Fruitful Marriages Require Patience

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Introduction

How many of you recited the traditional wedding vows when you were married? Anyone know the vows by heart? If you don’t remember them, yall ought to be ashamed of yourself! You made vows, you ought to remember what you said!

Here’s the traditional vows:

“I, _____, take thee, _____, to be my wedded wife , to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

Now, most everyone who is married said these or some variation of these vows when we got married. If you hope to get married one day, I’d suggest you actually say the traditional vows.

The reason behind this is because most of the time, when I’ve seen couples write their own vows, they don’t tend to do a good job. Sure, they might get a few laughs or draw a few tears, but there’s a reason why these are used at weddings worldwide and have been so for some time now.

When we say our vows, we are making promises. We are committing ourself to a person that we chose for the rest of our lives, whereas when people write their own vows, they tend to be more declarations of their current love, not their future promises. There’s no contract on this earth with the weight of marriage vows. That’s because marriage isn’t a contract at all, but a covenant.

Covenants were commonplace during biblical times. In a covenant, like the Abrahamic covenant mentioned last week, they would sacrifice some animals by cutting them in halves. Then each party entering into the covenant would walk between the animals signifying that if either party broke the covenant, then they should be split in half like the animals. That’s pretty strong language and that’s the same language that God uses about marriage. Now, I’ve never seen anyone split animals in half at a wedding ceremony and walk between them, but we do say things like…til death do us part, which is the same thing.

We are saying that I vow to do all of these things and the only way I should break this covenant should be at my death. In other words, “as long as we both shall live.”

What this means practically is that wedding vows mean more later in the marriage than the do on the day they are made. When we make them, typically everyone is happy, they may be pretty stressed about the wedding, but it’s typically a celebration.

Years later, when that moment has faded though, comes the real test of the vows. The vows are tested in difficult times and that’s when people tend to lose their patience and forsake their vows. Let me put this as plainly as I can. If you are in a difficult place in your marriage, that is what your vows are made for, they are made to encourage you to be patient in the midst of a hard season.

“When couples stick together through difficult times, remain faithful to one another, and actively work to resolve problems, positive long-term outcomes (while not guaranteed) are common.”

- Paul Amato, In The Study of Changes In Spousal Relationships Over The Marital Life Course

This is what we are going to be focusing on today, that marriage is a commitment to remain patient in the difficult times in life with the hope that things will get better.

If you are just joining us we are in the midst of a series called A Fruitful Marriage, where we are looking at what it looks like to have the Holy Spirit lead us, fill us and produce in us spiritual fruit that will most certainly bring lasting fruit into our marriage. We have looked at Love, Joy and Peace. Today we are going to look at patience. Patience is about remaining steadfast in the midst of difficulty. Patience is about loving your spouse in a way where you honor your vows in the face of overwhelming problems. Patience sees your promises to the end and it’s most certainly a gift of God that we should pray for.

Today we will be reading our familiar passage of Scripture and looking at this idea in a deeper way. If you are single, widowed or divorced, you should still be able to apply some of these principles to your life in regards to family or friendships. I know that I certainly need more patience in dealing with family. So you too can apply this to your life. Let’s read from Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:22–27 ESV

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

As we dive back into our passage, I want to remind you of something I said a few weeks back. The goal of marriage is oneness. The goal is that the two shall become one flesh as the Bible states. That’s the ultimate goal. But that’s not the only goal.

There is another goal that’s implied in this passage. Paul in verse 26 says that Christ’s goal in loving the church and giving himself up for her is to sanctify her.

Paul here is saying that Jesus loves the church in such a way that it results in her sanctification, meaning this, as you are loved by Jesus, you change. You change for the better. As He shows his love toward you, you don’t stay the same.

