Husband, View Your Marriage As a Ministry

Marriage 8

 

          This week, we turn from examining the foundational beliefs necessary for marriage to the more practical side of things. Just what are husbands and wives supposed to do in marriage? We will spend a few weeks looking at each side of this, but we begin with this necessity for husbands: He views his marriage as a ministry.

Paul phrased it this way in I Corinthians 7.32-33: But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. "Pleased" here carries in it the idea of accommodating oneself to another, of adjusting or fitting yourself to another in such a way that you can help them carry what they carry. Nor is this a negative use; Paul is here commending this about the married man, asserting it to be good and right. A husband correctly understands that he no longer has the freedom he had when he was single, which allowed him to serve the Lord with nary a thought of who else was involved. No, now he must adjust everything in his life with one ruling principle in mind: how he may please his wife and how he can help her carry what she carries in this life.

I begin here because it is a life-changing truth. I start here also because it goes against the grain of so much taught and presented about marriage. The independent Baptist movement has a wide macho streak, a kind of get-back-in-the-kitchen-and-make-me-a-sammich kind of thing. Of course, this is merely the carnal human weakness of selfishness masquerading as manliness, but now I am meddling. I also begin here primarily because it is biblical, as revealed in Paul's words above.

This next statement may sound harsh, but I prefer to consider it realistic. The average marriage is often one of manipulation, not ministry. A study in "The Journal of Marriage and the Family" shows us this in a failure sort of way. Reasons men cited for divorce included communication problems (59%), unhappiness (46%), incompatibility (44%), sexual problems (30%), financial problems (28%), and emotional abuse (24%). The causes women referenced as contributing to divorce were similar, though more sad in my view, including communication problems (69%), unhappiness (59%), incompatibility (56%), emotional abuse (55%), financial problems (32%), sexual problems (32%), husband's drinking (30%), husband's infidelity (25%), and physical abuse (21%).

Much of the above paragraph could be summed up with this phrase commonly uttered in counseling situations: "My needs just aren't being met." What needs? Communication, empathy, sympathy, support, respect, money, sex, happiness, peace, security, stability, etc. 

Where is ministry in that?

The response to this type of teaching on marriage usually sounds something like, "Well, you must just want me to be a doormat then!" I would argue that such an expression reveals that you still focus on yourself. It is not until you can forget yourself and focus on the needs of those around you that you can truly be Christ-like. He said, The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20.28) Paul agreed, adding a clarifying statement in Philippians 2.4-5: Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.  

The typical book on marriage in the bookstore's self-help section is chock full of techniques for you to use on your wife to get your needs met. My brother, that is manipulation, plain and clear. A self-centered approach to marriage cannot be biblical.

          Marriage is rooted in and grows from love. The foundation of love is giving. It follows that giving, selfless expressions of love ought to fill marriage. Yet somehow, when vows are exchanged, a mysterious metamorphosis occurs. What had been a how-can-I-show-you-my-love attitude becomes a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude. Such a fact makes me wonder if the marriage was rooted in love at all.

          “Of course it was. I loved her then and love her now. It’s not my fault she isn’t holding up her end of the deal.”

          You know, enjoying how being in love makes me feel good is not the same as loving another selflessly. I am convinced such feelings drove men like Sinatra to marry four times and commit serial adultery during most of them. It was not love; it was how being in love made him feel. Ergo, since the "love" was selfish, so was the marriage and the selfish manipulation that drove most of those wives away.

          “But a man has needs, Pastor Brennan!”

          May I kindly ask you to meditate on a couple of passages?

          But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4.19)

          The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23.1)

          My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. (Psalm 62.5)

          If God truly meets our needs, and the marriage is built upon a selfless, giving love, then the result will not be a selfish husband who operates on manipulation; it will be a loving, Christ-like husband whose marriage functions as a ministry to his wife, coming alongside, carrying what she carries.

          Now then, I would continue, but my wife is hollering for me at the moment, and I must go help her… <grin>

          Catch you next week.      

Marriage Is Honorable

 

 

Marriage 7

 

          Unknown perhaps to us, we have all too often adopted an unhealthy, unscriptural view of marriage. Like cucumbers pickled in brine, too many of God's people have borrowed their concept of marriage from the world's milieu. Thus, I have begun this series on my marriage by attempting to thrust us back into the Word of God. God began this divine institution; how does He view it?

          I have a simple thought today, one for which I am indebted to Rosario Butterfield. In one of her books, she went to great lengths to establish this very thought, so much so that I, too, have decided to emphasize it in my own ministry. It is this: marriage is honorable.

          God Himself makes this statement via the inspired human writer of Hebrews 13.4. Marriage is honourable in all. Honorable is defined by the dictionary as something worthy of honor and high respect. In the original language, it carries the connotation of a precious stone, highly prized for its value and beauty.

