen in marriages? Let me give you
three ways it can happen and three reasons it doesnt happen, the same three reasons. If you
do these three things properly, it develops deep oneness. If you fail to do them or if you do
them wrongly, it creates what most marriages are, and that is basically business
partnerships.
We said the deep oneness develops like this. This passage is saying the two shall
become one flesh. Therefore, a husband relates to a wife and a wife relates to a husband as
you relate to your body. Thats how one you are. Thats why, as we read through, it says the
husband cares for his wife the way he cares for his body.
What is your relationship with your body? You really arent separate from your body,
and yet you can think about your body. You can talk about your body. You can act on your
body as an object, and yet its pretty close to who you really are. In fact, it is who you really
are. We said there are three things you have to do to develop this one-fleshness or three
things that if you blow will create the lack of it. It will undermine the one-fleshness.
1. Dealing with your uncleanness
You have to let your spouse deal with you about your uncleanness, about your blemishes,
about the unsightly nasal hair. We said at the very end of last week this passage talks about
how the husband has to care for the wife and wants to present her spotless, without blemish,
clothed, and beautiful. Then he says, just like you deal with your own body.
Well, how do you deal with your body? You wipe your body. You trim your body. You
deal with the unsightly fat on your body. You buy clothes to hide the unsightly parts of your
body. Why are you working out at the gym? To permanently change those parts of your
body. Of course, you have the right to do that. The Scripture says when a spouse comes into
your life, that spouse now has the same kind of rights, the same kind of access, to your
faults and your flaws. Therefore, your spouse has the right to talk to you about whats
wrong with you.
If you are touchy and if you refuse to let him or her in and if you start to say, You mind
your business, and Ill mind mine. Nobody has the right to talk to me about those things,
then youre denying the one flesh nature and the one flesh potential and the deep ability to
really change and grow and sanctify and be perfected and redeemed and become the
glorious people God wants you to be through this marriage. Unless you let your spouse
really deal with your faults, unless you let your spouse in, unless you let your spouse have
that kind of access, you wont be one flesh.
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mother and your brothers and your sisters and your roommates. You need to be doing it
anyway.
Theyre not getting killed by your sharp tongue, theyre not getting killed by the nasty
things you say, the unedifying words you say, but if you get into a marriage with these
kinds of speech patterns, you will find you will kill each other. If on the other hand, you
start building one another up
Whats fascinating is the more you affirm, you use that tremendous power to affirm the
person, the easier it is for your spouse to open up about his or her faults. If you have a
cradle of security for your moments of vulnerability, if you know, This is the one person
who really respects me, knows me to the bottom and loves me and respects me, thats a
certainty in your life, its like a ground note underneath everything else.
You have a sort of security. You have a foundation from which you can for the first time
in your life admit your faults. In the past to even admit your faults was very difficult
because you began to wonder whether you were any kind of decent person at all. Now you
know you are because of what your spouse is saying to you. You know about your worth
there.
This is a great mystery. The relationship between a man and a wife is like Christ and the
church. Of course, its a fascinating mystery because as you know, if youve been here and
heard the preaching, its the Scripture that says its Christ who does that to you. Christ
reprograms your self-image. Christ says, I died for you, and thats the only thing that
matters.
Christ says, Let the fact that I died for you be the weightiest fact in your life. Let that
matter more than anything else. You matter to the only one who matters. Christ
reprograms that. Next to Christ, the person who can do that most effectively is your spouse
because marriage is basically built on the dynamic of salvation. Its built on the pattern of
salvation.
Thats the reason why Paul can go back and forth talking about Christs salvation in
relationship to us and the relationship between a husband and wife. In the same way, if you
do that, if you affirm, if you use this tremendous ability to reprogram that persons selfimage, youll find the person will open up more and more, and the deep oneness will come.
Youll have the ability to talk about one anothers faults.
On the other hand, if you abuse this, if you dont realize you have a rocket launcher in
your hands, its very fast what will happen. What will happen very quickly is both of you
will realize, I cannot trust the other person with what I really think because they can nail
me like nobody has ever been able to nail me. Im afraid to do that.
What you do is you close up. What happens is instead of deep oneness you have what
most marriages are, which is kind of a combination of business partnership and social
contract and parenting partnership. A lot of people have slightly better relationships after
theyre divorced raising their kids together, which goes to show they never really developed
or had the deep oneness.
We said there are three things. The first thing is you have to let your spouse in if you
want that one-fleshness. You have to let your spouse deal with your faults, give him or her
access to your dirt. If you dont do that, then youre denying the one-flesh nature of
marriage. Secondly, you have to use this ability to reprogram your spouses selfappreciation and affirm that spouse. You have to use that so carefully because, if you abuse
that, your spouse will close up.
Your spouse will do it back to you, and you will just become two people who dont
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have the deep oneness. Youre not one flesh. Youre simply a partnership. Youre not a new
chemical, but rather youre just two chemicals that just happen to be interspersed amongst
one another. Youre laying there together and you interpenetrate one another, but you
havent actually become something new.
3. Recognizing neither can act independently
The third thing is if you want this one-fleshness, you have to recognize neither of you can
act independently of the other. The image of one flesh, of the head and the body, is pretty
vivid. When the head turns right and the body turns left, you have a problem. Either the
head and the body have to both turn right or Theyre one. Theyre together.
One of the hardest things about becoming one flesh is to recognize youre no longer
independent people. Of course, this doesnt mean you cant have your own interests and if
she hates golf you cant play golf. Were not talking at that level. Instead, were talking
about important life issues and decisions. Youre not independent of one another. That
means you really have to get inside of each other and do the hard work of consensusbuilding and really build a new unit.
You are not independent of one another. This goes regardless of what your belief is
about submission and headship. It doesnt matter what you think about, as were going to
see soon, when it says the man is the head of the wife and the wife must submit to the man.
The man is the head and the wife is like the body in a marriage. No matter how you define
authority, the fact is the head is not independent of the body. The head cant turn right and
the body turn left. It has to happen together.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones is one of my heroes, and I quote him as often as I can. He
was a great Welsh preacher, and he told this story. He was preaching a sermon on the fact
that the husband and the wife are not independent of each other. If you want to develop
one-fleshness, you have to work out your decisions, and you have to work for consensus
rather than just negotiating and bargaining with each other like two countries who are just
trying to find cooperative agreements as far as they can.
He gave this illustration. He was preaching on World Missions. Maybe there were slides
that night. After the service, up comes a man who says, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, this was a stirring
service. By the way, if any of you are thinking of doing this tonight, now watch out. He
says, The Lord has called me into foreign missions. Ive decided Im going to go overseas
and work in foreign missions. Its something that has really been on my heart lately, but
now today the Holy Spirit told me. Dr. Lloyd Jones instantly said, Are you married?
Sure.
Have you talked to your wife about this at all?
No.
He said, Now, listen. The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible, right? If this is the Holy Spirit,
you have a great test. The Holy Spirit will tell your wife you need to go in the mission field
too. In fact, Im a little bit dubious because its very unlikely the Holy Spirit would tell you
to do something and not tell you, Id better work this out with my wife, because the Holy
Spirit wrote in the Bible the head is not independent of the body.
The hard work of working on consensus and coming to one mind and to one heart about
things, that hard work, if you dont do it, you will never experience and develop the onefleshness. Thats the reason that one-fleshness doesnt work very often or doesnt develop,
and its also the way in which you can develop it.
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What the heck is it? What do you mean, oh Preacher, when you say two people
become something new, that theyre not just interspersed with each other, that they become
a third kind of chemical, that you really become a third kind of person and not really the
people you were? That is a complex subject, and we bridge into this whole subject of role
relationships between men and women in marriage.
I can do some introductory work this week and next week, lay the whole thing out. Let
me just suggest this one-fleshness develops especially in two ways, along temperament
lines and along gender lines. I know theyre not completely different things because very
often certain genders have certain temperaments, but let me explain it this way.
What is a temperament? The traditional temperaments the Greeks talk about are
sanguine, choleric, melancholy, and phlegmatic. Do you remember that? Temperaments are
habitual ways in which you deal with the world. Somebody once pointed out you have two
axes. At this end you have people who believe the world is basically a friendly place where
good things happen, and at the other end you have people who basically believe the world
is a dangerous place and an unfriendly place, where bad things happen.
Then take another: people who believe basically you need to get out there and act upon
the world before it gets to you. Over on the other end, you have people who really believe
the wisest thing to do is to sort of lay back and wait for things to happen, and then you react
to them. If you diagram, if you put those two axes against one another, you basically come
up with people who say the world is dangerous and also you need to get out there. Thats
the choleric person, the dominant personality.
A person, who says the world is basically kind of dangerous but you need to wait for the
world to come to you, is a melancholy person. A person who says the world is basically a
friendly place and you need to let the world come to you is a phlegmatic person. A person
who says the world is basically a friendly place and you need to get out there and do
something, is a sanguine person, an outgoing person, a very, very relationally oriented
person.
Im not trying to get into the temperaments much other than to say I dont think there
are only four, but thats a good way of putting it. What is a temperament? A temperament is
a habitual way to deal with the world that we develop because were not wise enough to be
versatile. Is the world a dangerous place where bad things happen? Or is the world a
friendly place where good things happen? Biblically, whats the answer to that? The answer
is its both.
The heavens are telling the glory of God. There are beautiful things in the world. Its
Gods creation, and yet its a wicked place, its a dangerous place, and its a broken place.
Should you get out there and act, or should you wait? If you go to the book of Proverbs,
what is the right thing to do in every situation? The answer is it depends. None of these
situations are always the wise way to be.
Jesus Christ had no temperament. He could not be classified. Why? He was perfectly
wise. An extrovert is somebody who says the best thing to do is walk out and introduce
yourself. The introvert basically says, Ill wait and see what happens. Ill see whos out
there. Ill wait for somebody to ask me. Whats the right thing to do? Whats the wisest
thing to do? Whats the best way to deal in a relationship? The answer is it depends.
Jesus was not an extrovert or an introvert. He was exactly what he needed to be that the
situation demanded, but none of the rest of us are. All of us develop temperaments, habitual
ways of doing things. If we happen to get into a condition, if we tend to be a sanguine
person, for example, and were in a situation that works very well for someone who
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basically is optimistic, basically feels people are going to like them, basically feels, If I
step out there and introduce myself, things are going to work out okay, everything is fine.
If you are in a situation that really calls for a phlegmatic or a melancholy response,
youll get your head taken off. When you get married, generally speaking, to some degree,
for sure, even if youre the same basic temperament, there are different degrees. You are
forced for the first time in your life to see the world continually through the eyes of
someone of another temperament.
Of course, the vice is versa. What that does is that has a profound impact on your
wisdom. After a number of years of marriage, there are two things that are happening
instead of one. The old way, because of your temperament you habitually would do
something without even thinking. You react to a situation because of your temperament.
Now two things happen. Theres not only the habitual thing, but you suddenly say, I
know what Kathy would do here. Its almost as habitual, not quite, to suddenly realize, I
know what my spouse would do. For an instant, you have the ability now, instead of one
option, of two.
You have the ability to realize it. You have the ability to slow yourself down and see
which of these two things would be better. Youve also had the experience of having your
spouse sort of forcefully push you into a situation that he or she knew was not the way you
would like to respond but that he or she knew was the wise way to respond, and you found
out it does work.
What happens is theres a kind of wisdom that can develop only through this kind of
intimate relationship. You really do become someone different. Your temperament actually
changes. Your wisdom and your ability to understand the world actually changes.
Secondly, the reason you become one flesh is because for the first time in your life you
have to relentlessly and continually look at the world through the eyes of another gender.
This is where Id like to say a few words of introduction. Because theyre introductory
words, I expect some of you will find them controversial. Fine. Thatll make you come
back.
