ReFocus

My sermon title today, “Why God Hates Divorce,” calls for some careful preliminary analysis. In fact, there are four things I want to point out by way of introduction. First, the title presupposes that God does indeed hate divorce. I feel confident in making that assertion because God Himself said so. Mal. 2:16 reads, “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel . . . . So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.”

But second, I hasten to point out what the title does not say, namely, “Why God Hates Divorced People.” There is no such assertion in the Bible, and there are, in fact, many places where the Bible flatly contradicts such a notion. Now there are a few people who might be called “perpetrators of divorce.” By that I mean they consciously and intentionally use the divorce laws to free themselves of unwanted responsibility or to enable them to get into a new relationship that seems more exciting. Such individuals God may indeed hate. But I am convinced that most divorced people are victims, not perpetrators.

In many cases both spouses in the same divorce are victims–victims of Satan’s lies, particularly the myth of the greener grass, victims of ignorance concerning God’s principles, victims of a lack of resources to deal with the problems in their marriages, victims of a spouse who refuses to work on the marriage. They don’t want a divorce; they hate the thought of being divorced, but they just don’t know any way out of the trap in which they find themselves.

Now when I call these people “victims” I am not trying to relieve them of responsibility for their situation. Nearly all of them made some bad decisions somewhere along the way which led them into court. But I am trying to enter into their pain and grant to them the fact that in most cases this was not a willful act of rebellion toward God. In fact, so convinced am I of the pain and trauma that divorce produces that I have taken out of my vocabulary the term “divorcee”. I speak instead of “the one who has suffered divorce.”

Third, while God hates divorce, it is not by any means the only thing God hates.

Prov. 6:16 reads, “These are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”

And there are more. I did a word study throughout the OT and discovered that God hates idols and images (Deut. 16:21,22), He hates all who do wrong (Ps. 5:5), He hates the wicked and those who love violence (Ps. 11:5), He hates robbery and iniquity (Isa. 61:8), He hates the burning of incense in the worship of other gods (Jer. 44:4), He hates religious feasts and burnt offerings when the hearts of His people are not right (Amos 5:21), and He hates the plotting of evil against a neighbor (Zech. 8:17).

Now the reason I mention these other things God hates is not to minimize the hatred God has of divorce, but to help those of us who have not suffered divorce realize that divorce is not a unique sin that makes a person unredeemable in the sight of God or unusable in the church.

Fourth, it is important to note that while God hates divorce, He does not forbid all divorce. In fact, under certain very restricted conditions God expressly permits it. I must assume that in those situations God hates what brings about the divorce (namely unrepentant sexual sin) more than He hates divorce. This morning I do not have time to talk about the exceptions to God’s principle of “no divorce,” but I have written a rather lengthy paper on the subject, which I would be happy to share with anyone who would like to study the issue. In fact, I have a few copies available here this morning.

There may be a tendency for some to think this subject is irrelevant to them. I think not. Those who have never married need to think about God’s hatred of divorce before they decide to make a covenant before God and man “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.” God takes our vows very seriously.

Those who are now married need to know this before they even think about seeing a lawyer to solve their problems.

And those who are divorced need to realize that a second marriage is twice as likely to end in divorce as a first one, and God hates second, third, and fourth divorces too!

Even the secular world is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of the problem of divorce in our society. Every year over 1 million Americans get divorced, and the statistics get worse each year because the children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced themselves. Larry Bumpass, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, projects that 60 percent of recent marriages will eventually end in divorce. (The Emmaus Journal, 1993, p. 23).

A Michigan state legislator is attempting to reform that state’s no-fault divorce law. The law is so lenient, he said, “it is easier to divorce my wife of 26 years than to fire someone I hired one week ago.” No-fault divorce laws allow a marriage to be dissolved for almost any reason, even if only one party wants a divorce. The result has been skyrocketing divorce rates. State Rep. Jessie Dalman has proposed reforms. If one partner wants to reconcile, then the one who wants a divorce will have to prove fault. Also, the law would give more power over the division of assets to the partner who wants to reconcile. If there are children, the parents would have to prove that the divorce is in their best interests.

But making it harder to get a divorce, while probably a step in the right direction, is not the only way to tackle the problem. On February 9 Clarence Page’s syndicated editorial in the Post Dispatch was entitled, “Easy Marriage, Easy Divorce.” After discussing the pros and cons of no-fault divorce, he wrote,

Fault or no-fault, divorce is no fun. But the solution is not to be found at the back end of the problem, which is bad marriages. Let’s look at the other end. Instead of making it harder to get divorced, I think we ought to make it harder to get married. Worse than the no-fault divorce is the no-sweat wedding. If easy divorce cheapens the institution of marriage, so does easy marriage. We have waiting periods for gun purchases, mandatory training for drivers’ licenses, but nothing at all for two people who want to do the most important thing human beings can do, which is to create other human beings and raise a family.

I appreciate what this Michigan State Legislator is trying to do, and I agree here with Clarence Page, but of far more importance to me is what almighty God, our Creator, has to say on the subject of divorce. What I want to ask and to answer this morning is this: Why does God hate divorce?

Because divorce violates His perfect plan for His highest creation.

Paul Stolwyk spoke very clearly and profoundly last Sunday about God’s blueprint for marriage: One man and one woman united permanently in a relationship of commitment, companionship, fellowship, service, and love. Divorce was never in the original blueprint for the home. Not only is that implied in the Genesis account, it is clearly stated by Jesus. He said in Matthew 19:8: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” It is also made clear in our primary text for today–Malachi 2:10-16:

Have we not all one Father ? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another? {11} Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. {12} As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty. {13} Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. {14} You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. {15} Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. {16} “I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

In this text the prophet takes the people to task for their spiritual unfaithfulness and for their unfaithfulness to their marriage vows. Spiritual and physical adultery are often linked in the Bible; indeed they almost always go together. A man in the process of divorcing his wife without biblical grounds recently told me, “I’ve never been closer to Christ.” Frankly, I don’t believe it, and there’s nothing in his actions or attitudes that would suggest fellowship with God. Yes, there are tears, but the tears remind me of the tears here in verse 13: “You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.”

In Malachi 2:15 the prophet goes back to the beginning of creation and the institution of marriage. “Has not the Lord made them one,” i.e. one flesh? He had enough breath of life or creative energy to have made many wives for Adam. Why then did He make only one? Monogamy was His intended design, in order to raise up a godly offspring. The author’s point is that divorce clearly counteracts the original purposes of God to establish an extended spiritual family here on earth. “So,” says Malachi, “guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith.”

God’s plan is, by definition, the best plan. How could it be otherwise? If He is the God of Scripture, the infinite, eternal, omniscient God of wisdom and power and love, would He devise a plan that would not be good for His children? Would He demand permanence in marriage if that permanence interfered with our welfare and our happiness? Jesus answered that question emphatically in the Sermon on the Mount. “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” And marriage is one of the greatest gifts God has given to His creation.