          You will think otherwise if you follow the news of our day. There, marriage is routinely mangled by positive references to “open” marriages, divorce, live-in relationships, homosexual “marriage”, throuples, sister wives, and a veritable plethora of ungodly variations and illustrations on the subject. It should not surprise us, then, to find traditional marriage as a concept increasingly abandoned. Indeed, our own Center for Disease Control has solemnly informed us that fewer people than ever are getting married, percentage-wise, and they have been tracking it for 124 years.  

          What a sad paragraph that last one was. The flaws it reveals about our society are deep and wide. Yet the stubborn truth remains – marriage is honorable.

          Marriage is not merely tradition; it is a divine institution. God ordained marriage. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. (Genesis 1.27-28) Marriage as an institution was blessed by our Saviour when He performed His first miracle at the wedding in Cana.

          It then follows that regardless of what our society currently thinks, marriage is not under human authority; it is under divine authority. The state has to have some role in marriage, but the state did not invent marriage and does not have the right to re-invent, redefine, or abandon it. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mark 10.9) Marriage is a matter of obedience to God. We will give an account for our conduct in marriage as husbands and wives – not to the state, not even to our husbands/wives, but to the Lord.

          Genesis is the book of beginnings. The creation of humanity revealed there was not complete until God sealed the institution of marriage.

Genesis 2.18–24

18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

          We see several important things in the above passage.

          First, it is not good for man to be alone. An alone man is an incomplete man. Married men and women are not independent individuals who happen to share the same dwelling; we are mutually dependent on each other. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. (I Corinthians 11.11-12)  

          Second, God chose for Adam to experience this fundamental incompleteness so that he would view his wife not just as nice but as necessary. If you are reading this blog as a single individual in preparation for marriage your time is well spent, not just in reading this, but in your current state. Loneliness prepares you for the joy and blessing of marriage just as it prepares you to undertake the work of marriage. In God's good design, you will not just want to be married by the time marriage arrives; you will need to be married.

          Third, Adam did not invent marriage; God brought it to him. It was not Adam's idea but God's. It then follows that since marriage is by God's design, its arrangement and conduct must conform to His will.

          Fourth, women were explicitly created by God and in the image of God for marriage. As a man, I understand this and believe it. I cannot, however, allow myself to look down on women, brutalize them, consider them to be property, or to be somehow inferior to the male of the species. To the contrary, I should seek to elevate godly womanhood to the place of honor God gives them in His creation design.

          Fifth, the man was created from dust, but the woman was not; she was created from the man. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (Matthew 19.4-5) The sacred and intimate union that God designed to exist between a husband and a wife is the reason the dissolution of marriage is so painful. Divorce feels like a death because it is. Divorce is like severing part of your body, of yourself, from yourself.

          Most importantly, however, understanding marriage as honorable involves the realization that it represents the union between God and His people.

 

Ephesians 5.22–25

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

 

          How precious and valuable indeed must be that human relationship thus chosen to exemplify redemption itself and the church Jesus shed His blood to obtain. 

          What is marriage? Beloved, let us forget what the world and our experience have said on the subject. Let us hear God's voice on the matter. Marriage is a commitment. Marriage is a comfort. Marriage is a friendship. Marriage is a team. And marriage is honorable.

          Is yours? He intends it to be these things, and it can be these things— if we follow Him in the execution of it as we must believe Him in the design of it. Next week, then, we will turn from these foundational thoughts to some of the more practical aspects of marriage. We will begin with the husband first.

          See you then.

Marriage Is a Team

 

Marriage 6

 

 

          It is not good for man to be alone. It is really not good for a man to be alone when he is in a marriage. In fact, it is a crying tragedy. Yet it happens more often than we like to admit. And every time we see it, we know we are seeing an exhibition of a marriage God did not design. Why? Because God designed marriage to be a team.

          This is exemplified most clearly in a particular New Testament couple, Aquila and Priscilla. We meet them by way of Paul in Acts 18. He comes across them first in Corinth (Acts 18.1-2) and is drawn to them because they share an occupation, tent-making. Later in the same chapter, we meet Apollos, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures. (Acts 18.25) The problem is that Apollos was preaching John's baptism of repentance, looking forward to a coming Messiah. He should have been preaching Jesus. The Lord kindly sent him a couple of teachers. Whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. (Acts 18.26)  

          Something is fascinating here in a marriage context. Every-single-time they are mentioned in Scripture, by name or pronoun, they are together. Every single time. (Acts 18.2, 18.3, 18.18, 18.19, 18.20, 18.21, 18.26, Romans 16.3, I Corinthians 16.19, II Timothy 4.19) The Scripture tells us they worked together, traveled together, lived together, went to church together, converted together, studied theology together, and taught together. He did not build a ministry over here while she lived a separate life over there. They did it together.

