“A MODEL OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE”

Rev. John W. Fowler
August 3, 2003

Ephesians 5:21-23
 

If Liz will hang in there with me - and she said she would - until June of next year, we will have been married twenty-five years, and I remember on our wedding day the preacher asking my father, who was my best man, as we were getting ready to go out, “How long have you been married, Mr. Fowler?”

And I think he said, “Thirty-nine years,” at that time.

I made the comment, “Boy, that is really something to be proud of.” And he said, “No. That is something to be thankful for.”

And so, if you have been married about twenty-five years or longer, you understand: that is not really so much something to be proud of; it’s something to be thankful for. God truly is the author of marriage. He desires that, wherever your marriage is today, to pour His love into it. He is for you and I believe that what I share with you is very basic. It is like football coaches at this time of the year saying, “Boys, this is a football.”

This is just real basic, but sometimes we rush straight through to, “Well, here are five things or here are six things we can do to make a marriage better.” And some people think, “Well, mine’s just fine. I don’t really need this at all.” But you just might.

The foundational principle that Paul talks about is so simple, but so often overlooked. Let me share this with you in Ephesians 5:21-32, where the Apostle Paul writes:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 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, but holy and blameless. 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, just as Christ does the church-- for we are members of his body. "For this reason 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--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

It was a joy to do a wedding ceremony last night for Jennifer Bryant and Davis Fisher, now Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. I did it in a Baptist Church. I’ve had several weddings in a Baptist Church recently. I’m starting to become a part-time Baptist preacher. It was a beautiful ceremony, beginning like so many of them do: Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the presence of these witnesses to join together this man and woman in Holy Matrimony. It is an honorable estate, instituted of God and beautified by Christ present at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. It is therefore not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently, discretely, in the fear of the Lord.

Weddings are popular today, and certainly in Hollywood they are. We saw “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding.” It was cute because the groom found out he was not only getting a Greek bride, but he was getting a Greek family with it.

And on television, “Who wants to marry a millionaire?” Not many thirty-one year old men have twenty-five ladies lining up, contesting to marry them. Of course, not many thirty-one year old men have a million dollars, either. (Now there is a spin off of that. I saw the title, “Who Wants to Marry Tom Arnold?” You remember Tom Arnold. He was married to Roseanne, and now, if you watch “West Wing,” he’s going to be President of the United States, at least for a little while; so he’s really going through the dramatic roles.) But nevertheless, what he has down there is pretty basic requirements: you are available and want to marry him; you have to be between fifteen and forty-five; you have to like him; you have to have the confidence to wear a bathing suit, and that’s about it. But then, it also has some questions about internet uses, obviously just a real crass advertisement for the internet.

Hollywood likes weddings but doesn’t always like marriages. You know, it was surprising to me recently. CNN had some real tough news. They were talking about those gruesome photos of Saddam Hussein’s sons and then they switched over and said, “On the lighter side, Liza Minnelli is getting a divorce.” Now, most people who have been through a divorce would not say that is the lighter side. It is one of the most painful experiences of their life, but the TV journalists were smiling and thought it was funny that another Hollywood marriage is not surviving. Bob and Delores Hope were apparently the exception of being married for a long time. But the church, truly, should lead the way in society about, really, what a marriage can be and I want to share with you a model of Christian marriage. It begins with verse 21. It is a foundational principle, and here it is:

Eugene Peterson talks about being reverent to one another out of respect for Christ. Essentially, the husband and wife are very conscious of the triangle formed by man, wife, and God. And you really do invite the Lord into your marriage, and he pours into your heart love for each other that just simply would not be there on your own. He gives you not only that romantic love, but that agape love, and you begin to love your spouse unconditionally. It makes quite a difference.

What does it look like? John Maxwell, who has written an excellent book, Making the Most of Your Marriage, a Video Series, talks about 6C’s. When you try to put this love into practice -Christ’s love in your heart for your wife or your husband - first of all it makes a difference in the way you communicate. Men and women start to communicate differently. From a man’s stand point, you sometimes don’t hear well, and sometimes we don’t want to hear well. God will help you communicate.

Compatibility. You know, it is interesting: - especially being someone who does the wedding ceremonies and meets with couples before - opposites attract. It is very obvious and, with the Lord, he will help those opposite ends complement each other. But without Him, you just drive each other crazy. He will help you be compatible.

Another C is control that the Lord’s spirit works in your life. He will bring you under the control of His Holy Spirit.

Another C is consideration. When God is working in your life you become a more considerate husband, a more considerate wife.

Also another C is coping. Those bad things happen. It is in sickness and in health, and those times do come, and the Lord really helps you in coping. I think it was Harry Emerson Fosdick who said, “Sometimes you see couples who have been married for a long time. The look they have in each others’ eyes are like sailors who have been through the storm. The look of respect and love, because they have been through the stormy weather together.