Let me say this along those lines. The Scripture clearly states again and again that a
man and a woman in marriage are not reversible roles. Dont you see here? Only the
husband is told to love his wife. The wife is not told to love her husband. Only the wife is
told to respect her husband. The husband is not told to respect his wife. What does that
mean? Does that really mean wives arent supposed to love their husbands? Does that really
mean husbands arent supposed to respect their wives?
Of course not. Thats silly. You cant make the Scripture ridiculous like that. What does
it mean, though? It means, in the marriage, theyre both building each other up. Theyre
both changing each other in the ways weve been talking about, but they are not doing it in
the same way. The fact is the husband doesnt love his wife the way a wife loves her
husband. The husband does not build up his wife the way a wife builds up the husband,
because being woman and being a man are callings. Theyre different callings. You have
different gifts. You do it differently.
Theres nowhere in the Bible ever that you see when a husband and a wife are both
dealt with that theyre told to do the same things in the same words. The old wedding vows
used to have some differences. The modern wedding vows are absolutely reversible. Both
the wife and the husband are asked to do the very same things in the very same words. You
never see that in the Bible. Why? Because even though there is obvious mutuality, theres
obvious equality, there is not interchangeability. Theres not equivalency.
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Studies are showing this. Put a woman as a CEO in this job. Put a man as a CEO in the
same job. Give them the same goals. Ask them both to turn a $1 million profit this year.
What if they both do it? If they both do it, studies will show you almost 100 times out of
100 they will have done it different ways. A woman is not a manager the way a man is a
manager. In a sense, theres an asymmetrical mutuality even there, and you can see it.
When it comes to what I said is working through a different gender, what it means is
that for the first time in your life Being a male and being a female are two ways of being
human, and by themselves the Bible says, they are kind of unbalanced. Adam, when he had
no sin in his life, when he had a perfect relationship with God, there had been no fall, there
had been no Serpent, there had been no apple or orange or whatever the heck it was, there
had been no fruit none of that had happened he was alone; he was lonely.
When the woman was brought to him, he said, At last, I found myself. That means
theres a complementary nature, and it also shows Jesus Christ has not given all of his
attributes to both men and women in the same way. It doesnt mean, for example, that men
and women cant both be heroes and that men and women cant both be nurturers, but
whats very clear from the Bible is men will nurture differently than women and women
will be heroes in a different way then men.
The beauty of it is when the Bible says to the husband, Be men, what does it say?
Look at Jesus. It says that here. Look at Jesus. Look at his relationship with his church. See
how he died for his church. See how he manages everything in his life for the church. The
Bible says he manages all history for the church, and you, oh men, have to realize the same
thing. If you are going to be real husbands, its your job to take authority. Yes, well talk
about what that is, but its an authority that by no means is oppressive.
Who can be upset with Jesus authority when he went to the cross for you, when he was
willing to deny everything for you, and now does absolutely nothing, the Bible says in
Romans 8:28, except that which brings about your joy and perfection? Nothing. Is that
oppressive authority? Heres whats so beautiful.
When the Bible says, Women, look at femininity and what does it mean to be
feminine? the Bible says it means to be a help. What does the word help mean as well
see? The word help means to use your power in a way that enables and empowers
somebody else. Women do that better than men. To use your power in such a way that it
empowers someone else, that it enables instead of replaces him.
When I help my son with his algebra, its because On the one hand, I help him if I
know more about it than he does. A woman can only help her husband if she has resources
he doesnt have, if theres a deficiency in him thats not in her, if there are things she can do
that he cant do. I also, in order to help my son with his algebra, cannot do it for him. I can
enable him to do his algebra with my superior power in the areas I have power, but when I
enable him, I am not replacing him. I am not doing it for him.
Feminine power means the wife brings to bear on the husband things she can do that
she knows, that she sees he doesnt have, resources he doesnt have. Shes superior to him
in certain ways. Theyre very difficult to define biblically, but theyre there. However, what
she does with her power is she doesnt replace him. She enables him. She empowers him.
When those two things are happening in the life, the two become one flesh. Where does a
woman look for femininity? Where does a woman look for her model? She looks to Jesus
too.
Why? Its whats beautiful. There are two places in the Bible that say, The man is the
head of the wife like Here it says, as Christ is the head of the church. In 1
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Corinthians 11, it says, as the Father is the head of the Son. On the one hand, it means the
Son is the perfect example of masculinity. Look at him, and then youll know what
masculinity is, real leadership, real authority, no oppressiveness.
At the same time, the Son is the picture of femininity too. The voluntary subordination
of an equal to an equal. The putting his power under someone else, the glorifying of
someone, the enabling and empowering of somebody. He is just as much a paragon of
feminine power as masculine power. Therefore, of course, being a woman or being a man,
neither is more fundamentally divine. One is not higher than the other.
When two incomplete people are brought together in marriage and continually and
regularly look at the world through the eyes of the other, it is a heck of an experience. It is
an amazing experience. Youre no longer really what you were before. The two chemicals
have come together, and the reason the two chemicals have come together is because both
the power and the tenderness of Jesus have been united in your lives.
Look at the masculinity of Jesus. Look at the femininity of Jesus. Look at the authority
of Jesus. Look at the submission of Jesus, and you say look at that. If you understand the
gospel, you can understand the relationships within marriage. If you understand the gospel,
you can understand friendship. If you can understand the gospel, you can understand what
it means to affirm your spouse and what it means to be one flesh.
If you cant understand the gospel To me, the amazing thing is not why so many
marriages break up. In light of what this passage is saying and in light of the widespread
ignorance of what the passage is saying, the amazing thing to me is why so many marriages
stay together. Look to Jesus, and he will complete you.
One very last thing. Well mention this next week in some detail, but heres what I have
to say. Some people say, Im a single person, and youre talking about the need for
completion. This is discouraging. Id like to be married. Im not married. Does that mean
Im an incomplete person? In what way am I an incomplete person?
The answer is dont forget, just as a spouse can reprogram your self-image,
nevertheless, marriage is only an analogy of the great marriage of Jesus Christ with the
church. The real Sanctifier is not a husband, my dear ladies. Its Jesus. The real Helper, the
real Completer, is not a wife, my dear friend guys, but its Jesus.
Because we live in a fallen world, because all of us are sort of sub-men and sub-women,
and because even the best marriage is so far from what it ought to be, let me just tell you
the difference between marriage and being single is not as great as it ought to be. Marriage
is not nearly as sanctifying as it could be.
Its not nearly as completing as it could be. If God in his providence has kept you out of
a marriage up to now, then look to him. He is your Helper, guys. He is your Husband,
ladies. If you look at him, whether youre married or whether youre single, youll see in
him the completion and the perfection of your souls. Lets pray.
Father, we ask especially that youd help us to see the great power we have in marriage. I
pray the people here who are not married may not be scared of this power, that they might
not be intimidated, but recognize simply you would not call them into a relationship unless
you would give them the power and the wisdom to know how to use this great power.
Father, those people who are here in a married state, I pray you would show them how they
can use this tremendous power to create one flesh, to create new units, to create deep
oneness and unity. Most of all, Father, we pray, just as we learn from all this teaching on
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salvation about marriage, we would also learn even more from all this teaching on
marriage about your salvation.
Help us to see its only as we are in a relationship with you, oh Lord Jesus Christ, both
Husband and Helper, both authority and submission model. We pray, Father, its through
our relationship with Jesus we might truly become completed. Give us marriage or keep us
from marriage. Give us a great marriage or give us a mediocre marriage, but give us
yourself, oh Lord Jesus Christ, and we will have everything we need. We pray this in Jesus
name, amen.
MARRIAGE AS COMPLETION;
GENDER ROLESPART 1
MarriageSeptember 29, 1991
Ephesians 5:2233
Were looking tonight at a subject that many of you are going to say, Why did you choose
that subject? Its just like the mountain climber. The same reason the mountain climber
climbs the mountain is because its there. Why are we choosing the subject were choosing
tonight? Because its there. Because the Bible is Gods self-disclosure. Its the written Word
of God, and everything that is stated there, whether or not it happens to be controversial at
this little point in time and space, we have to digest it, we have to understand it.
So tonight were going to look again at this passage on marriage that weve been
looking at for seven weeks now. Were looking at Ephesians 5:2133. Tonight were
especially going to look at this major issue, where it says, Wives, submit to your husbands,
and husbands, youre the head of the wife. What does that mean? Finally, tonight well
look at it. It is an immensely complicated subject, and were going to look at it. First of all,
lets read the passage, Ephesians 5:2133, and then well tackle it.
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Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
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25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
This is Gods Word
Were going to especially look tonight at verse 22, Wives, submit to your husbands as to
the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church
What does that mean? There are a couple of ways to put this. One of the ways is to ask the
question we are addressing in this verse, which is to say, Is there any differentiation
between the roles and obligations of a husband and wife in marriage?
I think we mentioned last week that years ago the marriage vows that were in the
average church ceremony were different. Usually, what the wife and the husband were
asked to do was different. Different words were used. Today, of course, those vows are
absolutely identical. The same words, and yet every single place you come to in the
Scripture you see theres a differentiation.
The first question: is there a differentiation? Is there an authority structure? What does
it mean when it says, Wives, submit to your husbands, and when it says, Husbands,
youre head of the wife? We tackle the issue because its there, but you have to keep
something in mind because all night, especially as we look at this thing, Christianity,
depending on the culture its sitting in, can be either radically liberal subversive or horribly
fascist reactionary in its appearance.
For example, in Communist countries, the church has always been considered radically
subversive. Why? Because the Communist state is very conservative, and the church was
something it tried to deal with. It was subversive because the church has always questioned,
not just questioned but challenged the idea that the state is the final arbiter of moral
issues and values. The church has always said the state is not the final author and arbiter of
moral values. Its God.
In those countries, we have super-conservative state governments and state. The church
looks radically subversive, but in this country, for example, very often Christianity looks
reactionary and conservative. Do you know why? Because in this country the church is also
challenging the idea that the individual is the final arbiter of moral values. The church has
always said, No, the individual feelings and conscience nor the state
The church looks right-wing to the left and left-wing to the right. Thats the way it is.
Thats the way it ought to be if Christianity is actual truth, if its absolute truth, if its
revelation from God. Christianity isnt to the left or to the right. Its from above. It doesnt
arise out of the human spectrum. It settles down into the human spectrum of thought. If its
true that its from above, then its natural that it doesnt actually fit any particular ideology,
and every ideology is going to be deeply suspicious of it.
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On the one hand, you have what Paul says about women who in many, many, many
cultures, in many societies are considered radically subversive, and certainly you know
that, in many societies. For example, Paul originally taught this divine teaching about the
roles of men and women into an Asian, an Oriental society. Thats what that area was. Of
course, because of the very rigid understanding of the roles of men and women in those
situations, the Christian truth was considered tremendously subversive.
Thats why when you go to 1 Corinthians 11, you see Paul saying to the women, When
you pray and speak in church, make sure you wear a veil. Hes talking to married women.
Why? In that time and place, when a woman was married, she was completely veiled. You
still see that in many Oriental countries and many Eastern countries. She was completely
veiled. That showed she belonged totally to her husband.
The idea of women participating in public worship like that, which was obviously the
way in which things were done in the early church, was so radically subversive in that
super-conservative society that Paul said, Look, women, just remember, you dont have to,
but wear a veil. Why? Because the equality the Christian gospel brings in a relationship
between men and women is so radical that in some situations people might forget that
though theres equality there, there still are distinctions. There are still role relations
between husband and wife.
Make sure, Paul says to the women, that you wear your veil because that is a
culturally appropriate signal to the world around that you have not thrown off your
obligation to your husbands. Thats how radical it was, and yet today many people,
especially in a place like New York, will read 1 Corinthians 11, 12, 13, and 14, and see
what Paul says about women and will say, This is incredible oppression.