Some of you may have heard there word sanctification and thought, what is that? Sometimes we say words in church that don’t have any grounding, they sound good, but we don’t really understand them, so let’s look deeper at this. Define Sanctification

Sanctification Is The Process Of Being Made Holy

Contrary to popular belief, what this means is you don’t have to clean yourself up to come to church. We like to say, everyone is welcome in our church. You can come as you are…but here’s the other side of that coin, you won’t stay the way that you came in. If you are coming to church and growing in your relationship with the Lord, you should be growing in holiness or growing in your Christ-likeness as time passes. That’s the goal of church and specifically its one of the goals of this church, that you would see Jesus in the people of this church and imitate that.

What this means practically is this. When you got saved, you didn’t magically become perfect. That doesn’t mean that’s not the goal. Several times in Scripture God tell us to Be Holy, For I am Holy. It just means that we don’t start there, but that’s the goal. The goal is to be sanctified. The goal is to be like Jesus.

Let’s bring this back to marriage. Husbands and wives are to love each other in the same way that Jesus loves us. Our love is to be a sanctifying type of love. What that means is, you were not perfect when your spouse married you. Now I know that’s a shocker to some of you. I promise you, it doesn’t shock your spouse though.

In Ephesians it tells us that sanctification is a process and that Jesus’ goal in sanctification is that one day he will be able to present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle and that should will be holy and without blemish.

The goal in marriage is the same thing. You are married to the perfect person to change you into who Christ wants you to become.

You Are Married To The Perfect Perfecter Of An Imperfect You

No matter, how it seems today or how ungodly your spouse can be at times. Jesus, in his ‘working all things for the good of those that love him,’ is using your spouse in specific ways to make you more holy.

That means that theoretically the longer you are married, the better a person you will become. The longer you are married, the more you will look like Jesus and the more your spouse will look like Jesus.

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 somebody holy. That’s what it’s there for.

Timothy Keller

In other words, God uses marriage for our own good, to make us holy. The purpose of us becoming one flesh is that it forces us to change. Now, some people fight against this part of marriage, saying things like, “I don’t want to change.” Or “you knew how I was when you married me.” But here’s the bottom line in life, you will change whether you like it or not, the real question is what are you changing into?

Marriage Is One Of God’s Tools In Sanctification

Marriage was given to us to make us into better people. Sanctification is a process and all processes take time. In order for you to become more like Jesus, it’s going to take time and that shows us God’s patience toward us.

In the Greek, the word we translate as patience, is Makrothymea. It means long temperament. Or the opposite of short tempered. It means to bear with or endure for a long time. It’s commonly defined as long suffering and may be translated as that in many places in your bible.

Some of us don’t want to suffer at all. We think suffering is sinful and typically that’s because in our culture we idolize comfort. We seek comfort more than we seek God. We believe we can endure a lot of things, so long as we are comfortable, but the truth is, if we are comfortable, we aren’t enduring much.

Older cultures sought ways to be edified by their sufferings by looking inside, but Western people are often simply outraged by their suffering—and they seek to change things outside so that the suffering never happens again.

Timothy Keller

Suffering is hard by necessity and in spite of how I feel about it, I know that my sufferings have been a gift to me, to teach me how to be more like Jesus.

Isaiah calls the messiah, the suffering servant. Jesus suffered. He suffered immensely, but suffering on its own is not necessarily godly, but suffering well is. Everyone will suffer, the question is, will you suffer well?

When it comes to marriage, we need to suffer well. Every marriage will go through seasons of suffering. You might lose your job. You might lose your house. Your children may suffer from some sort of sickness. Your spouse may suffer from a disease. You may be the cause of suffering for your spouse, you could get sick, you could be unfaithful, you could be hateful.

No matter how it comes though, there is a purpose in our suffering. Paul puts it this way.

2 Corinthians 4:17 ESV

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

In other words, the suffering you are going through right now is producing something in you. It’s preparing you for the weight of eternal glory. Listen, we can’t learn patience when we get to heaven, we have to learn it here. There will be no more suffering in heaven to teach us how to endure. We have to learn it here.

Marriage is a gift to us to teach us how to endure, how to finish well, how to be patient in adversity. These are all qualities of God. How to love in the midst of a storm. It teaches us truly, how Christ loves us in spite of how we love him.