But, you say, there’s nothing godly about my marriage. It’s miserable, it’s unhappy, it’s degrading. Do you mean to tell me that God wants me to stay in this for the rest of my life? Of course not! God doesn’t want you to be in a miserable, unhappy, degrading marriage for even five more minutes! But there is an alternative to ending a lousy marriage–that’s to find healing for it. I know there are a number of couples here this morning who have seen their marriages healed. I’m talking about marriages that were once in very serious trouble but today are solid, happy, and fulfilling. In fact, in a moment I’m going to ask some of you to stand as a testimony to God’s grace, if (1) your marriage was once so troubled that you thought about divorce, but (2) God has healed your marriage to the point that divorce is out of the question and you would call your marriage solid. If that describes you, would you be willing to stand right now?

Friends, does God heal today? We have some miracles standing before our eyes here this morning–miracles of God’s healing power. Thank you, please be seated. By the way, I’m sure many of these families would be happy to share with you how God healed their marriage. There is hope.

The spirit of our age is a spirit of shallow, temporary commitments and instant gratification. The spirit of our age demands that a marriage relationship meet our needs and achieve our goals quickly and painlessly. If it doesn’t, then we have the right to abandon it and find one that will. As followers of Jesus, however, we need to listen to the Spirit of God, not the spirit of our age, and the Spirit of God states that divorce violates His perfect plan for His highest creation.

Because divorce involves the breaking of a covenant.

The concept of a solemn covenant is at the heart of Malachi 2. There was a spiritual covenant between God and His people, and that covenant served as the symbol for the marriage covenant. All marriages whether civil or religious include the recitation of some kind of vows–statements and promises of mutual commitment before God and man. When a man and a woman marry, they do not say, “Till divorce do us part,” they say, “Till death do us part.” They almost always promise to stay together “for better or for worse.” Although the couple may be non-Christians, God hears the vows made and will judge them for promises not kept.

Do you know how serious covenant-breaking is to God? Listen to a few of the literally dozens of passages that speak about God’s attitude toward those who break covenants and vows. First, Lev. 26:14ff:

But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Three more times that chapter goes on to say, “If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me . . . further evil will come upon you.”

Then consider Eccles. 5:4-6: “When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, ‘My vow was a mistake.’ (Boy, I’ve heard that a bunch of time in marriage counseling!) Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands?”

In order to illustrate all the more graphically the heinousness of divorce, Malachi uses three phrases in chapter 2, verse 14 to describe the victim of divorce: “Wife of your youth,” “your partner,” and “the wife of your marriage covenant.” One commentator writes,

She whom you thus wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days, when in the bloom of her young beauty she left her father’s house and shared your early struggles, and rejoiced in your later success; who walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of life, cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry; and now, when the bloom of her youth has faded and the friends of her youth have gone, when father and mother whom she left for you are in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn-out, worthless thing, and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place.

Of course, this cuts both ways, for there are as many women violating their marriage covenants today as men. God hates divorce because divorce involves the breaking of a covenant.

Because He loves people and doesn’t want them to suffer the pain that divorce inevitably produces.

Divorce, friends, is ugly. Even under the best of circumstances it causes great pain. When a husband and wife get married they become one flesh. That’s the essence of marriage. When a husband and wife get divorced that one flesh is torn apart. There’s no painless way to tear one’s flesh apart. God knows that, and that’s why He hates divorce.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md., categorized life’s most stressful events and found that divorce ranked third behind the death of a child and the death of a spouse. (Industry Week, June 23, 1980, p. 81). Some people I know who have experienced all three would rank divorce even higher.

What I do not understand is why so many will endure all the emotional pain, psychological pain, financial pain, family pain, loneliness, bitterness, and dozens of other kinds of suffering that divorce produces, but they won’t seek marriage counseling, or if they do, they won’t engage in the hard but rewarding work that can bring healing to a troubled marriage.

I think God has a special love for those who have been divorced against their will, as well as for their children. Listen to Psalm 68:4,5:

Sing to God, sing praise to his name,

extol him who rides on the clouds–

his name is the Lord–

and rejoice before him.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,

is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families. (and one of those special families is the church).

Now tell me, do you think God is offering here to be a father to those made widows and orphans by death and not those made widows and orphans by divorce? God hates divorce because He loves people and doesn’t want them to suffer the pain that divorce inevitably produces.

Because He loves children, and children are devastated by divorce.

Children are the silent victims of divorce. Always. One mother I know who divorced her husband to marry another man tried to convince me that her children were doing well; in fact, she had convinced herself that her children were better off with their time and love divided between two homes than they would have been had she stayed in a loveless marriage. Leaving aside the fact I have already mentioned–namely loveless marriages can be healed–this woman is simply deluding herself. I know her children, and her children are hurting, and they are hurting more because of the divorce than they ever would have hurt had she stayed in the marriage. You could never convince me otherwise.

Children of divorce hurt when they are small. I had a little preschooler in this church come to me three weeks ago and tell me she thought she was going to die. I believe the trauma she was experiencing is related directly to the fact that her daddy has moved away and she doesn’t know if he is coming back. Every S.S. teacher and every public school teacher will tell you about the pain inflicted in the lives of small children when mommy and daddy go separate ways. In many classrooms today the number of children who live with both their natural parents in the same house is a distinct minority. And we are surprised at the behavior problems?

Children of divorce hurt as adolescents. Newsweek magazine, February 19, 1996, reported that teenagers from broken homes are more likely to drop out of school, have children out of wedlock and have poor mental health. This week Pastor Bruce has been working with a social worker in our church who specializes in counseling the adolescent victims of divorce in the public schools. They are working on establishing a thoroughly Christian version of that curriculum here in the Church so the children of broken homes can talk out their special issues and find support from one another.

Children of divorce hurt even as adults. My wife’s parents divorced when she was 8. As divorces go it was one of the better ones. Her parents remained civil and there was no attempt on the part of one of them to paint the other as the bad guy. They both lived in the same city so the children had plenty of access to both parents. Her mother and her stepmother became friends and to this day they remain friends, even though her dad died in 1994. We can all have Thanksgiving Dinner together and there is no tension or difficulty. Furthermore, Jan came to faith in Christ through her stepmother, so the best thing that ever happened to her was a result of her parents’ divorce. That’s why I say that as divorces go, this was one of the better ones.

But does that mean the divorce of her parents left no scars? Don’t believe it for a moment. Some of the toughest things we have had to deal with in our 32 years of marriage are the result of that decision of Jan’s parents long before I met her. She has done an amazing job coming to grips with those issues (to say nothing of the problems I brought into the marriage) and her healing is nearly complete, but the question I would ask is this: “Does a child deserve to pay that price so the parents can find a quick escape route from the pressures of life?” And remember, this was by no means a typical divorce. The scars left when mom and dad are bitter and angry or when one of them just abandons the family or even when one moves out of town are infinitely more severe.

God hates divorce because He loves children, and children are devastated by divorce. Now I wish to conclude with one more point:

Because God hates divorce, we should hate divorce and reject it as a solution to the trials we face in marriage.

I’m not talking here about the person whose spouse is guilty of persistent, unrepentant adultery. Jesus addressed that situation in Matthew 5:31,32 with some special instruction. Nor am I talking about the person who because of his or her commitment to Christ has been abandoned by an unbelieving spouse. Paul addresses that situation in I Cor. 7 with some special instruction. But I am talking to nearly everyone else. If God hates divorce, we should hate it. If God says “no,” we should say “no.” If God says, “With me all things are possible, I can heal your marriage if you are willing to live by my principles, invest the necessary effort, and trust me,” then we should say, “Yes, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

I want to close today with a letter I received on Tuesday. I asked permission from this couple and they said I could read it to you. I showed it to Paul and after reading it he said, “You don’t even need to prepare a sermon. Just read the letter.” Well, I thought that was a bit drastic, especially since I had already prepared my sermon, but I do want to read the letter.