Thats the way it ought to be. If its really true that this is truth, it doesnt arise out of
one side of the spectrum or the next, and if you come to the Bible saying, Really, is this
left or right or sort of halfway in between? youll always be disappointed because its not
from down here. Its not from here, here, or here. Its from there. Having said that, what Id
like to show you are three basic things tonight.
The basic thesis is being a male and being a female are overlapping but distinguishable
ways of being human. Theyre not identical. They are overlapping but distinguishable
modes of being human. Therefore, there are roles. There are distinct obligations and gifts
and callings that belong to women and belong to men. Id like to show you here the passage
teaches us really three things of sex roles, of gender roles. It teaches that there are roles.
Secondly, he teaches why there are roles. Thirdly, he teaches what those roles are.
1. The that of gender roles in marriage
Lets realize this text teaches just by the very way in which it lays there that there are
distinctive roles for men and women in marriage. It doesnt tell the wives to love their
husbands. It tells them to respect their husbands. It doesnt tell the husbands to respect their
wives. It says to love your wives. It tells the husbands to submit in verse 21 along with the
wives, but then it tells the wives to submit in verse 22 all by themselves. So the husbands
are asked to submit once, and the wives are asked to submit twice.
Theres no place where it says the wife is supposed to be working for the perfection of
the husband to present him before the throne spotless and without blemish. Does this really
mean by the Bible we can conclude, therefore, that wives arent supposed to love their
husbands, just respect them? That wives are not supposed to work for their husbands
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She says its true. This is the most interesting part of her book to me. She says
something to the effect of, My research shows that men see themselves as maturing as
they separate. Women see themselves as maturing as they attach. Men see themselves as
maturing as they separate and become independent and make impact. Women see
themselves as maturing as they attach themselves, as they invite one another into networks
as they become interdependent. Men, therefore, have the gift of independence. Women
have the gift of interdependence.
That fits in, as were going to see, virtually perfectly with what the Scripture says. You
dont need research to say, Well, gee, maybe the Bible is right. A Harvard sociologist said
thats not how it has to work, but the point is youre going to see when the Scripture talks
about these differences and the research says, Yeah, there are different callings, what are
those different callings?
Lets keep on going, and well talk about it. Let me get to my second point, but first of
all, let me remind you a lot of conservative people and a lot of evangelical Christians say,
Yes, of course, there are differences between men and women. There are differences
between the role of the husband and the wife, and here they are. They make a long list of
very stereotypical, very specific lists of details. For example, theyll say, For example,
because Im a Christian, I believe the Bible, and I uphold the traditional family, a lot of
people say.
I believe there is a difference between husband and wife, and I do believe there are
different roles. For example, the husband should work and the wife should stay home with
the children. Okay, where does it say that in the Bible? It doesnt say that in the Bible.
Well, the woman should be the one whos domestic. She should be the one who cooks.
Where does it say that in the Bible? The man should be in charge of the checkbook.
Where does it say that in the Bible?
Here is one of the problems. In the pre-industrial age, you didnt see the husband go out
to make his money and the wife stay at home with the children. In the pre-industrial age,
the husband and the wife both produced goods together. They worked together in whatever
the job was of the family. They either farmed together or they were tailors together or they
were shoemakers together. They both produced goods, and they both raised the children.
In the industrial age, for the first time somebody has to get up and leave the home and
go off and make money. For a brief period of time, we get into the position where the
husband leaves, and the wife stays at home, does not produce goods, and does childrearing. When you go to the Scripture, youll see the Bible is truth thats written for all time
and space. The Bible would never nail itself down to that kind of specific stereotypical way
of defining the differences between masculinity and femininity. You cant do such a thing.
Go to the book of Proverbs 31, where it talks about a woman of worth and see what she
does. Here is a wonderful wife. Shes into real estate. Have any of you ever read Proverbs
31? She does investments. She figures out, Im going to fund this particular voyage. When
it gets back, Ill make a return on my investment. Shes into real estate. Shes into
investments. Shes into sewing. Shes into child-rearing. Shes into everything. For all we
can tell, the husband was into everything with her.
To say, When the Bible talks about women submitting to their husbands, when the
Bible talks about differences between the husband and wifes role in the Bible, that means
the Bible supports a traditional family, I agree, but whats the traditional family? You cant
say traditional family is the family from 1880 to 1960. You cannot take the Bible and whet
it to one particular time in history. The Bible would never be so foolish. The Bible is truth.
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In the Old Testament, for example, when one king conquers another king, the victorious
king renames, gives a new name to, the defeated king. Why? Because naming is the
exercise of a superior to an inferior. Parents name their children. Why? Not just because,
Well, thats my favorite soap opera character. I think Ill give the name to my child, but
rather if you look in the Bible youll see a name was the way in which the parent decided,
This is the kind of child I want this child to be. I want this child to grow up like this.
When God changes someones nature, their name is changed, Saul to Paul, Abram to
Abraham, and so on. You know how that works. Therefore, when God comes to Adam and
says, I want you to name the animals, what hes saying is, I want you to bring order out
of something wild. I want you to have an impact. I want you to shape them. I want you to
take over. I want you to take charge of them. I want you to take charge of the world and
take the disorder and take the formlessness and bring order to it. Bring something orderly
out of something wild.
Thats what he created Adam to do. What did he create Eve to do? He created Eve to be
a helper. Now the trouble with this word helper It has done so much damage. The
English word helper is a bad way to translate this word. When we think of helper, usually
we think of weakness, Daddys little helper. Whats Daddys little helper? A helper is
someone who says, Well, look, honey, you cant really make this doghouse were working
on here.
I am building a doghouse.
Well, honey, you cant make the doghouse, but you can help me. You can go get the
nails. You can get the hammer. Thats what we think the word help means. No way.
Biblically, the word help is an extremely sophisticated term. First of all, the word help is
almost always used of God in the Bible. God is our help and our strength and our refuge in
a time of trouble.
When Eve was created to be Adams helper, a helper is someone who has power and
resources that the helpee does not have. Therefore, when Eve was created as Adams helper,
that absolutely implies deficiencies in Adam that Eve does not have. It implies a power and
resources Eve has that Adam doesnt have, clearly.
The word help means You cant help somebody unless you have something they
dont. For example, supposedly I can help my son with his algebra. Why? Supposedly, I
know more about algebra than he does. Thats why I can help. Suppose I never took
algebra. I cant help him. Dont you see? Thats the biblical sense of the word help. I have
to have something he doesnt have, but theres another side to the word help. This is the
secret to what femininity is.
If I know more about algebra than my son, I can help him, but there are two ways in
which I can use that power. I can use it by bringing myself under him to enable him, to
bring him along, to empower him so he is brought to the place where he can do it himself,
or I can replace him. I can help him with my power, or I can replace him; I can do it for
him.
If I do it for him, Im not helping him. Im using my power, but not in a helpful way.
Helping is a specific use of power. Its putting yourself underneath somebody else and in a
sense running your power through that person. Its an enabling. Its an empowering. The
word help implies, on the one hand, Eve has resources Adam doesnt have.
It also implies Eve has a gift, a way of using that power which is enabling and
ennobling and empowering. This interesting, important word helper then proves something,
I think. Now I have to be very careful. Give me about three minutes to walk a tightrope.
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This is very important because Im going to come back to the idea of giftedness.
Just as Carol Gilligan said, who was not by any means coming from an evangelical
Christian position, men see themselves maturing as they separate. They have the gift of
independence, and they want impact. Women have the gift of interdependence. They see
themselves maturing as they attach. They want networking. They want to be
interdependent, and they want to shape people that way.
Therefore, we can say a man looks to be completed by powerfully subduing the world
through work. A woman looks to be completed by receiving and becoming part of an
interdependent network. You see that not just in what the research says. You dont just see
that in the second-stage feminism books. Of course, you know the place I would part here
is most of the second-stage feminism books say, This is the difference between men and
women, and women are better.
Heres what I want to ask you. If youre the person who has the gift of independence,
the gift of separation, the gift of moving out without a team and just doing it, and heres a
person who has a gift of consensus-building and moving people together and moving
people into a team, which of those things always works? Which of those things is always
the wise way to go? Which of those things always is what is called for by the situation? The
answer is neither. The answer is both.
When we talk about the helpership of women, does that mean men are never supposed
to nurture? When we talk about the desire for impact of men, does that mean women are
never supposed to achieve? No, what makes you masculine or feminine is not what you do,
but why you do it. The men nurture in order to have impact. The women achieve in order to
nurture. Its there. Its very fundamental.
Its deep, and its part of what it means to be masculine and feminine. The only way you
find it is in creation. It does not mean that women dont name animals. It doesnt mean men
arent supposed to help their wives, but what it does mean is theres gift. Heres where you
have to walk this rope.
Can anybody remember when we talked about spiritual gifts? Weve been in the book
of Ephesians for something like 18 years now, so its a long time, but every spiritual gift is
also a duty. When the Bible says some people have the gift of evangelism, that means some
are especially good at it, but every Christian is supposed to witness.
When the Bible says some people have the gift of teaching, that means some people are
good at it, but everybody is supposed to communicate the Word. When we talk about
women having a giftedness of using their power in a way that enables, when we talk about
the gift of interdependence, and the man having the gift of independence, we do not mean,
therefore, the woman is never supposed to be independent or the man is never supposed to
be interdependent.
Were talking about gifts and duties. Were talking about things youre especially good
at. Why does the Bible say when the husband and wife come together they complete each
other? Because theres a dark side to your gift. If youre an evangelist type, if youre the
kind of person that your gift is to win new people into the faith, your gift is not to build
them up and train them and disciple them.
The dark side of your gift is youre always going to tend to be imbalanced, and youre
going to need somebody around who says, Wait a minute. Youre getting all these people
indoors, what are we doing to help them? If youre the kind of person who has a gift for
training and discipling, you have a dark side to your gift. There tends to be an imbalance.
You need an evangelist to complete you, and you need an evangelist to teach you how to
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evangelize when you do it, even though thats not your gift.
In the same way, the masculine gift of independence always has a tendency to become
autonomy and tyranny, and the female gift of interdependence always has the tendency to
become dependence. That leads us to the second basic truth. We said in the book of Genesis
the first basic truth is men and women are created differently.
The second basic truth is theyre both corrupted. They both, under the influence of sin,
have gone bad because in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve rebel against God, God comes
down and says, You will sweat and work in the dust of the ground, and thorns and thistles
will come up. He says that to Adam. Then he says to Eve, You will have pain in
childbearing, and your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you.
If you want confirmation of this fundamental difference between husbands and wives,
between men and women, here it is. When God curses humanity, he curses different
aspects. When he curses Adam, he curses his work. He says, Your need and your desire to
have an impact on the world, to be independent, to achieve, is going to become an idol. Its
going to become too important to you, and you will always be frustrated because it will
never give you what you want.
He turns to the wife, and what does he curse there? He curses her relationships. He
says, You will want your husband desperately, but your husband will rule over you. Right
there we have such an important teaching. The teaching is the wifes interdependent gift
under the influence of sin will trip her up. She will become a dependent person. She will
want to be taken care of. The husband, whose independent gift is now under the influence
of sin, instead of being an independent person, will be a tyrant, and he will rule over and
master her.
Thats why whats so intriguing to me is when the feminist literature says, Heres the
macho man. Heres the Marlboro man. Here is the cowboy. Heres the Rambo. Heres the
guy whos really giving us the problems. Heres the guy who abuses women, if not
physically then in other ways. Over here is the Cinderella, the princess complex. Heres the
teen queen prom dream. Heres the woman who just wants someone to take care of her.
