Marriage

Disclaimer

Mawage is wot bwings us togeder today. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam" - spoken by the "Impressive Clergyman" character

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Of all the pictures God could have chosen to represent himself he chose a couple. (talk about what he could have chosen).

We live in a world that has been raviged by sin. Sin seeps into our life and distorts and destroys what God has made so beautifully. Not a single one of us stand here today unaffected by sin. Sin destroys relationships, friendships, and even marriages. There are people here today who are divorced, or going through a divorce, or may face a divorce one day. While today’s lesson may be hard to hear, bringing up thoughts of what has been, or could have been, THIS LESSON IS STILL FOR YOU. You say how, can that be? Because while the earthly marriage is no more, the heavenly union of Christ and his bride, the church, is still very much alive and active. When we talk about covenant love, think of that in terms of the relationship that we all have with a perfect God who loves us unconditionally. When we talk about date nights, and family checkins, think of the time we spend with Christ and the church family He has given to us.

Our hope and happiness was not and is not dependent on weather we are married or not. Our hope and happiness is found in a relationship with Christ. Marriage was designed to point us to that relationship. Thats why marriage is a good thing - it points us to Jesus.

ok so without further ado, lets get into it.

The Habit of covenant love

Malerie and I used to be better at this practice and in complete transparency, it wasn’t until we moved away from family that we started to decline in this practice. But we used to go on a date every Thursday evening.

we’d leave the laundry undone, the dishes still dirty, and we’d set aside time to practice covenant love.

Scripture begins with a wedding. . . and it ends with a wedding

From beginning to end, covenant love is not just a theme, it’s THE theme in Scripture. . . so what is covenant love??

Story of Mr Herbert. definition of love

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Love is an action, not a feeling. The action of love, however, leads to the feeling of love. It is completely contrary to what the world demonstrates as love.

The world goes backwards. Love is a feeling that leads to action.

Covenant love is completely the opposite of love as a feeling. Covenant love is a promise. Covenant love says, “I love you despite what it costs me.” This, of course, is the Biblical story of love. God loves his bride, the church, despite all our foolishness and adultery. “Though it may undo me,” he says in Jesus, “I will love you.” This is love as an action, a commitment where individual freedom is surrendered so that love can flourish. This is why marriage vows say, “In sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, till death do us part.” And as it turns out, paradoxically, it is the love that says, “I’ll love you despite how I feel” that leads to freedom and happiness.

When we practice covenant love, we teach our kids that love is not something you stop practicing just because you stop feeling like it. No, love is something you finally feel because you keep practicing it. It’s by acting like people in love that we become people in love.

Acting out covenant love does not mean pretending marriage is easy. It is the opposite; it means admitting that marriage is hard and trying anyway.

marriage being really hard is not a sign that you are failing, it is a sign that marriage is working. Loving someone despite all their flaws and despite all your flaws is supposed to be hard and sanctifying work. It is one of the ways we become more like Christ.2 This is why we make a habit of practicing the covenant.

Habit 1 - Date night as a way to rehearse the covenant

As a practice, date night is simple enough. You set aside an evening for each other somewhere in the week (whether in or out of the house) and you stick to it.

You know you will be too busy and too tired, but that’s why you schedule it.

Ephesians 5:29 talks about husbands nourishing and cherishing their wives. Problems is I’ve filled up my week with other things and the nourishing and cherishing part of our relationship gets left out.

These date nights will go wrong as often as they go right. But the point is that we keep trying. We keep striving to practice and rehearse the promise we made to each other.

What does it look like

movie night

going out for dinner

having a dessert just to make the night feel special

Connecting emotionally and finding some way to say that we are more than parents. we are co-laborers, friends, and lovers.

Stress the importance of baby sitters. We were husband and wife before we were father and mother. It might be just hiring a baby sitter, or maybe it’s having family watch our kids. But weather it’s relational capitol or monetary capitol. . . it will be worth it. Watching kids is hard, and we need breaks from it.

Our greatest moments with our spouse are often wrapped up in the ordinary ones. So making a date night ordinary and a part of your weekly rhythm makes it less likely that it will fall to the wayside.

Habit 2 - Give the gift of time alone

Ephesians 5:25–27 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

One of the things we commit to each other is to make each other holy, not happy.

One way we can do this is by taking up the parenting mantle and allowing our spouse a break from being a parent. Placing it into a weekly rhythm helps it be consistent.

For example, each morning, I get up with the kids. I get Haven ready for school, if her sisters are up at that time, I take them with me to give Malerie some time alone in the morning.

Ladies luncheon. Even though I’m swamped for the next 6 weeks with house stuff, that’s not more important than giving my wife a chance to interact with other friends and be free from parenting.

Habit 3 - Showing Affection

We are to cherish one another.

My kids see everything and hear everything, and while they don’t understand it all, they observe it all and interpret it later.

They see when we hold hands or give each other hugs. They see when we are frustrated and angry at each other.

Perhaps it is kissing when one of you comes home. Perhaps it is always speaking well of each other in front of the kids. Perhaps it is committing to saying sorry publicly if you fought publicly. Perhaps it is telling stories to your kids about why you love your spouse so much. In this kind of thing, you’ll invent your habits better than anyone else can. Just remember that the little things you habitually do in front of your kids is an enormous part of the marriage legacy you leave them, and that’s not a burden, that’s a gift and an opportunity.

Habit 4 - Parenting Check-in’s

These happen during a date night or some other scheduled time, not as frequent, but have a rhythm for it.

What are the kids going through? How are we responding? What do we feel good about? What do we feel guilty about? How can we accept God’s grace for that guilt, and how can we lean into his call for what we should do better?

The objective is to create space to talk about how we are doing.

Habit 5 - Dreaming together

This is one of my favorite things to do with Malerie. Often on a car ride while the kids are asleep.

Questions like:

What friend does she wish she were closer to?

What is broken that we need to fix in our patterns?

What is a goal she is hoping for or working toward?

Where does she feel our family is headed?

At best, these are questions that try to understand something that is not necessarily on the surface of the relationship.

In understanding my spouses dreams better, we have something to work toward and there i unity in that.

Finding Jesus Through Marriage

Marriage is trying to love each other they way God loves us.

The unconditional love of Jesus means that no matter what we’ve done or left undone, he loves us and he is making us new anyway.

Displaying covenant love to my spouse demonstrates Jesus’ covenant love to us. And that is something worth showing our kids.