Mike,

I wanted to drop you a note and let you know that I have really enjoyed the messages on the family the last couple of weeks. I also want to say that I appreciate your comments and your beliefs on the subject of divorce and how much God hates it! Having a degree in theology from a Christian college and having worked in the “arena” of (a certain evangelical denomination that shall remain unnamed), I have witnessed many ministers dancing around the subject. It is refreshing to see ministers stand in the pulpit and preach what God’s Word says, not worrying that someone will be “offended”–I think a better word is “convicted.”

Having been through a divorce I see the destruction that it does–not only to the two married individuals, but the children, the in-laws, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, friends, associates–it seems to be a never ending “ripple” effect that touches so many people. It is a devastating move that cripples the family emotionally, spiritually, financially, educationally, etc. I have seen the effects on my 3 « year old son; it is so sad to see him grieve for our past mistakes.

My wife and I are still moving in the direction of reconciliation. We both feel very comfortable with each other and have worked through a lot of garbage and hope to put our family back together the way God intended it to be. Our counseling has gone very well and we really enjoy each other. There have been some arguments, etc., but we have actually been able to work through the situations very well. It has been work but it has been fun–we are making it fun!! I look forward to getting our family whole and healed!

Please continue to preach God’s Word as you have. I wish sometimes that I could stand on a mountain and shout a warning for people not to go down the road that we did. Thank God for giving us the opportunity to “make it right”–most don’t get that chance. Mike, please continue to warn the families at E. Free that God hates divorce and it is not the “way out” that most people think it is. I know there are cases that people are in danger and they need to be removed from a situation, but our society has made divorce look like a cure-all for marriage problems–it’s not! It just causes much more pain and destroyed lives.

God bless, and he signs his name.

This couple is here this morning, as they have been for most of the last two months. They were here together on December 31, the morning Ben and Debbie Mudd shared how God had brought Ben to his knees through their divorce, how he had accepted Christ, how he had prayed for reconciliation, and how their relationship was healed. The Mudds were remarried in November. God used that testimony to convince this couple that God could do it again. He is working in their lives and I look forward to officiating at a very special wedding in God’s time.

Marriage is like a garden. Neglect it long enough and it will become a jungle, replete with lions, tigers, and snakes. Friends, if your “garden” is looking a little shabby, now is the time to pull some weeds. If it seems beyond you, get a gardener. There is much at stake. If you see friends of yours that are in trouble, encourage them to get help and get it now.

Reconciliation between two people, whether they are in a troubled marriage, or already divorced, or whether they are just co-workers who can’t get along, or church members who have a personality conflict, or individuals who have racist feelings toward one another,

reconciliation between two people is possible only because God has first reconciled us to Himself. In II Cor. 5:17-18 we read, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

God sent His one and only Son to the Cross to pay the penalty for our sin. When we put our faith and trust in Jesus’ sacrifice, God extends to us the free gift of reconciliation–He becomes our friend. But He does more–He gives to us the ministry of reconciliation, the privilege of bringing others to the Cross, but also the privilege of breaking down the walls that separate us and finding healing for all our relationships.

Malachi 2:15

For six weeks we have been discussing ways to remodel our houses into homes. We started by seeing that the basis of a successful marriage is our character. Then we looked at God’s master plan behind marriage and some of the reasons God hates divorce. We’ve also seen that significance and security in the home starts with Jesus first and our spouse second, and we have learned to love and respect one another.

We are going to shift gears a bit this morning and focus our attention on the other relationships that make a house a home relationships between parents and children. It has been good to discuss these marital issues at length because a good marriage relationship is crucial to a good parenting relationship.

The best thing you or I can do for our children is to love our spouse. Your relationship with your husband or wife is the primary relationship in the home. When God created a family, he started with Adam and Eve. Not Adam, Eve, and Jr. The demands of raising children often get this fundamental issue out of alignment. Even with a boatload of kids, the most important relationship in the home is husband and wife, father and mother. Not mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter or mother-son. If your marital relationship is struggling, continue to work diligently on it. There must be oneness between you and your spouse before there is oneness in your parenting.

Since I have been a parent only three years, I decided that I was still a bit lacking in personal experience to try to fake it and become First Free’s version of James Dobson. In fact, James Dobson could use some of my parenting skills as negative examples for his program. So lacking anything pithy to share, I turned to the Scriptures to see if God had some wisdom for parents concerning the raising of children. In the overview study that I did on Monday, I found that

Regarding parenting, the Scriptures are long on principle and short on method.

There are only a few passages that teach us directly about parenting. In Deuteronomy 6 and 11, the people of Israel are admonished to teach their children the precepts of God by talking about Him to their children as they go about their daily business. In Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, fathers are admonished to bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Along with these three clear commands, there are a half dozen Proverbs that give broad wisdom concerning the value of children and the discipline of children. Also in the account of Eli in 1 Samuel 14 there is a useful negative illustration of what happens when a father fails in his responsibilities. In addition, a few verses in 1 Timothy 1:4 and 5 illustrate what happens when a mother and grandmother (Lois and Eunice) build God’s Word into the lives of their children.

Despite the relative shortage of biblical material, there are three foundational principles that need to be highlighted.

The goal of parenting is raising godly children. (Mal 2:1016) Malachi is the last Old Testament book and comes just before the first Gospel, Matthew, about two thirds of the way from the front of your Bible. Four weeks ago Mike preached from this passage to help us understand why God hates divorce. After rebuking the men of Israel for breaking their marriage covenants, Malachi raises a rhetorical question in verse 15, “Has not the Lord made them one?” The obvious answer is “yes.” They should know from Genesis that the Lord does make two people one when they are married. Malachi states this in the next sentence, “In flesh and spirit, they are his.”

Then the prophet asks the question, “And why one?” The answer is given, “Because he was seeking godly offspring.” God makes two people one flesh in order to meet their aloneness needs but also because he wants godly offspring. And the best way to produce godly offspring is to put them in a loving home with two godly parents. From God’s perspective the goal of parenting is not to raise a Princeton grad or a world class swimmer, but to raise godly children. This is important to God because godly people worship Him.

The responsibility for raising godly children belongs to parents. (Deut. 6:49, 11:1621; Eph 6:14; Col 3:20,21) Now this may seem obvious, but I wonder how many of us “outsource” this responsibility to the church. We outsource math, science and literature, but the moral character and spiritual development of our children is our responsibility. AWANA, Passport to Adventure, and Junior and Senior High youth groups are here to support your ministry with your children. They offer your children models that reinforce what they are learning from you and provide further instruction.

One of the ways we should respond is by being as involved in our children’s spiritual education as we are in their math and science education. Simple things like knowing their Sunday School teacher, praying regularly for them, and sharing our own process of discipleship with our kids are ways to begin taking this responsibility.