Heres somebody who just wants to be on the arm of somebody whos big and rich and who
can just take care of her and let her nurture away, and not have to stand on her own, the
feminists are right because in Genesis 3 it says that is whats going to happen.
When masculinity and femininity go bad, the independence becomes tyranny and
autonomy and the interdependence becomes dependence and masochism. Unless you
understand these two things, the traditionalist people, the people who are always stressing
the fact that, Yes, husbands need to rule over their wives. They need to take charge,
theyre forgetting the curse.
Theyre forgetting the fact that the Bible teaches men will tend to oppress women, and
women will tend to want them to make it easy for them. Thatll be a tendency, but the sins
of the men and the women will tend to feed on one another. Unless there are proper
safeguards, unless were very careful about that, were overlooking a clear teaching of the
Scripture.
Women, those of you who are in the workplace, especially in male-dominated fields,
look at whats happening to you. Whats happening to you is youre in a place where all the
rules are masculine. People dont work in teams. You get out there. You watch your back.
Youre independent. Youre cutthroat. Its a masculine approach to professionalism. You
stuff your feelings. You dont worry about that.
In that situation, whats happening though is because its not a Christian context,
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because its not a context in which theres this covenant of love, like in the marriage where
two people are committee to one another, in that situation, youll find youre continually
being pressed out of your femininity, but not in a way thats loving and not in a way thats
constructive. Youre being pulled away and say, Dont be dependent. Dont be a
Cinderella, but youre not being pulled away in a loving way.
The fact is women and men in marriage are supposed to learn to submit to one another,
and in marriage the husband is supposed to have a loving authority. In marriage the wife is
supposed to exercise her helpership. Why? Because the husbands independence will
become tyranny unless the helpership of the wife pulls him back, unless hes continually
being pressed to see what it really means to really be a man, which is not to be a tyrant, but
to be independent, unless she pulls him back.
In the same way, the wife will have a tendency to move toward dependence unless the
husband in his strength pulls her back. There needs to be a completion. The traditionalists
forget the fact that weve been cursed. They forget the fact that men tend to dominate
women; therefore, they have a tendency to just push the old traditional understanding.
The Bible does not support the old Victorian approach to women being owned by their
husbands, but on the other hand, the modernists, the egalitarians, forget the fact that there is
a distinction between masculine and feminine, and there it is. Its very deep. Its all the way
down. Theres more were going to cover next week. What I need to do is just press you
this far.
3. The what of gender roles in marriage
Marriage, I said, for a couple weeks is friendship, but now you see its a lot more than
friendship because no matter how deeply two men or two women grow into friendship, in
other words, two women becoming dear friends, two men becoming dear friends, whether
that is a completely platonic thing or even an erotic thing, the Bible teaches a man cannot
complete a man, and a woman cannot complete a woman, not in this fundamental way.
What happens is when you get married, and you are continually finding you are relating
to someone of the other gender, youre continually brought up against this very odd
mystery. The mystery is on the one hand this is a person who is utterly unlike you, utterly
different, thinks differently, and operates differently. In some cases its frustrating. In many
cases its scary, and sometimes its just downright incomprehensible.
On the other hand, at a deeper, deeper level, Im finding who I really am. This is my
other half. This is my completion. This is me. What the Bible is saying is that it goes a lot
deeper. Theres a mystery to the otherness of gender. One more thing: What is submission?
I just need to summarize it because next week we can get back and lay these things out in a
much more detailed way.
What then is submission? Its tie-breaking authority. If a husband and wife are friends,
and the Bible says as iron sharpens iron, friend sharpens friend. It is a complete
misunderstanding, its a traditionalist distortion of headship and submission, to say the wife
is the submitter and the husband is the head. That means the husband gets his way. The
husband makes the decisions in the family.
Thats ridiculous because if marriage is the ultimate friendship and iron sharpens iron as
friend sharpens friends, if in good friendships you have this clash, you have this consensusbuilding, you have this debating going on, then in marriage there also has to be this
equality, this contention, this sharpening each other. How else are you going to be grabbing
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each other and pulling each other away from the dark side of your gifts? You have to have
the right to do that.
Therefore, most all the time, the way a husband and wife make decisions, especially
since the Bible says as Jesus Christ died for the church; therefore, the husband would never,
ever, ever, have the right just simply to use his authority to simply please himself, ever. So
what you do is youre sitting there trying to figure out whats best, but what happens when
you cannot agree?
The egalitarian marriage people say you just dont make the decision if you cant agree.
That doesnt always work. What if you cant agree on where to put your kids in school?
Public or private or this private or that private school? What if you cant agree? You have to
put them somewhere. How do you break the tie? The Bibles answer is let the husband do
it. Why?
The Bible says when you let the husband initiate, when the wife defers, youre getting
in touch with something deep inside you. Youre getting in touch with your masculinity and
your femininity. Youre getting in touch with something very deep, something very real. It
glorifies God, and its in accord with your particular modality of humanity. It will not
necessarily fit what youve been taught to believe in your English courses in college.
It will not necessarily fit even your feelings, but you will find it actually fits the reality
of who you are. When the Bible talks about let the husband lead in the final analysis. Let
him have tie-breaking authority, which formally is not something that is used very often. In
my own marriage, you can count on two hands how many times that has actually happened,
the formal exercise of authority.
What the Bible is actually saying is at this point, in this place where you let the husband
initiate, where you let the wife defer, you will find you are getting in touch with something
very deep inside yourself. What youre actually doing is youre becoming more masculine
and more feminine and together more complete and more restored into the image of God.
The perfect case is here is a person who wants to plant a church in New York, and hes
married to a person who doesnt want to. Listen, heres how it goes. He says to her, Hey, I
want to go. You dont want to go. If you dont want to go, Im not going to force you. Of
course, not. So we wont go.
She turns around and says, Wait a minute. You just let me break the tie. Whats the use
of you being the man anyway here? If you see God calling you into the wild, if you see God
calling you out to do something wild Look, I dont like to take risks. I dont like doing
that. Its bothering my nesting instinct, but if God is calling you to do that, for gosh sakes,
be a man. Break the tie.
Is that wimpy? Thats helping. At that point, the husband and the wife are submitting to
a role they didnt really want. The husband doesnt really want to take the responsibility,
but the wife is actually pressing him. In a wimpy way? No, to be a helper takes a terrific
amount of strength. She presses him into the most masculine thing he has ever done.
On the other hand, by her deferring to me and saying, I will support you no matter
what, and I wont say I told you so no matter what happens, shes doing the most feminine
kind of keeping her strength and her power under me and enabling me with it. Dear friends,
you come to find out who you really are.
We know tons of people who for years were homosexual but who now are in Christian
heterosexual marriages. We even know one guy who was two weeks from a sex change
operation, having lived as a woman for two years in Washington, DC. Theyll tell you the
same thing.
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When you actually begin to submit to what the Scripture says the fundamental
differences are between husband and wife, its not oppressive by any means. Oh no, the
husband cannot demand headship. He can only earn it. The wife can give it, and when that
happens you get in touch with a fundamental difference between maleness and femaleness
in you that only submission to the rulebook of the Designer will help you to discover.
Next week we come back because I know it raises a lot of issues, and the time is up.
The issues are, Im single. Does that mean I cant get completed? The answer is
unfortunately were sub-men and sub-women. Marriage is for sinners, and the trouble is
marriage between sinners, as good as it is, is nowhere near as good as its supposed to be or
good as it ought to be. The sanctification differential between being married and being
single according to the Scripture is a trade-off.
If God calls you into marriage, thats the way God wants you to grow into
completeness. If God doesnt want you right now to be married Listen, men. Jesus is the
Helper. Listen, women. Jesus is the Head. He is the paragon of both masculinity and
femininity. He is so masculine he makes us men feminine in relationship to him. Thats why
hes the head and were the church and the bride.
Theres another place where Jesus Christ says, Can a mother forget the baby that sucks
at her breast? She may forget, but I will not forget thee. What God is saying is, I am so
nurturant. I am such a Helper that I even make you women look masculine in comparison
to me. Do you want to be completed ultimately? Come to me. Do you want to know what it
means to be a man? Look at me. Do you want to know what it means to be a woman? Look
at me.
God says, Im more of a man and more of a woman than you are. Therefore, regardless
of where you are, come to me, and I can complete you. If youre being called into
marriage, stop being scared of it. If youre not being called into marriage, stop wanting it so
badly, because its God who provides the sanctification. Its God who provides the
restoration of unity. Its God who provides the completion.
Were going to finish up on this next week. Im going to pray, but then when we sing
this final little hymn
Oh Lord, youre beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child,
Your grace abounds to me.
thats the completion of which even the best marriages are only a dim hint. Lets bow in
prayer.
Our Father, we ask now that you would help us to see this complicated and yet wonderful
and mysterious subject is again nothing but a beautiful parable, a beautiful picture of the
way in which you complete us. Father, we thank you that your Son is our Husband. We
thank you that even the best marriages are just dim hints of the joy and the rapture of being
one with your Son.
We pray, Lord, everyone here will be more equipped to understand the glories of their
salvation because they begin to understand youve called us to be men and women as well
as people under God. We thank you for this teaching, and we pray, oh Lord, complete us
now as we lift our souls to you. We ask it in Jesus name, amen.
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MARRIAGE AS COMPLETION;
GENDER ROLESPART 2
MarriageOctober 6, 1991
Ephesians 5:2233
Were looking at a subject thats controversial, and yet on the other hand I find I hate
most controversial subjects, as a lot of you know. I dont enjoy getting after things that
divide people. Yet this is not a controversial issue thats intellectual. This is a very, very
personal one. In most controversial issues its very hard for me to preach with a lot of
conviction because I say, Who knows? There are a lot of wonderful, godly, intelligent
people who believe differently. How do I get off preaching from Mount Olympus and
saying this is the way it is?
In this area, though, I think its biblically clear, and I also know Im going to try
tonight especially to speak as personally out of my own experience as I possibly can. Yet
its still an area where I have to tread lightly. I have to think very carefully, and so tonight
well continue for one more week the subject of looking at the passage (verse 22) of,
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as
Christ is the head of the church
What does this mean? The answer is it means a whole lot. Lets just read the whole
passage as usual, because I like you to keep on thinking of the whole passage. Ephesians
5:2133.
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
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up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
This is Gods Word
Now, Ill recap, elaborate, and work out the implications. What is it that Paul is teaching?
First of all, lets take a look at this word head. For the husband is the head of the wife as
Christ is the head of the church This means two things, and I dont know if you can
Those of you who were here last week might not remember since I, as usual, was verbose
and spent a lot of time developing the themes.
Let me boil the teaching of the passage down to you. First of all, head means the
husband and the wife complete one another. Secondly, head means there actually is an
authority structure inside marriage. Those are the two things. Lets look at them again, and
let me try to elaborate as well and make it as clear as I can.
1. Headship means completion
When it says the husband is the head of the wife, we said the word head means Its just
like the word authority. I didnt say this last week. The word authority has actually two
parts to it. Inside the word authority is the word author. Therefore, the word author means
source. Something has authority if youre the source.
The illustration I like to use, and some of you have heard it, of course, is if youre
having a debate in your English class over what this poem means, and everybody is saying,
I think this means this. Somebody else says, I think it means this. Somebody says, No,
it means this. In comes the poet
Now I know deconstructionists dont care what he thinks, but the normal logical person
realizes in comes the poet, and the poet says, I wrote this thing. Ill tell you what it
means, and everybody shuts up. Why? This is the author speaking. Because hes the
author, he alone can tell you what it means. Hes the source; therefore, he has authority.
The idea of authority and source go together. Even in the English word because inside
the English word authority you have the word author. Inside this Greek word for head, you
have both the idea of source as well as the idea of authority structure. First, you have the
idea of source. When Paul says, The wife submits to the husband, for the husband is head
of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he is talking and thinking about the Old
Testament.