Can you picture Christ being impatient with your spouse?

If we are going to love our spouses as Christ loves the church, what does that look like? I think it looks a lot like patience. Jesus doesn’t hurry us, he waits for us. The Bible describes Jesus as having perfect patience in 1 Timothy 1:16 “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

Marriage is one of God’s many tools to teach us patience. What happens in marriage is that our spouse will rub us the wrong way, sometimes unintentionally or sometimes intentionally, but it will happen. It’s at that moment, you have a choice. How will you respond? Now I know personally many times I’ve failed at that moment. I’ve responded with hateful language, or have gotten angry.

When we pray and ask for patience, God doesn’t drop patience on our plate like brisket out of a Fat Boys food truck. When we pray and ask for patience, God allows our patience to be tested by suffering or trials and many times, those things involve or are caused by our spouse.

Marriage was given to us to work the impatience out of us. And the truth is the reason we are impatient goes back again to the biggest enemy of marriage, which is self-centeredness. God gave us marriage to help rid us of self-centeredness. It’s also one of the reasons he blesses us with kids.

Sanctification in marriage doesn’t happen overnight. It takes many years for us to see these changes us in us and it requires perseverance from us to see them through to the end, but that’s God’s goal for us. Just as Christ loved the church in a way that sanctifies her, we also should love our spouse with patience waiting for her to be made perfectly holy.

So that leads me to more of a question on how to apply this teaching, what do we do with this?

How Do We Become More Patient?

Expect Suffering - When it comes to marriage and relationships, you need to expect suffering. This isn’t about being pessimistic, it’s about being realistic. People will let you down, including your spouse. People will hurt you, including your spouse. Sometimes life itself will throw you a curveball and it will affect your marriage. You need to prepare yourself mentally and spiritually to expect these things so you are not caught off guard. If you know it’s coming, it will help be exhibit more patience when it does come. This doesn’t mean there won’t be good time, quite the opposite, but it does mean that our hearts need to be ready for seasons of difficulty. The joy of marriage is that you have someone walking with you through that difficulty, just like Christ does.

Endure Well - When it comes to patience, we have to remain steadfast, we have to endure well. Steadfast in the original Greek means to “abide under or remain behind”. It’s a picture of waiting under a weight. In relationships, we have to wait or be patient with the proper attitude. What’s the proper attitude? The proper attitude is to be loving, kind, humble and compassionate. The problem is I tend to respond hurtfully (just plain mean), pridefully (acting like I’ve never done anything wrong) or even uncaring (not compassionate, but aloof). In order to endure well, I have to be more loving than I can imagine, because that’s the love that Jesus has for my spouse. In order to endure well, I have to be more humble, because pride and self-centeredness will destroy my marriage. I have to endure well because when I’m mean to her, it’s the same as being mean to Jesus. The way I treat my wife, reflects how I feel about my savior. If I love Him, I will love her.

Extend Grace - Freely you have received, freely give. When it comes to grace, Jesus has given you grace upon grace. You have been unfaithful, abusive, hateful toward him and yet, he forgives you all of your sins and cleanses you from all of your unrighteousness. In marriage, we are given the opportunity to show Christ to our spouse by giving grace. This isn’t about giving mercy, just forgiving your spouse when they hurt you, this is about loving them when they don’t deserve it. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. In marriage your spouse may do something so terrible that they don’t deserve forgiveness, much less your love and its at that point…the point for which your vows were made…that you need most desperately need to extend grace.

Expect Suffering

Endure Well

Extend Grace

Conclusion

So conclude today. I want to end with some prayer and journaling points. Perhaps God is speaking to you in the areas that you are struggling with patience. Perhaps he is calling you to be more kind and loving in the face of the trials of your relationship. Here are some prompts that I want you to carefully consider and take to the Lord. After some silence, I will return to close us.

Prayer Points

Father, where do I need to extend grace in my life?

Jesus, where are you asking me to suffer well?

Lord, how can I be more patient with my spouse?