Let me mention one other observation that was a bit startling to me. The New Testament addresses parenting twice. In both instances, Paul addresses fathers but not mothers. I believe he does this not to minimize the importance of mothers but instead to whack men across the side of the head and remind them that they are to be the spiritual pacesetters in the family. Not to do so, the New Testament implies, is a sure way to irritate, discourage and cause bitterness to well up inside our children.

Our inner cities are showing the marks of what happens when fathers are physically absent. But I wonder if some of the problems we are seeing even in our suburban homes is also because of absent fathers–perhaps we are there, but too often we have a remote control in our hands and are emotionally distant from our children.

The methods of raising godly children vary. This is true for two reasons. First, the Scriptures do not give us systematic methods for rearing children. And second, it just would not make sense to assume that one method can work for all families in raising godly children. Just as there are many different ways to disciple people who have come to faith in Christ, so too there are any number of good directions parents can take to intentionally develop godly children. You cannot apply a rigid formula to relationships.

There are a number of great resources in our library on parenting. I encourage you to read widely and draw from the experience of any number of wise parents in developing your own method of raising your children. Kevin Leman, Jim Dobson, and Ken Huggins offer great practical help. Two books from which I have drawn good principles are Christian Parenting by Dr. William Sears and the work of Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo in their “Growing Kids God’s Way” series. I have a pet peeve with both these books, however. Dr. Sears in his introduction says that he is presenting what he believes to be “God’s design for parenting” (Sears, p. xix). I find that a bit arrogant to assume. I have the same problem with the title to the Ezzo’s series. I do not believe that they have necessarily found God’s way of raising godly kids. They both present great principles and practical advice, but I think it is stretching it to assume they have the definitive works on the subject.

Rather than focusing on teenage rebellion or sleep schedules or the merits of time-out versus spanking, I want to look at raising godly children from a different perspective. The problems and pitfalls of raising godly children in our homes are similar to the problems of raising godly people in the church, but on a smaller scale. In his letters to the various churches, Paul reveals some of his discipling principles for turning ungodly people into godly people. I want to try to explain these principles and relate them back to the home. I believe that if they work in the local church they can transfer equally well into the context of our homes.

One of the most powerful ways to learn is by imitating the examples provided by other people. In the church, Paul knew that people would become godly if they imitated good models of Christian living. In the home, the same truth applies. Parents are examples to their children in everything. We have no choice in the matter.

Modeling godly attitudes and behaviors are critical in helping our children attain godliness.

In fact godly children can only be produced by godly parents who are modeling their walk with God and offering appropriate instruction as they go. Let’s start looking at Paul’s principles for training by modeling. Turn with me in the New Testament to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1, verse 5. Paul is recounting how he saw these believers come to faith in Christ. Then he writes, “You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with joy given by the Holy Spirit.”

The Thessalonian believers came to faith in Christ in the midst of significant persecution. Despite this persecution, they received the Gospel with great joy. Paul attributes their joyous response to imitation of himself. He modeled a joyful response to the persecution he experienced. Luke tells us in Acts 17 that Paul was persecuted in Thessalonica and was run out of town by an angry mob after only four weeks of ministry. We see from this that

People learn by imitating behaviors and attitudes they see lived out in other people. (1 Thess 1:6) We learn most of what we know about living life through imitation. We see this easily during early childhood. My daughter imitates my facial expressions. My son imitates every movement I make. But this kind of learning continues even as adults. Do you want to see a good example of this? Just look at my outline in today’s worship folder. Have you ever seen an outline like this before? This is a Mike Andrus sermon outline, isn’t it? For 10 years, I have been sitting under Mike’s teaching. He has been the most consistent, biblical teacher I have had. I have learned to think through a sermon by imitating Mike. This is a scary realization, isn’t it? I have joined the Twelve Step recovery group Brad Harper founded to break myself of this dysfunctional behavior. Seriously, Mike is a wonderful model to follow in this regard. Today’s sermon outline reflects the fact that I have imitated what has been modeled for me.

Right now, our children are learning and imitating behaviors and attitudes they have seen lived out in us. Do we love people and use things, or do we love things and use people? Our children will imitate our values. Do we follow God’s priorities, or do we expect God to follow our priorities? Our children will imitate our faith. Is our prayer life a constant discipline, or is it just a mealtime ritual to ask God to bless our food to the nourishment of our bodies? Our children will imitate our prayers.

Look at what Paul says next in verse 7: “And so you became models to all the believers in Macadonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia your faith in God has become known everywhere.” After imitating Paul’s and Jesus’ example of joyous grace under fire, these believers become an example to other churches. They would never have been an example to others unless they had a model to imitate in the first place.

People who imitate good models become good models for others. (1 Thess. 1:79) What we model to our children will last through generations. Today in our homes girls are learning how to love their husband by watching their mother. Boys are learning to be fathers by watching their dads. They are learning ways to resolve conflict by watching us either talk it out, fight it out, or avoid it altogether. Someday our children will imitate us in these areas. They will sit in a pastor’s office for premarital counseling and bring with them a host of expectations about marriage and family which they learned from us. They will pass on our examples, both good and bad, to our grandchildren. Sobering, isn’t it? But there is hope.

Turn over two pages to 2 Thessalonians 3:6ff:

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

Paul made a decision at some point to intentionally live a certain way in the hopes that his example would be followed.

Parents must intentionally model a godly lifestyle for their children. (2 Thess 3:9, 1 Cor 4:16, 1 Cor 11:1, 1 Peter 5:13) One of my professors at Trinity said this to a class filled with future pastors, “You are an example. You have no choice in the matter. You can choose, though, what kind of example you will be.” That holds true for you as a parent as well. You can intentionally choose the kinds of things you want to model for your children.

Let me suggest that you sit down with your spouse, or by yourself if you are a single parent, and write out the godly character qualities, godly attitudes, and godly behaviors that you would like your children to have when they leave your home at age 21. Then intentionally seek to build these attitudes and behaviors into your own life and begin living them out before your children. Most important lessons are caught rather than taught. Your children will catch something from you. You can have control over what they catch.

When Paul wrote Timothy, a young pastor shepherding a church in Ephesus, he encouraged Timothy this way, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” This gives us our fourth principle on modeling.

Parents must set an example in speech, life, love, faith and purity. (Mal 2:15; 1 Tim 4:12) Last week I was having a little talk with my son about the tone and volume of his voice. I told him I didn’t like it when he yelled or used a disrespectful tone of voice, and I asked him to work on it. Then he said to me, “Dad, I don’t like it when you raise your voice.” Rebuked by a three year old! In my spirit, I wanted to justify my behavior and tell him that I needed to raise my voice in order to get his attention. But that wasn’t the point. He was asking, “How come I can’t raise my voice but you can raise yours?”

I was trying to instruct without modeling. Thankfully the Lord showed me my hypocrisy. So I thanked Matthew for telling me and then I told him I wanted to change. Then I asked him to help me. So we are working together on our voices. He helps me and I help him. He’s a lot better, I’m still struggling. As you make your list of qualities, attitudes, and behaviors, start with these five categories-speech, life, love, faith, purity. That covers a lot.

But modeling is not enough. Paul coaches Titus, another young pastor on the island of Crete, this way: “In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness.” (Titus 2:68a) Notice that Paul tells Titus to demonstrate with his life and then teach. His counsel to Timothy followed the same sequence.