Hes talking about Genesis where were told Eve was created out of Adam. The two
actually were part of one another. You dont have two separate creations ex nihilo. You
dont have Adam created out of the ground and Eve created out of the dust, but you have
Adam created out of the ground and Eve created out of Adam. What is the significance of
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become attached and interdependent. What that boils down to is something pretty
interesting. When two people get together and start to complete each other, that means start
to live together, that means get convinced that each person
How did we put it a couple of weeks ago? You get committed to the glory self of that
person. That means you look into that persons hear, and you see the great potential they
have. You see the great human being God wants to make them. You say, Im committed to
getting that person there. So theres love, theres affirmation, and theres confrontation.
Theres mutual service and all that great stuff that happens, which is hard work, but what
youre doing is youre not battling this out with a person of the same gender.
The confrontation and the criticism and the affirmation and the building up, all this stuff
is not happening with somebody of the same gender. Its someone who is opposite to you,
someone who was created to both oppose you and complete you. Its a hard thing to
describe when you get into it. It doesnt happen with your parents. It doesnt happen with a
friend of the same gender, and it doesnt happen even with a friend of the opposite gender
with whom you dont have this depth of commitment.
In marriage you give people the right to come right on inside. We talked about this
before, to see your dirty parts, to see the most intimate things. Therefore, when you get
someone of the opposite gender in there, the completion work goes on. Its very hard to
describe how something can be opposite to you and at the same time enhancing you.
Musicians know, if heres a musical theme, the right kind of counter theme, which in a
sense opposes the theme, just creates incredible beauty. The wrong kind of counter theme
creates incredible ugliness, and dont ask me how to describe the difference. Everybody
knows that. Everybody knows all by itself a simple melodic line, as beautiful as it is, can be
filled out and furnished and enriched and, in some ways, the beauty of it brought out
because of opposing themes that are being played at the same time.
We also know those opposing themes can be played in such a way as to create
incredible ugliness and just plain noise. Ive heard people try to do it. I took a music theory
class once. Nobody really knows why ugliness happens and why beauty happens, but we
know it happens. So dont try to press me too far on how this completion happens. We just
know it does.
Basically, the completion happens because youre forced for the first time in your life to
continually look at the world through the eyes of someone of another gender. What does it
do? It creates a wisdom and fills you out, just like the opposing theme fills out the melody.
For example, Im thinking of one kind of example. Hear me out before you jump on me for
this.
Here are Kathy and I, and we have two different approaches to emotions. My approach
goes like this. Kathy will one day say to me, Youre mad, arent you? Youre really mad.
Ill say, No, Im not mad. Im fine. I can tell you Im just fine. Three days later, Ill come
back and say, Youre right. I was just really mad.
Shell look at me and say, How can a human being with more than a second-grade
education really live in this world and not know whether theyre mad? How can that be?
How could you stuff your feelings? How could you be so out of touch with yourself?
What shes upset about is my non-completed masculinity. I separate. Im moving out. Im
looking at impact. I dont look inside. I dont look at relationships. I dont care about
attachment.
She has to teach me that, in a sense. She has to furnish that. She has to bring it out.
Shes upset, in a sense, at that point about my uncompleted masculinity. Then later on, I
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may sit down with Kathy, and we both agree theres a person we need to work with, we
need to be civil to, and we need to be courteous to because of a number of situations. That
person has been dirty, has been a louse, so she says, Youre going to have to lead on this
one. I say, Why? She says, Because you know how to stuff your feelings.
By the way, have you ever figured out, women who are in the professional world
The definition of professional behavior is an unrelentingly masculine approach. Because
men were out in the workplace for so long and women were excluded, now that they get in,
all the standards of professional behavior have all been worked out along with masculine
gender types.
What it means to be professional is to stuff your feelings, to be absolutely unwilling to
say to a person youre dealing with how you feel about them, to be completely cool and
completely civil and completely courteous. Now the fact is sometimes thats the right thing
to do. Sometimes thats the servant thing to go. Sometimes thats the mature thing to do, but
very often its not.
Very often when that has to be done, she looks to me, and she says, You help me
because you know how to stuff those feelings so deep you dont even know what the heck
youre feeling for three days. Somebody says, Wait a minute. This is unfair. These are
sexual stereotypes: the insensitive male and the emotional female. Im sorry. Theyre not
stereotypes. Theyre us. What do you think stereotypes are? Uncompleted masculinity,
unredeemed masculinity, and unredeemed femininity.
What happens when you get two people together who are completing each other, who
are pressing each other, who are confronting each other, who are loving each other into the
kingdom of God, what you are continually doing is you are furnishing out and completing
to keep the independence from becoming tyranny, to keep the interdependence from
becoming dependence. We pull it together.
In fact, heres whats interesting. If I am, as a man, over gender-typed, overly
independent, and overly autonomous, my spouse calls me on it, because she sees it, because
shes so sensitive to it. On the other hand, if Im under gender-typed, if Im not independent
enough in a situation that calls for it, she can call me on that, and vice versa. Were
completing each other. Were pulling each other together. Were bringing it together.
Its a mystery that at some deep level you realize, when youre dealing with somebody
of the other gender, Heres a person whos different than me and at the same time who is
me, whos restoring me, whos healing me, whos turning me more and more and restoring
me into the image of God.
male and female created he them. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of
my flesh
2. Headship means authority
I did mention one thing last week, but I think Id better be as clear as I possibly can. When
in this place the Bible says, Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives,
what is it requiring? Let me give you a kind of little readout. I talked all week to people
about this thing, and most everybody says, I think I got you, and I think I can live with it.
Even if I dont like what you said, at least its in the ballpark, and so let me try to work
this out.
What does it mean when the Bible says, Wives, submit to your husbands ? First, it
does not mean the wives give the husbands unconditional obedience. It does not. Ill get in
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trouble with somebody here. Here we go. In Acts 5:28, the civil magistrates tell the
disciples to stop preaching Christ. Go to Romans 13, and you will see it says the Christian
must always obey the civil magistrate, must always obey the government. Thats what it
says in Romans 13.
In Acts 5:29, what does Peter say? He says, God should judge whether we should obey
you rather than him. The point is any human authority you defer to, any support of human
authority, must never be unconditional. You give Christ unconditional obedience, but your
obedience to any human authority is conditioned on this. You are free from human authority
if to support that human authority you have to forbid what God enjoins or enjoin what God
forbids.
If youre supporting a human authority that is pressing you to sin, that is supporting sin,
at that point your obligation to that human authority goes. You cannot read Romans 13, that
says obey the civil authority as something absolute. In light of Acts 5:29, where the apostles
look at the civil magistrates and say, Youre telling us to no longer preach the gospel. God
says we have to preach the gospel. At that point, we are no longer under your authority.
This would mean certainly for a wife to support the authority of her husband when that
authority is supporting those things which God forbids If he says, Youre going to help
me sell drugs, if hes beating her, in other words, to support authority thats actually
supporting that which God forbids, of course, thats silly. Thats ridiculous. It goes against
Acts 5:29. You must never, ever, ever read that verse
That verse where it says, Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, does not
mean, In the same way you obey the Lord. Its saying as you obey the Lord, you will
obey your husband. You will obey your husband because you obey the Lord. It doesnt say
obey your husband in the same way, to the same dimensions, that you obey the Lord.
I know people have taken it that way. I know the church has twisted it that way. I cant
help that. Im not defending the church. Im defending the Bible here tonight. So it doesnt
say when it says submit to your husbands that means theres some kind of unconditional
obedience, some kind of unconditional servile total authority the wife is supposed to give
herself to.
Secondly, I think I did say this last week to some degree. When it says, Wives, submit
to your husbands it does not mean wives do not take part in the consensus form of
decision-making. The Victorian model of family authority, the little wifey model of
authority, says, Wives, submit to your husbands. That means let your husbands make the
decisions, and you just run errands, you just smile, and you just demurely submit to him.
They never thought about what it means to complete one another.
When the Bible says friends are supposed to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron,
how much more the ultimate friendship! If submitting to your husband means your husband
makes the decisions, that you never argue, you never go at it hammer and tongs, theres no
completing going on. How does completion work? Completion is hard word. Completion is
conflict. Completion is going at each other. Completion is arguing. Completion is beating
one another up in love. Im talking, of course, metaphorically.
Completion has to happen that way. Therefore, its really clear from the Scripture, just
by all this talk about how youre supposed to sanctify each other, youre supposed to be
washing each other, and youre supposed to be dealing with each others blemishes and
confronting each other Its extremely clear that means decision making is always by
consensus. You fight it out. You duke it out. You spend a long time sharpening one another.
That has to happen or theres no completion.
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Then somebody says, All right. What does it mean? We did say this last week, but Ill
show you again why. What does it mean for us to say, Wives, submit to your husbands
? What it means is when you cant agree after lots of completion, after lots of
consensus, somebody has to break the tie. Let the husband do it. Why? Because the Bible
says when that happens, when the husband breaks the tie, when the wife defers, then youre
getting in touch with your masculinity and femininity even though you may not like it. You
will. Youll find it. Its there.
I have lots of friends who believe very much in something that is a completely new idea
in the whole history of the world, and that is egalitarian marriage. It might be right, but at
least you realize how incredibly innovative the whole thing is. In an egalitarian marriage
they say decision making has to happen, and no one breaks the tie. You work it out. If you
cant come to agreement on it, nobody has the right to break the tie and take the authority.
Nobody has been able to argue me out of this. My experience is thats impossible. There
are just too many places where you have to make a decision, and then not to make a
decision means youre actually giving one person their way. The perfect example, which I
used last week and I didnt use our names, but of course, you knew what it was all about.
Heres Tim Keller who wants to go to New York to start a church, and heres Kathy
Keller who doesnt. I mentioned this, but I dont think I brought this out so clearly. At one
time during all of this battling, we suddenly realized there was no way we could decide not
to decide. At one point, I said to her, Well, if you dont want to go, were not going to go.
She pointed out to me, That means I get to break the tie. We suddenly realized, Oh
my gosh, theres no way out. Either I got to break the tie, or she got to break the tie. There
was no third way. There were no alternatives. There is no such thing as an egalitarian
approach here. No way. I can think of dozens and dozens of other situations, like Do you
put your kids in private school or public school or what school? and so forth.
Not to decide is to decide. Whos going to break the tie? At that point, my wife says,
You break the tie. Do you see what happened? My wife and I are not from the Midwest.
Were not from the South. Were from the Northeast, raised in public schools, and went to
private schools. We dont have any ideological prejudice toward this approach. Not only
that, neither of us, as most of you know, are very overly gender-typed.
Therefore, why did we do it? Why did we decide in this marriage, when we cant come
to a consensus, when we really are kind of at loggerheads, weve done all the completing
we possibly can, we cant bring ourselves around, why let Tim make the decision? I want
you to realize this has happened less than 10 times in our marriage. In fact, we can only
name about six, but were sure there must be some other ones.
Why? We did it as unto the Lord. We did it simply to obey, simply because somebody
has to do it. If you dont decide who its going to be on the basis of what the Bible says, on
the basis of revelation, what are you going to do? Whoever has the loudest mouth, whoever
is the best at manipulation? What are you going to do?
I think thats the only alternative. If somebody has a better alternative, show me. As you
can tell, Ive been talking about this for 17 years to people, and nobody has even come
close yet to showing me what that third way is. You have to decide whos going to do it. We
have found even though ideologically and emotionally and every other way, it doesnt
really make much sense to us, we found out it did bring out something in us.
It did get us in touch with the male and the female form of our humanity. It did make us
fit. It did complete us in a way we never, ever would have thought of. Heres the other
wonderful thing about this teaching you must never, ever miss. It says wives, respect your
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husbands. It does not say, Husbands, get the respect of your wives. Take the respect of
your wives.
