The Stakes, The Glory, and The Pain

Today, I am launching a five week series on Love and Marriage.

Is this a series we even need?

50% of first marriages

60%-75% of second marriages

70%-90% of third marriages

And in case you are living together thinking you are bucking the system, you aren’t. Living together actually puts your relationship/marriage at a higher risk to breaking up and/or getting a divorce than those who get married and never live together.

And, of course, these are just the statistics on relationship that do not make it. The amount of work and investment that it takes to get a divorce is actually quite high — even for an amicable divorce. The distance between a marriage with a low satisfaction quotient and having the gavel fall finalizing a divorce is substantial — and often underestimated.

Is this series needed? Not by some… but probably by most.

I want to begin this series by getting some basic feedback from you...

Take the card… I’d appreciate you offering me your gender and on a scale from 0-10 your level of satisfaction in your marriage… and hand those to our ushers.

What is at stake in marriage?

Ephesians 5:20–33 ESV

20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

What is marriage?

A crucial question… which I suspect most marriages don’t have a shared, united way of addressing that question: what, precisely, are we doing here? What is this about? What are we trying to accomplish?

When you don’t have a shared way of addressing what is at stake in marriage, then it becomes all the more challenging for marriages to be satisfying and enduring.

I believe this passage is the central passage in the Bible on addressing what is at stake in marriage… and it takes the Bible a while to get to offering a specific, precise way of addressing the question.

We see hints of what is at stake in — Paul quotes that passage in . But by the close of , the whole thing has blown up.

The Bible’s models for marriage are actually quite poor. I don’t have time for what I feel prompted to offer to you this morning to unpack all of that. But suffice it to say that, for what most of you would consider a “satisfying marriage,” I can’t take you and show you one of those kinds of marriages in the Bible with the possible exception of Ruth and Boaz — and my guess is the only reason that is the case is because all we see of their marriage is their courtship — and for most of us, that is what we actually want for 50 years of marriage.

I would argue that the Bible is brimming with examples of what marriage actually is… of what is actually at stake… but our normal approach is to dismiss all of them in the same manner we dismiss our own marriages… because they aren’t Shakespearean enough for us.

Which begs this question related to what is marriage — who and what is defining for you what marriage is and what is at stake… because if Shakespeare and his first cousin Hollywood are you answers to those questions… that is certainly your option. But, at that point, what I would ask you to do is not adopt the romanticism of Romeo and Juliette’s story (which, again, is a story about courtship only)… and then say the Bible’s doesn’t understand how tough it is to be married... and it’s “one exclusive, monogamous, man and woman partner for life” expectation is unreasonable.

Read the Bible. It’s examples of marriage are one train wreck after another. Why?

The Bible conveys this reality:

More than we are broken… we are cursed.

Jesus comes to break and reverse the curse… but make no mistake about it… marriage struggle, not primarily because we are all broken… but because of the curses of God which he pronounced on the serpent, the woman, the man, our work… and the struggles we all have come from the reality and powers of those curses.

Now, I have read you the Bible’s most important passage on marriage… and I’ve pointed you to the Bible’s most important passage on the specifics of why marriage (and life) are so challenging…

I’m going to say something here very candidly… if you want to have the Bible’s understanding of what marriage is and what’s at stake within and around the institution of marriage, you cannot do that without these two passages…

And not coincidentally, these two passages are two passages related to marriage which are most resisted and resented when it comes to how the Bible addresses marriage.

And my belief is that resistance and resentment comes from a lack of careful thought, study, observation, processing, and meditation which explores: what do these passages mean?

This morning, I’m going to close my time with you by sharing what I think these passages mean after years of extensive meditation from study, ministry, personal experience and the like.

If you read these passages and I ask you, “What do those passages mean to you and for you as a husband/wife?” and you answer that question with the answer, “I don’t know” — then from the Bible’s perspective you are approaching or living within the role of a husband or wife with weights of confusion, sadness, disillusionment, and image management (just to name a few) weighing heavy on the shoulders of your life, work, and marriage or marriages.

You may not love the way I address these passages, but if you want to have a Biblical foundation for your marriage, you have to address these two passages somehow.

Marla and I have been married for almost 30 years… the stakes… the glories… the pain… here is how I understand these passages to clarify for me what marriage is and what is at stake.

isn’t primarily about our marriages; it is primarily about the marriage Jesus has with His Bride — The Church.

Ephesians 5:32 ESV

32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

The marriage Jesus and the Church share is to serve as a model for the marriage that you are in right now.

Men, as Jesus relates to the Church — that is how you are to relate to your wife.

Ladies, as the Church relates to Jesus — that is how you are to relate to your husband.

This is the essence of mutual submission, shared love, and enduring respect which this passage champions.