Parents should follow up their example with integrity filled teaching. (Titus 2:7) Two extremes need to be avoided in the areas of modeling and teaching. The first extreme is instruction without modeling. This will work with younger children, but as soon as kids get to their teens, they will see it for what it is, hypocrisy. Teenagers are smart; they can smell a fake a mile away. One of the quickest ways to embitter your children toward you and God is to establish a rule that you don’t follow or that you occasionally change when it becomes inconvenient. The second extreme to avoid is modeling without instruction. This leads to confusion by putting the responsibility on our children to guess what the real motives behind our actions are. As children grow up they need patient instruction so that they understand the motivations and mindset behind the model they see.

One other caution is to be very careful how we use God’s Word. Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. But it is not useful for winning arguments. If we pull out a verse in the middle of a conflict with our children, even if we are right, we will lose because we are using the Word for our advantage, not their advantage. We should instruct with God’s Word to equip them for every good work, not to beat them.

These are the five principles I see Paul employing in discipling ungodly people toward godliness. One important fact I haven’t mentioned is that these principles are given in the context of people who have placed their faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. So Paul, Timothy and Titus are using these principles with people who have the Holy Spirit residing in their hearts. This gives them a distinct advantage. One of our elders, Heinz Bockle, has wisely observed that having the Holy Spirit in your children helps tremendously in parenting because the Holy Spirit works from the inside out. I encourage you to diligently pray for God to open your children’s hearts to their own sinfulness and to Christ so that by faith the Holy Spirit can come in and transform their hearts.

So what about those of us whose kids do not show signs of personal faith in Jesus? Thankfully for us Jesus was well acquainted with the problem. Jesus took ungodly disciples without the Holy Spirit and transformed them into godly leaders for His Kingdom.

Jesus’ relationship with His disciples models the training relationship that parents can have with their children.

Jesus prioritized his relationships with the twelve disciples. Jesus spent time with twelve men who were impulsive, loud, quick-tempered, slow learners, smelly and disobedient. He gave his priority time and effort to these few. He did not neglect his ministry to the masses but he deliberately gave those few disciples the greatest majority of his time over the length of his ministry.

Why did Jesus focus so much attention and spend so much time with so few? His ministry was relationally driven, not content driven. Jesus understood that it was in his presence that they could learn all they needed to know. The essence of Jesus’ training of the twelve was that they would learn simply by being around Him. Jesus was a living sermon. He was the curriculum. This kind of ministry takes a lot of time but it is highly effective.

Our kids need a relationship with us. We have to intentionally spend large amounts of time with them, not just quality amounts of time. We need to be available to them when they are ready to learn.

Jesus gave himself to the Father first, and then to the Twelve. The controlling principle in Jesus’ life was obedience to the will of God. So, often Jesus would get away by himself to be alone and to pray. The Twelve would eventually learn that to be godly, they would have to be sold out to God. After spending time with His Father, he gave himself completely to his disciples. He gave them his joy, his peace, his love. He denied himself comforts and pleasures for their sake. He accepted humiliation and poverty for their sake.

If we are not sold out to the Father, we will not raise children who are sold out to Jesus. If our faith is casual, then we cannot expect our children’s to be anything more. Remember what Malachi said earlier, “Guard yourself in your spirit,” that is, love God with all your heart, soul and strength and also love your spouse.

Jesus demonstrated attitudes, priorities and disciplines to the Twelve. In the short term this didn’t have a lot of payoff. The disciples were constantly failing at living out what Jesus demonstrated. Peter was the ultimate rebel when he denied Jesus three times. But Jesus’ model was quickly imitated once the Spirit came on the disciples after the resurrection.

Luke tells us in Acts 1:14 that after Jesus ascended into heaven, they all joined together constantly in prayer. How did they know to do this? Well, they had seen Jesus pray countless times as he healed the multitudes, as he feed the 5000, and as he blessed the children.

Immediately after the Holy Spirit comes and fills the disciples in Jerusalem, Peter explains to the crowd the meaning of the strange dialects they are hearing. In Acts 2:15 Luke records Peter’s message, “These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel . . .” He then quotes five verses from Joel chapter 2. Where did he learn to use the Scriptures like that? He had spent three years with Jesus. Over and over again, he would watch Jesus using the Scriptures to correct and rebuke the culture of his day, to build up the broken and the hurting, and to stand strong in the midst of temptation.

Throughout the book of Acts the disciples fan out over all the earth reaching out to all kinds of people, including Gentiles. How did they know to do that? They had seen Jesus reach out to all kinds of people sick people, poor people, untouchable people, grieving people, immoral people, forgotten people, short people and materialistic people. Jesus was in the people business. And they had learned the family business by watching the founder

We cannot control when God will open our kids’ hearts to the gospel, but we can still model for them what to do when the Spirit does come upon them.

Jesus instructed the Twelve in the context of real life. Most of Jesus’ instruction was done on the fly in the midst of real life situations. He did not try to create teaching environments. Deuteronomy 6:7 tells parents to impress the commands of God on their children. “Talk about them when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” There are many opportunities to teach children the precepts of God throughout the course of a day.

Jesus gave the Twelve controlled opportunities to fail. Jesus knew he would have to help his disciples move from being renters of the truth to owners of the truth. The way he did this was to give them opportunities to fail in controlled environments. He would give them things to do that would intentionally stretch them. Often they failed the test, but failure created a laboratory for learning.

One of the parents in our church was trying to decide last spring if she should let her young daughter go to Haiti with the youth group. She did let her go and she came back changed. The opportunity gave her daughter the chance to see God work in very personal ways. It is those kinds of experiences with God that will help a child move from renting her mother’s faith to owning it herself.

Jesus knew they would reproduce what they saw. He knew that the model he gave would last through the generations. The steps Jesus took with the disciples can be steps we take.

Recently I purchased a piece of furniture from a catalog. When I opened the box, the first thing I noticed was that it was in about 30 pieces. I got a sick feeling in my stomach because I knew what I needed to look for next was the instructions. I dug those out and saw the phrase for which I have great contempt, “read directions completely before proceeding.” Being more on the intuitive side, I find instructions like this very limiting. My normal mode of operation is to plug in my glue gun, look at the pictures and “feel” my way through it, just gluing pieces together. This usually leads to all kinds of sin, because I begin to get really angry that it does not assemble the way I would have designed it.

My usual standby is to blame the manufacturer for hiring second rate engineers. Any engineer worth his salt would be able to design this stuff so an intuitive guy like me could just build it. This spring, Carol and I will have a garage sale where we are going to rid ourselves of all the items I have intuitively assembled. We are looking for a bigger garage where we can hold that sale.

This propensity on my part has cost me on a few occasions. How often has the warning, “read directions completely before proceeding” been ignored to your detriment? It is unfortunate that many people approach marriage the way I approach assembling furniture. The building of a marriage is infinitely more important than a piece of furniture, yet people often ignore the instructions provided by the Manufacturer. This morning, let us walk through the directions given by the Manufacturer of marriage.

Turn with me to Genesis, the first book in the Bible, beginning with the second chapter. We will discover why God created marriage, what he designed marriage to look like and what keeps marriage from being everything God designed. When Mike and I discussed how to approach this series of sermons on marriage, we recognized that there are almost an infinite number of books being written on the subject of marriage. We felt that the best service we could provide would be to clearly, simply and carefully teach what God has told us about marriage from his Word. Whether we are contemplating marriage or in the midst of it, we must align our understanding and practice of marriage to coincide with God’s.