The only thing husbands are commanded to do in a biblical marriage is love. I want you
to think about the implications of this. One of the guys I go to all the time, because I respect
him so much as a teacher, as a scholar, and as a preacher was a Welsh pastor preacher,
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I got out his sermon on this text.
Lloyd-Jones was a man from the old school. He was raised in Wales in the early part of
the twentieth century, and he was by no means what you might call a modernist. He tended
to be very, very old school in many ways. It was amazing what he said. He says, The clear
implications of this text where wives are told to respect their husbands, but husbands are
not told to exert their headship, but only told to love, the clear teaching is husbands are not
at all entitled to headship unless they are loving their wives sacrificially.
Ill put it another way. Headship is never, ever something you demand or take. Its only
something you can receive. If there are any women in this audience who feel like, I hate
this idea of headship, you have to see the Christian understanding of headship is incredibly
realistic. It says a husband never, ever, ever has the right to take it, only to receive it, never
has the right to demand it, only to earn it.
If hes not earning it, if you dont trust him Husbands, if she doesnt trust you, if
youre not living such a sacrificial life for her, putting her needs ahead of yours so she
trusts you, shes not going to give you headship, and you dont deserve it. You dont even
have any right to have it, nor can you ever demand it. Do you want headship? You love her
until she finds its something she wants to do. Thats what the Scripture says, clear
implications. It never says, Rule your wife. Never. It says, Love your wife.
Yet, on the other hand, it turns around to the wife and says, Respect and give the
headship to your husband. The realism of this thing is overwhelming. Why? Do you
remember? We said Genesis 2 and 3 tell us sin has changed the headship principle and
twisted it so men will naturally oppress women. Itll always be a tendency. It will always be
there. It doesnt eliminate the headship principle. Plenty of people say because of that
oppression, we have to eliminate it totally in marriage; its just too dangerous.
If it was too dangerous, theres wisdom to that, but the Bible doesnt give you that
wisdom. We cant try to be wiser than the Scripture. What the Scripture does, though, is it
hedges it about with all kinds of marvelous and wonderful safety catches, and heres one of
them. Husbands, youre never allowed to take the headship. Youre only allowed to receive
it. Youre only allowed to earn it.
Theres no oppression here. Theres not even any chance of oppression if two people
who sit down go in and understand what the Scripture teaches. People can twist Scripture.
They can twist anything if they want to. If you look at the Scripture and see what its
saying, its impossible with a decent understanding of it to use it to kill each other with.
People do it all the time. Its because they dont understand it.
Somebody says, Well, look, if this is really true that male and female are that different,
and they complement one another, if thats really the basis for this unity, why is it the Bible
doesnt command all women to submit to all men? Why is it theres only a command inside
a covenantal relationship?
The answer again is the realism of the Bible. The realism of the Bible is it knows
because of the influence of sin just what havoc that would wreak and why the Bible does
not say all women are supposed to submit to all men. It simply says in a covenantal
relationship which is hedged about by all these safeguards of this commitment to absolute
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love, there and only there with all these qualifications can you begin to practice the
headship principle and get back in touch with the primordial unity Adam and Eve
experienced.
Well never get all the way there. There are only flashes of it. Its the only safe place to
try it, inside a covenant, inside a commitment, inside a legal bond, but in there work on it,
and wait till you see how wonderful it is occasionally in splashes to really be at ease. This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh
The other part of this verse is actually something thats just too wonderful, and its
always missed because everybody is so busy arguing over what the heck it means for wives
to submit to their husbands they overlook the fact that it says, For the husband is the head
of the wife as Christ is the head of the church This is actually teaching us something
marvelous about a relationship with Christ and also saying if you dont understand the
glory of your relationship with Christ, youll never be decent in your marriage.
going to cover it. Im going to deal with it because I see the glorious person youre going to
be in me.
Thats how he regards you, and thats how he looks at you. It says as the husband looks
at the wife and wants to present her to himself spotless and pure, and all that kind of stuff.
Thats in spite of love. What does he see in you? Ill tell you something. Its pretty hard. It
doesnt happen that much in New York because we are so image-conscious that almost
none of us will be caught dead with somebody whose glory is not seen by everybody else
around.
Thank God Jesus is not like us. Thank God Jesus is not at all like us. He sees the jewels
under the earth, and he says, Im committed to that. He loves you in spite of all the lack
of glory and the lack of beauty and the lack of purity.
Thirdly, whenever you fall in love with somebody, you do everything for them. Before
you used to enjoy going fishing, but now, frankly, you dont enjoy fishing unless hes along
or shes along. Before you made money, now you really make money for her or for him.
Now you think about what you can do together. What happens is when youre really in
love, you cant imagine and you cant enjoy anything without that person.
Did you hear about the artist who was absolutely ruined as an artist? He was a
landscape artist, and he fell in love. Unfortunately, no matter what he drew, he stuck her.
Every single painting he put her. He couldnt get his mind Everything was done for her.
Jesus Christ did not die for justice. He does not live for abstract holiness. Its for you. The
Bible says he does everything for you.
Romans 8:28 says, all things work together for good to them that love God
Ephesians 1 says hes governing all history, all of circumstances. Everything is happening
for you. How does Jesus regard us, the church? You send a prayer up there, and he gets it.
He opens his mail, and he says, Ah, a letter from the church. Lets see, the church. Yeah, a
little organization I left down on earth 2,000 years ago. I wonder how theyre getting
along.
No, the Scripture says he does everything for the church. He lives for the church.
Everything that happens is done for the church, for you and me. He doesnt govern the
universe on the basis of abstract principles of righteousness or justice. Its all for you, just
like a man in love. Can you believe that? Can you understand that? Can you think about
that? You wont ever have a good marriage if you cant be ravished with the love with
which hes ravished with you.
Lastly, Christs love is authority. The big problem, the reason a lot of you are scared to
death to get married, and were going to talk about that finally next week Youll say,
What if Im divorced? What if Im homosexual? What if Im single? What does all this
have to do with me? It has a lot to do with you. Thats next week.
Ill tell you one thing. One of the reasons why Somebody says, I want to hear this.
Actually, I dont know what the heck youve been doing for the past eight weeks. You
might as well come next week. Why you were here for the last eight weeks, I dont know.
One of the reasons a lot of people are so scared about marriage, and rightly so, is when you
fall in love, you fall under the authority of that love.
Were not talking now about wife or husband. You know darned well how hard it is to
actually be in love with somebody because now youre not your own person. You have to
make decisions with them. You cant decide, Hey, I want to move to L.A. You have to
find out whether she wants to move to L.A. too. Theres an authority under which you
come. You lose control when youre in love. You have to lose control if youre in love.
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Ephesians 5:2133
21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your
husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits
to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh. 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the
church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and
the wife must respect her husband.
This passage in Ephesians 5 on marriage is the ninth sermon on Marriage, and this is the
last one. I want to start off right now by saying, unfortunately, there are a lot of people Ive
talked to over these nine weeks whove said, Are you going to say this? Are you going to
get to this? and I said, Yes. I dont know if Im going to do it. I have to be done tonight.
Were done. Im tired, youre tired, of marriage. I just have to finish tonight.
From here, Ive said, Well, Ill say this or Ill address this person. Im not sure if
Im going to get to it all tonight. I want to apologize ahead of time. Dont be too mad. If
you are somebody I talked to somewhere in the last few days or few weeks and said, Yes, I
will definitely address that, Im just not going to get to it all.
Tonight I would just like to talk about, in some ways, the peak verse of this entire
passage. I wont even read the whole thing again, but its Ephesians 5. I just want to read
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verse 32. Weve been going in these evening services through the book of Ephesians.
Weve come to this passage on Marriage, and were going to look for the last time at it.
The whole passage runs from 5:21 to verse 33, but I would like to just read you one
verse and expound it and try to pull the meaning out of it. Its verse 32, where Paul says,
This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the church. Hes able to
say all this stuff Ive been talking to you about husbands and wives and love and
submission and relationships. Its all been about Christ and the church as well.
If I was going to name this sermon, and maybe I should someday, I would call it
something besides Marriage #9. Id call it The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. What Paul is
saying is, Everything Ive said in these verses you can say about the married state and
about the gospel state, about your relationship between you and Christ.
Ill put it this way. This verse is teaching us there are some things we would never know
about marriage if we dont know about how you relate to Christ by faith. Conversely, there
are things we would never know about our relationship with Christ if we didnt know about
marriage. When you look at marriage, you see things you would never know about a
relationship with Christ otherwise.
When you look at Christ in a relationship with him, you learn things about marriage you
wouldnt know otherwise. Did you catch that? Theres two sides. In some ways, what Paul
is saying is if you dont know both marriage and a relationship with Christ, you dont really
know either. In a sense, one teaches you about the other, and you cant completely
understand one without understanding the other.
All I would like to do is lay out those two headings, though you could go on infinitely
thinking and reflecting about this. What does marriage teach us about our relationship with
Jesus and what does our relationship with Jesus teach us about marriage? I would just like
to take those two headings, and I would just like to say there are two things Id like to
mention under each heading. Two things we learn.
1. What does marriage tell us about our relationship with Jesus?
What do we learn from marriage? What do we learn from being married? What do we learn
from what the Bible teaches about marriage that teaches us what it means to be a Christian?
Here are the two things. Lets look at them.
First of all, I believe marriage teaches you about repentance and grace in a way
nothing else on earth can. It teaches you why your relationship with Christ has to be based
on repentance and grace, not on works, not on good deeds, not on performance, because
your marriage relationship could never be based on your good deeds and your performance.
Secondly, marriage teaches us about the relationship of intimacy to fruitfulness. Ill go
back over both of these.
A. Marriage teaches us about grace and repentance. A lot of us think we know about it.
We think we know what it means to repent and believe. Until you get married, you realize
you dont know much about it. It was pretty interesting yesterday, for example, for me just
to hear briefly a place where Orrin Hatch at the hearing said sexual harassment is
unforgivable.
Does he really mean that? Does he know what hes saying? Whats interesting to me is
he does know what hes saying because in the public realm, from what I can tell, generally
speaking people dont believe in forgiveness. They believe if you forgive people for things
they have done, youll be crushed. You cant forgive people.
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When Lee Atwater, conservative republican official who recently died of cancer
Maybe some of you saw this. It just didnt get the press I thought it probably deserved. Lee
Atwater was a dirty politician, a backstabber, somebody who went and dug up dirt and used
it against his opponents in campaigns. He got cancer. Before he died, he was converted.
From what I can tell, he became a born-again Christian.
What he began to do is to confess and ask forgiveness. He began to confess his sins to
people. He said, I was a dirty politician. I was a dirty dog. It was interesting to see how
people responded. It was interesting to see what the writers and the pundits and the
columnists said. Basically, they had to be a little bit careful because the man was dying, and
they liked the fact he was admitting he was a dirty dog.
Basically, you could tell what they were saying was, What do you mean forgive? How
do you forgive somebody for something like that? What do you mean wipe the slate clean,
and everything is okay? Come on. Nobody believes in that really. You dont forgive groups
of people for sins against other groups of people. You dont do that. All you do is remind
them about it forever. You never, ever, ever, ever forgive. Somebody decides to ask
forgiveness. Good. Im glad he has admitted the kind of person he really is, but forgive
him? Come on.
Chuck Colson, who worked in the Nixon administration, whos a very famous bornagain Christian type, the way in which he was regarded from what I can tell basically by the
media is with absolute scorn. The idea that somebody who did the things he did Now
he gets converted, and he says, God has forgiven me, and he expects us to forgive and
forget, to wipe the past clean? Come on. Thats the attitude.