          I think I understand that. Mandy and I serve the Lord together. I am a pastor, which means I do everything except work in the nursery and play the piano. She does those two, in addition to organizing ladies' activities, goes soul winning weekly, trains new soul winners, leads our homeschool group, does discipleship with me, does marital counseling with me, sings in the choir, decorates the auditorium, manages our prophet's chamber, teaches Sunday School periodically, sings special music with me and others, visits with me, and plans church activities with me. I do not have a separate life from her; she does not have a separate life from me. We serve the Lord together. At times, we have considered converting to Pentecostalism. Then, at least, we could get two salaries instead of one. <grin>

          Please do not misunderstand me. Every couple has a marriage dynamic that makes sense to you. I am not saying that your wife has to do with you everything my wife does with me. Nor am I saying that this alone is the answer to making a great marriage. But I am saying that there is a clear biblical example of one couple who were an awesome team. Together.

          This is one reason I have sought to move our church gradually toward using married couples together for ministry. Teach a class together. Go soul winning together. Be responsible for a service commitment together. Visit the shut-ins together. I do not want ministry service to impact the families in our church negatively. I try to be careful of what I ask with that in mind. But the solution is not to not serve God because of family commitments; it is to incorporate your family into your service to God.

          Of course, this is not applicable only to ministry. I am thinking right now of a dairy farmer of my acquaintance. He and his wife worked together for decades building their business. Many small businesses are like that, husband and wife laboring together, often with a child or three thrown into the mix as time goes along. I think we could make a decent argument that America was a better place when families worked together more than they do now.

          "Next thing you'll say, Pastor Brennan, is that we're even supposed to go bowling together. That's too much for a body to take." Yes. And no. It would be great if you joined a bowling league or a gardening club together. But, no, I am not saying you have to be together 24/7. I am saying your marriage should function as a team; that is how God designed it.

          If you want to be alone, then be alone. But if you get married, do not be alone. Be together.

Marriage is a team.

Marriage Is a Friendship

 

Marriage 5

 

          We have, perhaps unknowingly, accepted a warped view of marriage from our experience, our upbringing, our friends, and our culture. Thus, I am taking substantial time at the beginning of this series to emphasize how God views marriage. Because as God views marriage, we ought to view marriage.

          To that end, a brief but essential thought today: God views marriage as a friendship. In a passage in which he was rebuking Israel's leadership for their failing homes, Malachi tells us as much. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. (Malachi 2.14)  Solomon agrees, imparting the same sentiment to the wife in his story, though in reverse. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (Song of Solomon 5.16)

          Friends are the family you pick. They are the ones we choose to spend time with, choose to place ourselves under obligation to, and choose to mingle our lives with. The resulting friendships, carried along on streams of affection and loyalty, enrich our lives for years, sometimes decades.

          My point here is this: the friend relationship was the first one you had with each other; add to that, do not replace it.

          It is easy, in marriage, to allow all the subsequent relationships to absorb or overtake that initial relationship. First, he was your friend, but then he became your lover, your provider, your maintenance man, and your co-parent. Reacting to each of those relationships takes time and focus, and in the process of learning to manage these and other aspects of the marriage relationship, all too often, the friendship is lost.

          I have long ago forgotten where I read this, but I remember it well nevertheless. The husband was discussing his marriage of twenty-five years or thereabouts. They had lived together as man and wife, kept the wolf away from the door, and raised children with all the grief and joy and prayer that entails. He said, “I looked up from my morning coffee over my newspaper and realized I didn’t know the woman sitting across from me at the breakfast table anymore.” Life happened. And in the process, friendship died.

          Sadly, such stories are not uncommon. We all know couples who were together for decades and then divorced. “We just grew apart,” they inevitably say. The question then before us is how do we prevent that from happening to us. Here again, I believe Scripture has the answer. A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18.24)

One of the most important foundational truths about marriage is you must be constantly moving toward each other. Move towards each other physically. Be in the same space. Move towards each other emotionally. Seek to understand how the other thinks and feels and why they do. Move towards each other financially. Mingle your lives together, support each other’s dreams. Move towards each other chronologically. Adjust whatever is necessary for you to adjust to spend time together. I could go on, but you get my drift, I think.

          Friendships may happen spontaneously, but they are not maintained spontaneously, especially when the relationship becomes complicated by the myriad of aspects included in a long-lasting marriage. In this environment, friendships are only maintained by showing yourself as friendly, to use the biblical phrase. Do what friends do. Be interested in their lives. Hang out together. Cultivate enjoyment in each other's company. Do not just love them; like them.