I know that God’s word is the power of God for salvation. If God is powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead, He is able to apply salvation to my marriage and resurrect it, too. In order to understand God’s design for marriage, we have to go back to the beginning. The first three chapters of Genesis tell a dramatic story. Genesis 1 gives the account of a perfect creation, Genesis 2 lets us see the wild meeting of two people who become one, and Genesis 3 shows us what brings the disintegration of their relationship with God and with each other.

Where Genesis 1 gives us a complete narration of creation, Genesis 2 retells the story in order to fill in the details concerning human existence and specifically, marriage. Look at verse 24 of chapter 2. Moses writes, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.” The phrase “for this reason” tells us that what preceded verse 24 answers the question, “Why do men and women get married and why did God create men and women so that they desire to get married?” As we look back, we this important truth:

Marriage is created by God to meet our core need for companionship. (Gen. 2:1823)

In verses 414 of Genesis 2, God creates Adam, breathes life into him and then creates the garden where he will live. Let us pick up the story at verse 15.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden: but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die.’ The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”

This is a remarkable statement by God. Six times in Genesis 1, after each major creation event, God looked at what he created and Moses tells us that “God saw that it was good.” But now in this expanded account of the sixth creation day, there was a moment when things were not good.

God declares the lack of human companionship “not good.” Human isolation, human aloneness, is the only thing that God declares not good in the whole of creation. God sees companionship as a core need. So what does God do? Does he make the suitable partner that He knows Adam needs? Not yet, look at verse 19:

“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” (1920b)

Instead of making a partner, God puts Adam to work on a big zoology term project. God works by his side bringing animals of every species and kind. Adam studies them and gives them a name, cow, duck, horse, lama, tapir, condor, platypus . . . on and on he goes. Why do you think God does this while there is still something “not good” that needs to be addressed?

Look at the end of verse 20, “But for Adam, no suitable helper was found.” We already know this, Moses, you told us this already in verse 18, so what else is new? A lot is new. Between verses 18 and 20, Adam discovers for himself what God already knows. He is living in paradise where he has everything his heart could want–a dog named Lassie, a good job, and a sinless relationship with God. But Adam has also discovered a very important fact:

Abundance, work and a relationship with God are inadequate substitutes for human companionship. Now Adam appreciates what God appreciates and will appreciate the way God provides for his need. So in verse 21, God sets out to address Adam’s need for companionship:

“So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman” for she was taken out of man.’”

God creates a partner for Adam from his own flesh. Having come to appreciate his need, he wakes up from his sleep. Now Adam doesn’t say this in a church voice. There is a bit of excitement here. “Whoa man! This is good! Whooo Wheee! This isn’t a duck. Got any plans on Thursday?” He knows he is not alone. Isolation has given way to relationship and partnership.

A marriage partner, for most people, is God’s provision for aloneness. Now for those of you who are not married or who have the gift of singleness, there is a broader principle that applies to you. Aloneness and isolation are viewed as not good and companionship remains a core need. That is why you date; it is why you have special friends. God provides for your aloneness through multiple people now, rather than a lifetime partner. So until marriage, develop intimate relationships with people. Get beyond just having surface acquaintance with a few people. Develop close friendships with other adults, both single and married, to meet your needs for human companionship.

For those of you who are married or will be getting married shortly, God has provided for your aloneness primarily through your spouse. Your job, your ministry, your relationships are inadequate substitutes to meet the need you have for companionship.

Carol and I recently had a good heart to heart talk after the kids went to bed. We talked through some lingering issues that were keeping us isolated from one another. We talked for over an hour about many things. About 45 minutes into our conversation, I had a wonderful sense of satisfaction that what we were doing at that moment was it. Even though it was a difficult conversation, a tear-filled conversation, our relationship was more satisfying than even Kingdom work, more satisfying than anything I could ever imagine owning, and more satisfying than my relationship with my children. Companionship with Carol is it. That is my core human need.

Now that we know why God created marriage, what did God design marriage to look like?

Marriage is designed to be the most intimate of all human relationships. (2:2425)

In these verses, we can see God’s original design specifications for marriage. The first design specification is this:

The husband wife relationship is to be the primary human relationship in our life. This principle comes from the phrase, “a man will leave his father and mother.” The word “leave” is a very strong word that is translated “forsake” in other places. Intimacy in marriage cannot occur if parents hold equal or greater access to the heart than does the husband or wife. (Intimate Allies, p. 218). God intends that our greatest delight is to come from the opinion or desires of the person whom we marry, not from the parents of origin. In order for intimacy to have a chance, each spouse must choose to disconnect themselves from loyalty to their parent’s priorities, traditions, rules and influence. Then, after disconnecting, they need to reconnect with their parents as a husband and wife, instead of simply as a son or daughter.

Leaving is perhaps one of the hardest steps for most couples and it is a step where failure leads to many problems later in married life. Leaving doesn’t mean that we cut off communication with our parents. Nor does it presume that we can just wipe the slate of our past clean and start brand new with our spouse. But with honor and respect to our parents, couples must move away from them and from the past that defined who they were and what they did. Then they should relate to their parents as a new family.

Marriages run into trouble when the goals, rules for relating, and family priorities continue to be dictated by one or both families of origin. Some families are very difficult to leave. Through my counseling I have observed three types of parent- child relationships that are very difficult for married children to leave.

The first involves an insecure or overly controlling parent who uses guilt to get their married children to respond in ways that focus their child’s attention upon themselves. The married child finds himself expending tremendous energy meeting the emotional needs of the insecure parent. This energy is taken from the limited resources that are intended to be directed toward the needs of the spouse.

Married children have to decide which emotional needs of their parents they will try to meet so that power of guilt can be deflected. Then working with their spouse, they must develop clear boundaries and rules which they will follow in their relationship with their parents. If possible, they should discuss those boundaries with their parents and then live by them.

The second is an emotionally absent parent who never told their children that they were proud of them simply for being who they were. Having experienced a lack of affirmation from a very significant relationship, married children may continue to orient their priorities in order to gain approval and acceptance from their parents. Married children orient their careers, their parenting, even their decorating in hopes that maybe their mother or father will finally be impressed and say, “I’m proud of you!” The married child needs to leave this family by recognizing the underlying motivation and to accept that this need for approval may never be met by their parents. Then they must choose to seek and receive their significance from Jesus first and their spouse second. (Pastor Andrus will be focusing an entire message on this issue on March 3).

The third kind of relationship is an overly protective or overly indulgent parent. Both parents fail to change the emotional, financial and relational locks on their house after their child gets married. They often unknowingly continue to meet the emotional needs of their child that are to be met by the child’s spouse. When life get tough for their children, the parents make it too easy for them to return and receive praise, financial help, or inappropriate emotional support. The married child needs to leave this kind of family by choosing not to return and transferring their trust to their spouse. They need to do without the things their parents still provide.