The attitude is to forgive means you put yourself in a place of weakness, and you will
be absolutely crushed. When you get married, you find its actually the opposite. If you
dont forgive, if you dont put the past behind you, if you dont start clean, you will be
crushed. Its exactly the opposite.
Out in the world, people say, Hey, you achieve or you dont. If you fail, if you blow it,
dont ask us to forgive. Dont ask us to wipe out the past. If you sin, itll be on your blot
forever. We will always consider you that way. Give me a break. Wipe out the past.
Forgiveness. Come on. Youll be crushed if you forgive people.
In marriage youll be crushed if you dont. What you see in marriage for the first time is
you cant be saved by your works. You cant be saved by your performance. You have to be
saved by sheer grace, by constant forgiveness, and by constant repentance. In fact, in a
good marriage, what you have is the drama of salvation continually and constantly played
out.
If fact, sometimes it goes through the cycle. I call it the gospel cycle. The gospel cycle
happens actually several times a day in a very, very, very small way, and then sometimes a
couple of times a month in a large way, and actually a couple of times in a lifetime in a
very, very large way. The drama basically is you have peace and you have harmony until
somebody decides to live for their own glory. Somebody decides to put his or her own
glory and happiness above the other one. Because that person sins, that person decides to
go his or her own way, decides to live for his or her own glory, theres estrangement and
alienation.
Heres peace and harmony, and then theres sin. Then theres estrangement, alienation,
and hostility. Then somebody reaches out, and theres redemption. Theres reconciliation,
and theres peace and harmony. Thats the cycle. In every good marriage that sort of thing is
happening constantly at various degrees of seriousness. Let me give you an example of
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pig sty, but Ive been reading books about this. All kids need to separate to come to
maturity. So I would like my place back, maybe not the room I had before.
Thats not what he does. In repentance what you say is, No excuses, no defenses, I will
take whatever you can give me, in your time, at your discretion. That is what reinstitutes
the relationship, and nothing else. Its one of my favorite illustrations, and when I saw this
movie I dont remember much else about the movie. It wasnt a terribly remarkable
movie, but it was the movie with Ted Danson and Jack Lemmon and Ethan Hawke. It was
called Dad. It wasnt a big splash. It was probably last year.
Theres this one place where the college-age son talks to his father, Ted Danson, and
says, Dad, why did you leave us? He divorced the family, and he left the mother with the
kids. The kid looks at the father, and theyve always been estranged. He says, Dad, why
did you leave us? Ted says, Well, we had irreconcilable differences. We had two different
views of life. We were both really young. Neither of us really knew what we wanted to do.
The son is looking at him. Finally, Ted puts his head down, and he says, Let me tell
you why I left, because I loved the powerful feeling I had when I made money and I
couldnt make money and have the job I wanted to have and still have that family, because
your mother was always making me feel guilty. I loved the power. I wanted that more than I
wanted to raise you, and thats why I left.
When he did that, he moved from explanation to repentance, and instantly you could
sense the relationship was resurrected instantly. The director knew the way human beings
were. The gospel was happening. There was real repentance, and so there was real
reconciliation. What was so funny was as soon as he was willing to admit just how bad the
past was, you could see the son was sitting there ready to say, Im ready to forget the past
if youll just admit it. What has come between me and you is your pride, Dad.
Repentance is something you learn. Everybody thinks repentance and forgiveness and
admitting youre wrong and confession will crush you out there, but in marriage itll crush
you if you dont do it. In fact, let me go this far. If you dont understand the important of
repentance, you dont understand the gospel. When youre depressed, the best thing you
can do for yourself is repent. When youre bitter, the best thing you can do is repent. When
youre being accused falsely and persecuted, the best thing you can do is repent.
If you say, What? I admit when youre trying to help somebody whos depressed or
whos bitter or who has been falsely accused, you shouldnt call them to repent because
theyre going to say, I feel bad enough as it is. How can you put a guilt trip on me? If you
have any kind of maturity and any kind of understanding of the gospel, you will know the
best thing you can do when youre depressed or bitter or persecuted is repent.
Find something to repent of. Why? Because when you get depressed, you put yourself
back in control. Here you are depressed, and youre saying, Whats all this happening to
me for? Find something to repent of. Dont say, Well, maybe the reason I lost my job or
maybe the reason this sickness has happened is because Im a bad person. Thats not what
I mean.
What I mean is you can start to say, Wait a minute. Why dont I trust God to be
working in this? Whats the matter with me? Why have I stopped praying just because it
doesnt seem Im getting answers to my prayers? You start repenting for what you can
repent of, and you find yourself getting back in control.
You begin to realize whats making you depressed is not your circumstances but your
responses to your circumstances, and you have control over that. When you start to repent,
you start to say, Wake up. Whats going on here? You stop being a victim. It doesnt get
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rid of the circumstances that are so bad, but it puts you back in control.
For example, what if youre bitter? The best thing you can do for yourself is repent, of
anything, because what makes you bitter is the fact you dont think youre a sinner. What
makes you so miserable is you cant forgive. Youre so angry because youve forgotten
youre a sinner. We were mentioning this in the 4:00 service. The Bible clearly says the way
you know you are a forgiven sinner is you can forgive.
Why do you think so many men are willing to forgive sexual harassment and why so
many women are not? Because an awful lot of men know theyve done it. Thats why
theyre saying, Come on, you have to forgive a person for something like that. The
reason the women arent doing it is because they say, Well, Ive never done such like
thing. I think thats awful. Ive been abused in that way. I think its terrible.
Away, if you can for a moment, from the sexual harassment thing to the principle. The
principle is the way you know you are a forgiven sinner is you can forgive. If you cant
forgive, its because youve forgotten youre a forgiven sinner. If you are bitter and you are
under the thumb of bitterness, its because youve forgotten about all the other areas where
you have sinned and where God has forgiven you and where other people forgave you or
needed to forgive you.
Do you want to get back in control of your life? Repent. If somebody says, Wont that
just make you more upset and terrible? Only if you forget the gospel. The gospel is if
Jesus Christ has died for you, if youve received him as your Savior, then you are
completely accepted by God. Youre never going to ever be cast away. He loves you in
Christ.
One old Puritan put it this way. The way you can tell the difference between a Christian
and a Pharisee is when a Christian sees his sin and begins to repent, he feels closer to God.
When a Pharisee sees his sin and begins to repent, he feels further from God because the
Pharisee has based his acceptance with God on his works. When he sees hes a sinner, he
feels like, How could God possibly accept me? which reveals the fact that he is a selfrighteous, moralistic Pharisee.
A Christian is somebody who, every time you repent, you get back in touch again with
the fact that its all of grace. Its all of grace. The best thing that can possibly happen to you
is to repent. In marriage its absolutely critical, real repentance and real electing love. Do
you see how that works? Youre just continually replaying the gospel again and again and
again.
I dont want to trivialize it, but what Im saying is it happens in the large, of course, for
the big ones, the places where one person in the marriage has really betrayed the other one.
That happens every few years, and theres a major conflict. You go from peace and
harmony to estrangement and alienation and to repentance and election and reconciliation,
and its hard. There are a lot of tears, and everybody falls apart. Then its joy in heaven
when its all done.
It happens in the little. I remember years ago we had a little one of these cycles, and I
refused because I didnt understand what repentance meant in the little things. Theyre not
little in the end because they add up. I used to sit on my bed in Virginia at night. I would
take my shoes off, and I would throw them into the closet. My wife certainly found out
pretty soon that by throwing my shoes into the closet I was making all these scuff marks all
over the inside of the closet and the door lintel into the closet.
A couple of nights after I was doing that, she said, Dont do that. Youre just scuffing
up everything. I said, Oh, Im sorry. I wont do it anymore, but I hardly thought about it.
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What happened is I forgot. It was a habit. So the next night I threw them in again. She said,
You said you werent going to that.
Oh, yes, Im sorry. The third night I did it again. What did she start to think? She
says, Obviously, my concerns are really important to him, so she just stuffs it. Im not
going to keep humiliating myself and nagging him. Hes not going to turn me into a nag.
Im just going to sit here. Thats okay. What happened is every night she would hear a
clump, there would be this little, teeny bit of anger stored up.
Forty clumps later, maybe were having a bad night, or maybe something else is wrong.
I throw my shoe in, and she goes, There you go again. Shes 40 clumps angry, but Im not
even thinking about the 40 clumps. Im just thinking about this one. Im saying, This is
inappropriate anger. I just threw my shoes in. Youre right. I admitted it. I shouldnt have
done it, but come on. Instead of repenting, I defended myself because I said, This is
inappropriate anger. What does she do? She says, Oh, great.
One day, what actually happened was I began to realize what was wrong. I said, What
can I do? That was the beginning of repentance. She said, I dont know. Something to
remind yourself. What I did was, right at the place on the door where I threw the shoes in,
I made myself a sign. I wrote down, Stupid, stop throwing your shoes and hurting your
wife. Signed, God.
I put it there. Did that mean sometimes I forgot and threw my shoes? Of course,
sometimes I forgot, but that sheet represented, in my wifes eyes, repentance because I was
saying, What will it take? What do I have to do? I will take the steps. It is hilarious. As
funny as it is, lousy marriages are made, as they say What is a seashore? Its made up of
little, tiny grains of sand. Those are the grains of sand. They come there. Marriage will
teach you about grace.
Secondly, I will be brief on this, because like I said, I have to finish this thing tonight.
Thats what marriage teaches us about Christianity. Marriage tells us about a relationship
with Christ. Marriage says its all of grace. Its a perfect example of it. Secondly, marriage,
the idea that my relationship with my wife is a picture of Christs relationship with the
church, also tells me about the relationship of intimacy to fruitfulness.
B. Marriage teaches us about the relationship of intimacy to fruitfulness. The fact is the
Bible says when you become a Christian, the first thing that happens is your relationship
with God is changed. You become the child of God. The Bible also says right here, when
you become a Christian, your relationship with Christ changes. You become the bride of
Christ. All of us, male and female, were all brides of Christ. Were all his spouse. There are
some places in the Scripture that talk in some of the most fairly incredible and risqu ways
about that.
For example, in Romans 7, it says, Do you not know, brothers that the law has
authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is
bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the
law of marriage. [] So, my brothers, you also died to the law that you might belong to
another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
That is saying all human beings, in a sense, are like a woman. If youre married to this
particular man, and you put yourself in his arms Lets say youre Miss C, and you marry
Mr. A. You put yourself in his arms, and you bear fruit into the world through your body:
children. Those children, if youre in the arms of Mr. A, are AC children. If you put
yourself in the arms of Mr. B, then the fruit of that union is born into the world, and those
arent AC children. Those are BC children.
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The point is, and this is amazing, it says the difference in your life when you become a
Christian is before you had yourself in the arms of another. You were trying to earn your
salvation in a different way. There was something else that drove you. You had a different
god. The fruit of that was coming into the world through your body. Now you must put
yourself into the arms of Jesus Christ, and he will bear his fruit into the world through your
body.
What is the fruit? We can be pretty honest about this. For example, Galatians 5 says,
The works of the flesh are adultery, uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, bitterness, strife, envy,
drunkenness, and party spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, meekness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Here is the point. Once youre married, that doesnt mean youll have any children.
Being married is nice, but you have to continually have the kind of relationship so youre in
each others arms so you will bear children. Not only that, its possible to be married to Mr.
A and be sleeping with Mr. B. What this is telling you is take a look at your life.
What is being born out into the world through your life? Hatred, envy, bitterness,
drunkenness, party spirit? Then youre not in the arms of Christ. Youre in the arms of
someone else, something else thats driving your life, something else youre worshiping,
something else thats more important to you, something else which is your lord, something
else which is your husband. Thats what the imagery is saying.