But the number one thing is commitment. Above all, what Christ does here is gives you a commitment. In our marriage we refuse to talk about divorce. Now, the only problem with that is that you are going to think about murder once in a while. But you are committed. You are committed for life.

Jacob, speaking of Rachel said, “That’s who I want.” “Alright, if you work for her for seven years you can have her.” What happens on his wedding night? He doesn’t get Rachel. He gets her sister, Leah. And then his father-in-law says, “Well, if you can work here another seven years, you can have Rachel.” Not many men today would work fourteen years for their wife’s hand in marriage. Commitment like this is inspiring. Why do we need it? Because bad things do happen to good marriages.

I have three A’s here that are very serious and they always need immediate attention: There is an abuse going on. You need to deal with that. You can’t be married and have that going on. There is an addiction. Certainly that needs to be dealt with. If there is adultery, I can tell you, it is more than mistake. It is a marriage killer. And those are three very serious ones.

But oftentimes, bad things happen to good marriages that just sneak up on them. Leslie and Les Parrott, who have are head of a relationship center, Christian Marriage Counseling and Family Counseling, out in Seattle, Washington, talk about some things that can sneak up on your marriage. One is busyness. We live in a culture that seems to think that if you are not busy there is something wrong with you. But tired people have a hard time having a good marriage. Watch it if you are in the habit of just being busy all the time.

Another one that sneaks up is irritability. You can be happy and smiling with everybody else but you get home and, “Who is this?” You have not left anything, and irritability takes over.

Sometimes boredom sneaks into a marriage. I heard of a couple who had been married for a pretty long time. They were getting up in age and they are going to bed at night and the wife told her husband, “You know, you used to hold my hand at night when we went to bed.” And so, he finds her hand under the covers. And then she said, “You know, you used to lie close to me when we’d go to bed at night.” And so, you can hear a sigh and he moves over. And then she says, “You know, you used to nibble on my ear at night.” And then he throws the covers back and she says, “Well, where are you going?” “I’m going to get my teeth.” As time goes on, you may have the scent of Ben Gay and Poligrip, but you still love each other and you don’t have to settle for a boring marriage.

Other things that sneaks up on us is; we drift apart. Well, if you have drifted apart, you need to come back together.

Debt. Larry Burkett, who went on to be with the Lord recently, will tell you that financial problems are very prominent in troubled marriages.

And then, sometimes, pain in the past. A good thing is that God can help you overcome those bad times.

The first month of my marriage I thought, “This is great.” We had had a long distance engagement and people told me that you have to work at your marriage; and I know you do, but for us, well, it was just fun to finally be together. Until one Saturday morning we were having breakfast and I didn’t have any youth ministry things and we were just having a relaxing time - and I hope you note that I was helping to clean up - but I made the mistake of dropping the frying pan on the floor. And, unfortunately Liz’s cat was near the frying pan and the frying pan hit the cat. I don’t think it was a direct blow, but anyway, it hit her, in the end. It had water in it, so the cat got wet. Cats don’t like water. And so, Emmy is upset. And Emmy is trying to get away. And, well, there is water is all over the floor, and if you have ever seen anybody run on a mopped floor, that’s what Emmy did. She was just slipping and falling, slipping and falling. Finally she got into the bedroom. Well, she went under the bed - Emmy did - and making all these awful noises, so it is obvious she’s been traumatized and upset; and Liz goes down in there and lies down on the floor and talks to Emmy, you know, like, “Emmy, please come out.” Well, I guess the biggest mistake I made was: I thought it was funny. But, it wasn’t funny, was it? It wasn’t funny. And I realized: “This is not funny to Emmy,” but they didn’t think I was sincere. We lived near Emory campus and I went to walk on Emory campus, thinking, “Well, you know it’s been a good month, but it’s over.” A good thing about being married to a good Christian woman: she forgave me. I think Emmy forgave me. It took a while, but they did forgive me. And what a difference it makes, especially when really bad things happen.

All right, where Angels fear to tread, I’ll go. The role of the women here, it says:

One word that I would share here, especially, is, how does this work out for the wife? And the word I would use is respect. I know that often Biblical submission has been preached in a way that comes across as the husband’s being a dictator who can never be wrong and the wife has to sit there and say nothing. We had a play on Good Friday. Some of you did not see it. Liz and I were cast as husband and wife, and I got to play a character where in one scene, I really barked at my wife and was upset with her and talked about, “I’m master of this house and I’m master of everything,” and you know, that’s a red flag right there: a man has to go around talking about he’s master about everything probably is not, but you just let him say that. And in that scene, Liz was just very submissive and went off to fix me some food. Well, anyway, in real life, I can tell you, if I went around barking like that she would not go off and fix me some food. It wouldn’t be that way.