Each of these are difficult families of origin. But our text teaches us that our responsibility is not to change our family of origin but to leave our family of origin. The key to making marriage work begins by courageously leaving the loyalties, priorities and roles of our family of origin as best we can. Your family of origin may not like it, they may not change, they may not know how to have a mature adult relationship with you. You cannot change your mother using guilt. You cannot make your dad tell you, “atta boy!” But the power of the Holy Spirit can help you change. You can choose to make your relationship with your spouse the primary relationship and you can choose to respond differently to your family of origin. Living this way honors your family and is honoring to God.

The uniting of a man and a woman in marriage creates a new unique family unit. God did not begin society with a nation. He did not begin with a corporation. He did not begin with the church. He started with the relationship between a man and a woman. I’ve officiated at a few weddings and attended a number of rehearsal dinners and wedding receptions. In almost every one, the father of the bride or the father of the groom will stand up and toast the couple and say something like this, “We are so happy for Bob and Julie on this special day. Alice and I are overjoyed to welcome a new daughter into our family.”

Now I realize that dads are not trying to make a theological statement with their toast. I know their words are motivated by love. I will probably say the same thing when my kids get married. But from a theological standpoint it is wrong. When two people get married, they are not joining their respective families. In God’s eyes they are leaving the families of their youth and coming together as a brand new family. Distinct. Separate. No longer under the authority of the parents. I would love to hear our fathers say at the weddings of their children, “Bob and Julie, we share your joy this day with you. Today, you are leaving our family. God had made you into a new one. Alice and I are just thrilled with the opportunities for our families to fellowship together and share life and support one another.”

I’ve taken some time on this issue because it is crucial for the steps that follow.

The husband/wife relationship is to be a permanent relationship. This principle is derived from what happens after men and women leave their families of origin. The text tells us that the man is “united to his wife.” In older versions, the word was translated “cleave,” meaning that two people are bonded or glued together. The union is so strong that it takes something extremely violent to dissolve it.

Marriage vows are vows of permanence. “I, Paul, take you, Carol, to be my wife from this day forward, for better or for worse, whether rich or poor, in sickness or in health. I vow to love and cherish you till death parts us.” I made a permanent commitment no matter what the circumstances.

To develop a permanent bond, a man and a woman will need to weave themselves together in their minds, in their hearts and in their bodies. They must develop their own stories, make their own songs, and be transformed by the same incidents. They are to be united in the greatest of triumphs and the most heart wrenching disappointments.

The spirit of our age is a spirit of temporary commitments and instant gratification. The spirit of our age demands that relationships be perfect, without any pain, any struggle, any work. If it doesn’t come quickly, if the relationship takes me away from my goals then I have the right to get out of it. The spirit of our age has led our society to enact laws that make divorce very easy. As a follower of Jesus, we need to listen to the Spirit of God not the spirit of our age.

I have spoken to a few people who told me they got a divorce simply because they didn’t get along or they married the wrong person. They just threw in the towel. It was easier to start over. They bought the lie put forth by the spirit of the age. They didn’t take the time to talk with anyone else to see that every couple struggles and some days are better than others and it takes work to break barriers that get built up. But the breaking of barriers brings great joy. If you think your marriage isn’t what you would like it to be, join the club, get in line, queue up behind me.

The husband/wife relationship is to be characterized by oneness. This principle comes from the phrase, “one flesh.” Oneness is the day-to-day unity a couple experiences as they live life together. They experience oneness emotionally, spiritually and physically.

To begin experiencing oneness in marriage, a couple needs to be in agreement in two ways. First, they must be in agreement with God’s will, plan and purpose for marriage. Together, they must desire to align their marriage with God’s plan and to seek to honor God through their love for one another. Second, on an ongoing basis, they must be in agreement with one another concerning the specific goals, purposes, and direction of their relationship. You need to agree in areas like career, parenting, finances, long term investments, relationship with each other’s parents, commitments to ministry, how leisure time is spent, and how conflicts are resolved. Making a unilateral decision concerning one of these areas without consulting your spouse and having them on board is one of the quickest ways to develop bitterness and slowly erode the oneness of your relationship. Oneness demands that two people communicate, listen, and ask questions on a continuous basis.

Imagine being in a three-legged race where you are united at the ankle with another person, but when the gun sounds you both head off in different directions believing you know the way to the finish line. What happens? You will either kill each other or the stronger of the two eventually will get to their finish line, dragging their companion behind them. Many marriages are like this. They lack oneness.

Oneness is not necessarily unanimity but it is unity. When Carol and I decided to spend the summer in Russia in 1994, I was much more sure about us doing this work then she was. It took us a couple of weeks to talk through all the issues involved for both of us to be on board. Carol did not feel as passionately about the ministry opportunity as I did. On the other hand, I was not as concerned about logistical issues as she was. But I would not have gone if there had not been oneness of heart that this was the right thing for us to do. Being an intuitive person, my natural response is, “trust me, things will work out OK.” I could have seen it as a lack of respect for my person when she initially raised some objections and I could have pulled out a submission verse and beat her over the head with it. But that wouldn’t be oneness. Instead, we talked through it until I was satisfied that we had oneness at the core, even though our passion about the ministry would not be identical.

The husband/wife relationship is to be a private kingdom of significance and security. This principle comes from verse 25 where we read that they “were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Marriage is an incredibly intimate affair. In marriage you cannot hide your flaws, the flaws of your past, the flaws of your bodies, or the flaws of your character–all of which can produce shame. They are all there for someone else to see. Marriage makes you very vulnerable. God’s intention is that marriage be a relationship where we can safely be transparent and vulnerable without fear of being put down for whom we are. He wants a relationship in which there is love and acceptance, where normally there would be shame.

One of the ways couples violate this design is by making mean spirited comments to their spouse that belittle, degrade or shame them. This kind of behavior is nothing less than exploitation. It is taking advantage of insider information and using it to their advantage to win an argument or to temporarily salve their insecurity by giving them a feeling of power. When this occurs inside the home, it is a repugnant distortion of God’s plan and creates great damage. When it occurs outside the home in a public context, it is even a greater distortion and significantly more damaging. Using intimate information for ridicule or shaming acts like Roundup on a person. It is a slow but very effective killer.

So far we have seen why God created marriage and what he created it to look like. When Moses puts the period at the end of chapter 25, the music begins to play because now everything is good. The man and the woman are both naked and unashamed. Fortunately, Moses didn’t put his pen down. Following closely after chapter 2 is, get this, chapter 3. The third question Genesis 13 answers is, what hinders God’s design for marriage? Why do we continue to experience isolation instead of oneness? Why do we continue to feel alone?

Marriage is corrupted and destroyed by sin. (3:111)

Genesis 3 begins with the serpent appearing on the scene. He twists the truth in order to deceive the unlearned Eve to disobey God’s command and eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So why does the serpent come now? Why does he come to the woman and the man and not some other part of God’s creation? These are good questions. There are also good answers:

Satan stands against the purposes of God in marriage. People are the creative high points of God’s creation. In Genesis 1, verses 2627, Moses reports, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’ . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Satan stands against marriage because man and woman are like no other creatures on earth. We alone bear the image of God. Dogs don’t. Trees don’t. The stars don’t. They declare God’s glory but they do not reflect it in their character and their being the way you and I do. Each of us reflects, though sometimes ever so faintly, the character and nature of God in our being.