On the other hand, do you see yourself actually growing in grace, growing in love? Are
you more loving than you were last year? Are you more self-controlled than you were last
year? Are you more peaceful than you were last year? Are you a happier person than you
were last year? If not, if that fruit isnt being born out into the world through your body, if
that isnt happening in your life, if that fruit isnt being born, then you are not putting
yourself moment by moment into the arms of your true Husband.
Its one thing to be married to Christ. Its one thing to become a Christian. Its one thing
to be baptized. Its one thing to make your commitment to him, just like its one thing to be
wedded. Its another thing to actually have an intimate relationship that bears fruit. Are you
day in and day out putting yourself back into your husbands arms?
Im going to show you why, as risqu and as daring as this imagery is, this is the
imagery God uses for good reasons. Im coming to that in a moment, but the point is you
are not going to have a very good marriage if all you ever do is talk to one another on the
way to something else. There have to be times in which you sit down and actually
concentrate on each other. Thats what sex is.
You cant always be saying, How do I look? on the way to something. You cant
always be saying, I need something, on the way to something. I need some money, on
the way to something. I need you to go pick up the kids, on the way to something. Youll
never have any children that way, and the fact is a lot of you are living a relationship with
Christ just like that.
All youre ever doing is calling up when youre in trouble. All youre ever doing is
asking for help when youre in need. Are you setting aside time to look at him and to
rejoice in him and to listen to him and pay attention to his Word and to commune with him
and to pray with him? Do you see what were saying? The relationship of intimacy to
fruitfulness is so obvious in the illustration and so convicting when you think about it.
Marriage teaches us about grace. Marriage teaches us about the relationship of intimacy to
fruitfulness. Then lets switch things around.
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a lot of you know exactly how that works because you say, I have to be married, or Im
going to jump off a bridge.
With the same attitude, if you were married today, youd be wanting to jump off a
bridge anyway. Its not funny, because the attitude that makes you feel like, Life isnt
worth living unless Im married, is the same attitude that will wreck the marriage because
you will be sure that person, that spouse, that marriage has to be the source of all of your
happiness. You say, I wouldnt make that mistake, but youre making it now.
You can easily conclude by reading Genesis 1 and 2, and I think Ive pretty much
concluded, if there was no sin in the world, marriage would be the ideal, and all human
beings would be married. The Bible tells us something happened after Genesis 2,
something called sin, something called the fall. Its very clear from 1 Corinthians 7 and
Matthew 19 that now marriage is only the ideal if youre called to it and when youre called
to it.
Marriage and singleness are trade-offs. There are advantages and terrible disadvantages
to marriage, and there are advantages and terrible disadvantages to singleness. Theyre both
full of glories, and theyre both full of burdens, and they trade off. I remember when I was
a younger minister; I had a friend who was in the ministry. He was single, and I was
married.
We used to argue with each other because when we got under the gun and when we
were under tremendous pressure to produce and we had all these ministry opportunities, we
used to envy the other because he would say, I am so tired. I am so stressed out. I wish I
was married. When Im overworked, all I am is lonely, and I have no comfort.
I would say, Yeah, when youre overworked and youre married, all you get is guilt
because you know youre short-changing your marriage. Youre short-changing your
family. Its true theres a consolation, but theres tremendous guilt too. We began to realize
there were trade-offs here. So is it better? If you go to Ephesians 5, is Paul saying its better
to be married or single? If you go to 1 Corinthians 7, does Paul say it looks like its better to
be single than to be married?
The fact is if you put them together what Paul is saying is it depends on your calling. A
Christian is somebody who says, If Im single today and I dont want to be single and I
dont want to stay single, thats fine. Im going to pray to God for a spouse, but meanwhile,
today Im going to offer up my singleness to him. Im going to ask him to help me with the
burdens, and Im going to ask him to help me capitalize on the opportunities.
E.B. White, who wrote that very famous essay some years ago on New York, says, On
any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and
the gift of privacy. [] It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good
deal on luck. Hes right except about the luck part.
What hes trying to say is as a Christian your singleness means you can do things. You
have a flexibility. You have an ability to make changes. You have certain things you can do,
ministries you can do, and people you can serve a married person cannot. Its also true you
can take this gift of privacy and singleness and strangle yourself with it because as a single
person, you can do things, you can indulge in things and get away with things, you could
never get away with if youre married.
Theres an accountability. Theres an authority youre under when youre married. Its
much harder in some ways to lose self-control when youre married. Oh, its possible, but
theres a certain accountability. It can either destroy you, or it can fulfill you, depending a
good deal on commitment, not luck.
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By the way, some of you are saying, Well, this is pretty interesting. Marriage is
penultimate to the divine marriage. I want you to see that also applies to those of you who
are divorced. A lot of people out there who are divorced have been sitting there saying,
Here Im hearing eight or nine weeks of sermons on marriage, and all it does is make me
feel kind of bad. What does all this have to say to me? Heres what it has to say to you.
The Bible teaches, first, marriage is an amputation. Its not like taking a shirt off; its
like taking an arm off. All this stuff weve been reading about the fact that two people
become one flesh the head, the body, all this sort of thing proves why you have felt as
maimed as you have. If we ever get to the place where our society and our laws try to treat
divorce as if its a light thing, as if its a casual or routine thing, we will know theyre lies
because everybody who goes through it knows its like an amputation.
The Bible also teaches, just like doctors know, sometimes amputation is necessary to
live. Nobody wants to take a leg off. Sometimes its take the leg off or lose everything.
Thats the reason the Bible allows for divorce and prescribes it, and heres why. Marriage is
a high-risk, high-gain thing in the world of sin.
When you get married, youre going be either a lot better off than you were when you
were single or a lot worse off, but you wont be where you were. In marriage you are so
vulnerable that if a villain gets in there and starts to tear things up, you can be destroyed
unless theres a divorce. Thats why God allows for divorce on two grounds: adultery and
willful desertion that cannot be remedied.
Then somebody says, But what if I was the villain? What if looking back Im the one
who blew it? Dont you forget that Jesus Christ is married to you. The real marriage is
intact if you belong to him. Youre his bride, and he sees you through the rags and says,
Im going to make you pure and spotless. I am devoted to you. I love you.
David and Bathsheba, do you remember them? David has an affair with Bathsheba and
gets Uriah killed so he can marry Bathsheba. How do you like an unbiblical divorce? Thats
a pretty bad one. What does God do? Does God say, Okay, Ill forgive you, but your life is
on plan B? No, he not only forgives David and Bathsheba from that incredibly unbiblical
divorce, but he also brings them into a relationship with him so the Messiah is descended
out of their children.
David had a couple of other wives, and God couldve said, Hey, why should I bring
the Messiah out of this terrible relationship? God believes in grace. God believes in
repentance. God believes in wiping the slate clean. God says, You are my spouse even if
you have no other one. I will complete you. I will love you. I will give you the things you
need. I will meet the deficiencies.
B. Our relationship with Christ shows us why sex belongs in marriage only. Its our
relationship with Christ as the Bridegroom that shows us why the Bible teaches that sex
belongs in marriage only. Unless you understand you are married to Jesus, you will never
understand why the Bible has the sex ethic that it does. I want you to know Im just mildly
irked at the fact that I hear people say, I like Redeemer even though they take a hard line
on this chastity thing.
Do you want to know something? What the Bible says is sex belongs in marriage only.
Do you know that all three branches of Christianity have always taught that for centuries?
Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants. Do you know that Judaism has taught that? Do you
know that Islam has taught that? Can you think of many things all those religions have all
agreed on?
If you are an adherent, if you are a believer in any one of those religions and you dont
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believe you have to keep sexual intercourse inside marriage I probably might not be able
to convince you tonight, but I want you to know dont you think of me or us as weird.
Youre the novelty. Youre the blip. There has been complete consensus on this thing. If you
dont understand about the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, you will never understand why
the Bible says keep sex inside marriage. Youll say, Well, thats just a rigid thing. No,
listen to this.
Can you imagine going to Jesus and saying, Lord, I want you to complete me. I want
intimacy with you. I want you to love me. I want you inside me. I want you to come into
my life, and I want you to complete me. I want you to support me. I want you to help me. I
want you to lead me. I want intimacy with you. I want the beatific vision. I want your love
in my life, but I do not want a covenant with you.
I dont want to get up publicly and be baptized. I dont want to be publicly identified
with you. I dont want to make you the number one thing in my life. I dont want to forsake
all others and follow you alone. I want to be able to make my own decisions sometimes. I
dont want to be that vulnerable or committed to you. I want your love. I want your
intimacy, but I dont want a covenant.
How would Jesus Christ react to that? He would say, Come on. Everybody here
realizes how silly that is, but when you decide to say, I want sexual intimacy with you, but
I dont want a covenant with you, youre doing the same thing. You want intimacy without
commitment. Somebody says, Oh, I dont sleep around. I only sleep with people Im
committed to. No, you dont. Physical nakedness and vulnerability has to go with spiritual
and personal nakedness and vulnerability.
Weve said all along the way a man fits into a woman physically is supposed to be a
picture of the way they complete each other personally. When you tell me, Im committed
to that person but not enough to be married, what you mean is, I want to still be able to
make my own decisions. If I want to move here, if I want to go over here, if I want to
change jobs, I want to do it on my own. I dont want to be accountable to somebody else. I
dont want to have to work through consensus with somebody else. I dont want to be that
vulnerable.
So you want a physical nakedness and you want intimacy, but you dont want personal
nakedness or vulnerability, do you? I tell you something. Theres a huge difference between
two people who are having sex and two people who are having sex in the context of a
covenant to complete each other over the years.
If youre really completing each other, the completing comes through hard work, comes
through confrontation. It comes through a commitment where you get up and make a
binding, permanent, exclusive covenant to say, Youre mine, Im yours forever. That
gives you the right to come into me and to talk to me about my sins. Not only that, I am no
longer independent. Im under the authority of the relationship. I cant decide where to go. I
cant decide what to do unless I work it out with this person. Im vulnerable now. Im
committed now.
Intimacy always goes with commitment. It goes that way with your commitment with
God. Why would it be different in a commitment between a man and a woman? Dont you
see how dangerous this is? Because the Christian understanding of sex is not a dirty one
Its not like sex is kind of dirty, so lets keep it inside marriage. The Christian understanding
of sex is so glorious. The Bible goes this far. Weve been hinting at it all along.
The greatest, most rapturous sex between a man and a woman is just a dim hint of the
incredible joy of your marriage and union with Christ. Its actually a foretaste of the great
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day in which we see him face to face, and were in complete union and knowledge with
him. Theres almost no way in the whole world youre ever going to, therefore, understand
the greatness of marriage unless you understand what it points to.
It points all the way to the ceiling. It points all the way to God. Therefore, you cannot
conduct your relationship between a man and a woman differently than you conduct your
relationship between God and yourself. It just doesnt go any other way. Sexual completion
and personal completion are supposed to set each other off.
The reason sex is wonderful between two people who are committed to each other and
working day and night to complete each other and to confront each other and to elect and
repent with each other Let me tell you, sex in that condition is laughter, and its tears.
The sexual completion enhances the personal completion process. The personal completion
process enhances the sexual completion process. You know it to be true.
Do you remember the first time you had sex and you werent married? You were totally
uncovered. You were totally vulnerable. You were totally unified. Dont you remember how
incongruous it was to get up and to walk away and realize that unity did not flow out into
the rest of your life, that that person could go off and make any decision he or she wanted
to make without consulting with you?
To be vulnerable, to be unified physically and not in any other way is a monstrosity. Its
not natural. Its not the way it was supposed to be. That great union with Christ were going
to have on the last day, is that going to be fun? Sure, if you can use the word fun for it. Then
dont you think its earthly analogy, sex, should be fun? Of course, but it points to that. You
have to follow the sign. You dont camp underneath the sign. You take the sign, and you
follow it to the place its showing you to go.
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