The models here are not Ward and June Cleaver, Archie and Edith Bunker, Al and Peg Bundy, Frank and Marie Barone, Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Phil and Claire Dunphy, Leonard and Penny Hofstetter, or Kanye West and Kim Kardashian...

Marriages have one singular model… Jesus and the Church...

What is at stake is this: Christian marriage is the only physical manifestation God offers to the world for the world to see the beautiful and complicated relationship Jesus has with those who know and love him.

Like all marriages, the marriage Jesus and the church share involves great Glory… and great pain.

The glory of Jesus… and the glory of a husband… strong, vulnerable, leader, caring, empathetic, protecting, serving, helpful, meek, forgiving, like a lion, like a lamb… alive… loving. “Husbands, love your wife.”

Husbands, when glorious, are fully alive… risen from their slumber can love with all its facets.

The glory of The Church… and the glory of a wife… strong, vulnerable, caring, empathetic, protecting, serving, helpful, meek, forgiving, like a lion, like a lamb… alive.... and respectful. “Wives respect your husband.”

When/As Jesus and the Church relate to one another in such glorious ways — and when husbands and wives relate to one another in such glorious ways… it is a beautiful thing to behold. This is the Glory of marriage which models itself on the relationship between Jesus and The Church.

And there is Pain… also pain.

Because, sometimes, The Church is not at her best. She nags. She shops. She spends what she does not have. She is easily seduced. She is unfaithful in every way. Her heart is prone to wander. She is impossible to make happy. She is resentful. A REMINDER — I’M TALKING ABOUT THE CHURCH.. MOSTLY.

AND WE BELIEVE, AS THOSE WORDS ARE DESCRIPTIVE OF OUR CHURCH AND ALL OF OUR LIVES WITH AND BEFORE JESUS, THAT HE LOVES US WHEN WE: NAG, SHOP, SPEND, ARE SEDUCED, ARE UNFAITHFUL, PRONE TO WANDER, IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE, RESENTFUL.

This is where I meddle… so hang with me if you would...

Guys — if there is anyone who knows what it is to have a wife who nags, shops, spends, is seduced, is unfaithful, is prone to wander, is impossible to make happy, is resentful… it is Jesus.

And when you get to love your wife through such pain, the more you get to identify with the heart of God.

Ladies, for you, this work in can be a bit more complicated. Just as husbands have a role in the stakes of modeling the relationship Jesus and the Church have, you also have a role.

In , your role is to respect your husband the way The Church is called to respect Jesus. It’s an important word shift. You’d anticipate the word love… but for the ladies.. the word isn’t love. It’s respect.

The hitch and hurdle often sounds like this at this point…

“This isn’t a fair role for me/us to be invited to pick up in this model. Because the Church has an advantage that I/we don’t have: The Church’s husband — Jesus — is perfect! Have you met my husband? I got ripped off Ken. You know… he’s nothing like I thought he would be… when we fell in love, he came after me so hard… and more times than not, I can’t even find him. I want to talk, and it’s like he doesn’t even hear me. He doesn’t respond. He hardly says anything when he does reply. He doesn’t do what he says he will, and when he does finally do it, he never does it the way I felt he led me to believe he would do it. Our marriage hasn’t turned out to be anything like I had hoped marriage in general — but our marriage specifcally — was going to be… and then, every now and then, I’ll see this glimmer of hope. The guy I fell in love with with show up… and I’ll fall for him again… but the he seems to disappear more than I would like… and we do the whole thing all over again. Have you met the guy I married, Ken? Not perfect. Jesus — He’s perfect. If I was the Church, respect would be NO PROBLEM… but my husband… truth be told… he has been a colossal… disappointment.”

Ladies… this is where I meddle a bit… so, I will just say it straight:

I don’t know any wife who is more colossal-ally disappointed in Her husband… than the Church.

Wives, your journey in this model is a journey to, through, and with… disappointment.

Can you respect a spouse who, at times (and sometimes for Loooooong periods of time) is a colossal disappointment?

Ladies, when cease despising the disappointment your husband is to you and you come to respect him in the midst of those disappointments, you are identifying with the heart of God in marriage.

The greatest glory in enduring marriages is not in the marriage’s ability to stay in the tux, white dress, and honeymoon for 50 years… the greatest glory in enduring marriages is husbands coming to love the unlovable and wives coming to respect the colossal-ally disappointing… so that divine love and sacred respect can be incarnational in a temporary, fleeting, physical relationship, so that you can experience and come to bear the heart of God and the world can see the full expression that we are commanded to display of the eternal, never ending relationship between Jesus and His bride, The Church.

The pain for Jesus and husbands

1 Corin 13:

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.