          Too many marriages become a business relationship. Schedule dominates while emotional connection evaporates. You wake up one day, and it dawns on you that you are just strangers who share a common history with all the accompanying entanglements.

          God designed marriage as a companionship first, or perhaps I should say, foundationally. Underneath everything else you two do and are is friendship. Whatever you place above that is dependent on that foundation. Marry your best friend, yes. And then stay married to your best friend. 

   

Marriage Is a Comfort

 

Marriage 4

 

          In beginning this series on marriage, I have attempted to emphasize God's view of marriage. This is because our view of marriage is often faulty, formed through some less-than-ideal manner. Thus far, we have noted that God's original intent for marriage was to banish loneliness, establish sweet intimacy, and for the wife to be her husband's helpmeet. Building off that, we saw that God views marriage as a commitment last time. Today, we will discover that God views marriage as a comfort.

          Numerous jokes imply that the marriage state is a painful one. Even an incomplete search for such things quickly yields finds such as these:

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”

-Rodney Dangerfield

“Getting married is a lot like getting into a tub of hot water. After you get used to it, it ain't so hot.”

-Minnie Pearl

"I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her."

-Rodney Dangerfield

"The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open."

-Groucho Marx

“Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means.”

-Henny Youngman

“Alimony - The ransom that the happy pay to the devil.”

-H.L. Mencken

"My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe."

-Jimmy Durante

"I never married because I have three pets at home that answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning, a parrot that swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night."

-Marie Corelli

“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.”

-Henny Youngman

“If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.”

-Katharine Hepburn

"I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late."

-Max Kauffmann

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."

-Henny Youngman

          I confess I am probably guilty of exploiting the subject of marriage for a cheap laugh or two myself, but the scriptural truth is that marriage is not a life sentence; it is a comfort. My wife is not "the old ball and chain" or "the battle axe." Your husband is not the dreamboat that became a shipwreck. Marriage is not an instrument of medieval torture akin to the rack; it is a beautiful tapestry woven of threads of cheerfulness, contentment, enjoyment, happiness, peace, pleasure, rest, satisfaction, and warmth.

          We see examples of this in Scripture on the positive and negative sides. Isaac found solace in his marriage to Rebekah. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. (Genesis 24.67) Job, on the other hand, found added misery in his marriage. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. (Job 2.8-9)

          I know what it is like to walk in the door of my home at night, weary and burdened with the cares of the day. In Eddy Arnold's immortal words, I want someone to "make the world go away, and get it off my shoulders; say the things you used to say, and make the world go away." And this is precisely what my family, led by my wife, does. I am home, the world is shut out, and nothing else matters. Mandy is my Rebekah.

          Did you know that you are supposed to enjoy your marriage? Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun. (Ecclesisates 9.9) Did you know God describes marriage as a good thing? Whose findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord. (Proverbs 18.22) Marriage is not an institution of suffering. Marriage is not a looming disaster on the horizon. It is a joyful, peaceful, blessed, good thing created by God for the comfort of men and women. In fact, God views marriage as a bit of Heaven on Earth. In Matthew 9.15, 22.9, and 25.1, Jesus repeatedly equates the kingdom of God to marriage. This is later expanded on in Revelation repeatedly.

Re 19:7  Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

Re 19:9  And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

Re 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Re 21:9  And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.

Re 22:17  And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

          Marriage is such a great blessing that when God wanted something to compare the joy and blessing of an eternity in Heaven to on an earthly scale, He chose marriage.

          Some of us have become so colored by our past experiences or the prevailing culture of our day that we have trouble wrapping our minds around this. I am not denying that a good marriage takes incredible hard work. I am not denying there is often pain in marriage. I do not deny that every marriage comprises two imperfect, selfish people. But I am denying that our view of marriage ought to be negative.

          Often, all that is necessary for real change is to change your attitude about something. Many years ago, before Mandy and I had children, I said something to the effect that I thought newborn babies were ugly. She did not berate me. Instead, she looked at me and said simply, "You won't think that about your own babies." Nor did I. Now, to me, all newborns are beautiful. They did not change, but my attitude toward them did.

          When my attitude changed, what was once distasteful to me became a marvel of joy, beauty, and blessing. If your view of marriage is a negative one, I urge you to trade in your view of marriage for God's view of marriage.

Mandy and I are on our wedding day.

          Do you remember how you felt the day you got married? A little nervous. A little excited. A lot happy. Which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. (Psalm 19.5) Recapture that. Look at your marriage like God looks at your marriage. It is a good thing designed by Him to bless and comfort you.

          Change your mind. Rejoice in your marriage.