But, really, what the word Paul is using here, really, is more a respect for your husband’s leadership. It is respect that you show to him that will make such a difference in his life and in his walk with Jesus Christ. I believe it is using the words of Gary Chapman, who has written a great book on Love Language, which I highly recommend. Basically it is just a way people show their love. Listen to these five basic ways and then see if you can guess which one he is talking about that the husband especially needs.

One, words of affirmation. A lot of peoples’ love language is they are very affirmative with their words.

Two, quality time.

Three, receiving gifts. You give them flowers and you give them a book or something, and it makes a difference.

Four, acts of service.

Five, physical touch.

I really believe what Paul is talking about are these words of affirmation.

I know Shawn Depears likes to point out these signs: “Men At Work.” You don’t see any signs, “Women At Work.” You know, we just assume women are working, but if men are working we have to make a big deal about it. Men tend to be that way, don’t they.

Men...if their wives believe in them, it makes a tremendous difference. And I believe that’s what Paul is talking about: words of affirmation, respect. You may say, “Well, I can’t respect him.” Well, you start respecting him and see if a difference starts happening.

When you talk about the role of a husband, I believe that the one word you will find in this is sacrifice. When he says it this way: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …What did Jesus Christ do? He died upon the cross for us. He laid down his life for us. And for so many men, that’s really what they need to do. They need to sacrifice some of the things they want to do, maybe time at work, maybe with their hobbies, but nevertheless, they sacrifice and this marriage is going to be a high priority. Who buys all the books on family? Generally it’s not men. It’s the women. And oftentimes it’s the men who need to play catch-up.

Some of the scriptures that come to mind when we love our wives as Christ loved the church are Philippians, chapter 2. It is a mindset. Have this mind in you which also is in Christ Jesus: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, took on the form of a servant...

I Corinthians chapter 13, which is oftentimes read a weddings, says it this way when we put this husband’s love into practice:

Gary Smalley, who has written a lot of excellent books on the family and is a conference speaker, shares painfully that he was not a very good husband early in his ministry, when he was a youth minister. And basically, what he was doing was: I am working for God, and he was busy for God, and his wife, basically, wanted a little bit more time with him. He had a hard time hearing that. But the day finally came when he came home and he said, “I know that I am not the husband that you want me to be. Would you try one more time to tell me what it is that I am doing that is bothering you?”

And she thought, “OK, I’ll try one more time.” And, finally, it clicked. Wives, sometimes that is just the way it is for husbands. You just keep trying. Sometimes it takes a while to get through, but when it gets through, especially, the Lord is working, and it will get through.

He began to change his schedule. He began to realize that he didn’t need to spend quite so much time at work. He knew that. You don’t have to be in church working to do that. Teacher, businessman. It’s very easy to do that. It’s common. Bill McCartney walked away from being a coach at the University of Colorado football team. He had won the national championship. Why did he walk away? What was his reason? “I needed to give more attention to my marriage; it’s more important.” And a lot of people thought, “That’s crazy. How could he do that?” His feeling is, “How could I not do that?”

You know, at Cana in Galilee, there was a wedding feast going on and it was a tremendous celebration. Men didn’t have a whole lot to celebrate, so when they had a wedding they really did it up and they had run out of refreshments; they had run out of wine, and Jesus’ mother ... {tape change}…

It was a miracle. It was the first miracle to keep a wedding celebration going.

I believe God does greater miracles than that today, when we allow him to come into our hearts. And even today, you make think, “Well, my spouse is not going to go for this.” Well, you go ahead and do it yourself and you see what happens. You just put it in to practice yourself. But God truly can work a miracle in you heart. He can make changes in your life and I’ll just warn you: oftentimes you can hear a message like this, and think, “Well, if my husband could hear this...” or, “If my wife could hear this...” Well, I’ll guarantee: He’ll start with you. That’s what He does. But He is for your marriage. He will honor that vow: to have and to hold from this day forward, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish ‘til death us do part. And what happens then, is you’ll have a marriage—it’s not perfect; it’s going to have some rough edges—but obviously God’s love is there and it will inspire those around you.

I am very, very fortunate to have grown up with parents who loved each other. They weren’t perfect, by any means, but you know, they were very committed to each other. The last scene I have with my father is of my mother at his bedside, them holding hands, and it’s a great example to leave behind. What I saw there in that hospital room is what I saw a lot going on. They had been through hard times, but obviously God had been in their hearts and in their lives and she simply was saying goodbye to her best friend.

When we allow God to come in, it is very basic; it is very important; it is His idea and we come back to him and He will work this miracle once again. Let us pray.