Satan picks out the man and the woman because they alone bear God’s image. And he cannot stand it. He is set against God and seeks to destroy the image of God from the face of the earth. If Satan can destroy a marriage, he knows he destroys two people who bear the image of God for the price of one. And possibly, if there are some kids, he may be able to destroy a few others who bear the image of God.

Marriage is lived on the battlefield, friends, not merely in the bedroom. Satan recognizes the image of God in your spouse and in you. Unfortunately, many spouses fail to recognize what Satan sees. Satan is set on destroying the image of God. Are you playing into his hands?

Carol and I are vastly different. She is detailed and ordered. I am “big picture” and intuitive. At times, these differences create great tension in our home. We could let these differences erode the permanence and oneness of our marriage or we can recognize that these qualities are reflections of God’s character and learn to work through the differences respectfully. Let me encourage you to make a list of the qualities you see in your spouse that reflect the character and nature of God. Then thank God for those qualities and think about them more than you think about the deficiencies you see.

Personal sin is the greatest enemy in marriage. One of my Trinity professors eloquently said, “Sin wrecks everything.” He’s right. The serpent goes after Adam and Eve to disobey God, but look at the context in which this occurs, verse 6 of chapter 3, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Who is at fault here? Sin takes place while they are together. They are still on their honeymoon. They can’t get enough of each other. The serpent deceives Eve and she takes some fruit and lovingly offers some to her spouse. Who is at fault? Eve? Well, Adam is right next to her. They are one flesh.

Then look what happens in verse 11 where God addresses Adam. “And [God] said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’” In other words, “Did you disobey me, Adam?” What should his response be? “Yes.” Look at what he says instead. “The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’” In other words, “it’s not my fault. It is not my character that is out of whack!”

Adam needed to hear last week’s message, “It’s character, Adam!” Moses continues, “The Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’” In other words, “Did you disobey me, Eve?” What should her response be? Look at what she says. “The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.’” Eve needed to hear last week’s message, too! “It’s character, Eve!”

What are they doing? They are blaming everyone but themselves. Like five year olds, they point the finger somewhere else rather than at their own hearts. Rather than working toward oneness by confessing and accepting responsibility, they isolate themselves from one another and blame the other guy. God holds each of them accountable and they suffer the consequences for their disobedience against God.

Everett Worthington, a counselor and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University has written:

“The root cause of systemic marital discord is sin and selfishness . . . Sin and selfishness create me-centered communication, in which the partners do not think of each other’s needs; each attempts to manipulate the partner to meet his or her own needs. Sin and selfishness frustrate conflict resolution because they establish a win-lose mentality. . . Sin and selfishness whisper accusations against the partner and prime the ear to listen to and believe the accusations. At the center of all these relationship difficulties is an attitude of self-righteous self-justification that proclaims, ‘I’m right. My partner is wrong. My partner is to blame.’ Finally sin and selfishness erode commitment.” (Worthington, p. 30)

There is last week’s message again. It’s character, Jim. It’s character, Mike. It’s character, Paul. Listen to the tape again if you have forgotten. But Worthington goes on and writes, “At the center of every successful marriage is each spouse’s capacity and willingness to confess his or her own inadequacies and to ask forgiveness.” (p. 60) This is the hope for us.

Confession and forgiveness are the steps toward healing. Every marriage has enough sin to go around. But renewal in marriage takes place when we stop blaming someone else, own up to our sin, and take responsibility for it ourselves. We are each experts at our spouse’s sin, as Adam and Eve illustrate. But healing begins when we examine ourselves and recognize the shortcomings in our own character that have hurt our spouse and confess them to our spouse. Confession is one’s sincere recognition of his or her part in marital tensions. Confession is an abandonment of self-centeredness and self-righteousness and humble acceptance of personal responsibility. Confession opens the floodgates that bring healing.

Forgiveness is not forgetting the sin against us. Rather, it is an attitude and a decision to not hold our spouse’s actions against them anymore. Forgiveness breaks down the dam that holds back healing and replaces bitterness and resentment with freedom and love.

I encourage my premarital couples to practice the verbalization of confession and forgiveness. I tell them to get in the habit of saying, “I’m sorry I’ve sinned against you by. . . .” and returning the confession with a verbal expression of forgiveness, “I’ve been hurt, but I forgive you and I won’t hold it against you.”

Again Worthington has written, “Sincere confession and forgiveness and assurance of forgiveness are the keys that open the gates to other aspects of healthy marriage closeness, communication, conflict resolution . . . and these in turn lead to contentment, which strengthens commitment.”

In the 1992 presidential election Bill Clinton’s campaign had a slogan that every campaign employee, every political operative, every ward boss, every media consultant was constantly challenged with this slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid!” It hung on the walls of the campaign headquarters, it was stamped on letters to state committees, it was plastered on the limos and airplanes and buses used to haul the candidate and his entourage around.

What the slogan was designed to convey was the conviction of those at the top that the election would be won or lost on economic issues alone. Nothing else really mattered and nothing else was going to be allowed to distract the campaign–not ideology, not foreign affairs, not family values, not even bimbo eruptions (as Rush Limbaugh so delicately puts it)–nothing but the economy. Since there was a slight recession in George Bush’s last year, along with a rising unemployment rate, the decision was made to exploit the people’s fears of job security and hope they would vote their pocketbook. As we all know, it worked.

This morning I want to borrow the form, though not the substance, of Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan as my theme in this, the first of a series of messages on the Christian home. During this series we are going to deal with such questions as:

Why Did God Institute Marriage?

Why Does God Hate Divorce?

How Does a Man really Love His Wife?

How Does a Wife Really Respect Her Husband?

How can I Meet the Two most Basic Human Needs of My Spouse and Children?

But this morning I want to ask and answer the simple question, “What is the single most important key to having a great marriage, a great relationship with your kids, and a godly family.” I am convinced that the secret to a great family life is not the dozens of books on marriage in your Christian book store, it’s not professional counseling, even Christian counseling, it’s not seminars, it’s not technique, it’s not methodology, it’s not Promise-Keepers’ conventions, it’s character–Christ-like character. Maybe this slogan needs to go up on the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror or the dashboard of the car, only substituting your name in place of Clinton’s term. It’s Character, Charlie! It’s Character, Tracey! It’s Character, Mike!

There’s no substitute for character. If you don’t have it you will never meet the needs and aspirations of your spouse, you will never raise a godly seed, you will never even find fulfillment in your own life. But if you do have it, you will find ways to work on and resolve the idiosyncrasies and personality quirks that try even the best of marriages.

I want to speak this morning on the most important passage in the Bible on marriage and family. And what is that? You might think it would be Gen. 1,2, Eph. 5, or I Peter 3, but while those are all foundational to understanding God’s blueprint for the Christian home, I am convinced that the most important passage on marriage and family is probably Gal. 5:22,23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” But let’s read it in context, beginning in Gal. 5:13:

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature ; rather, serve one another in love. {14} The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” {15} If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

{16} So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. {17} For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. {18} But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. {19}

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; {20} idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension’s, factions {21} and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. {22} But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, {23} gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the fifteen acts of the sinful nature mentioned in verses 19-21 include virtually all of the leading causes of divorce in our country. Even more important, these behaviors are absolutely contrary to the law of God and those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In contrast, however, there are some behaviors that are not against God’s law or anyone else’s law, for that matter. They are the characteristics and personality traits that make one attractive, productive, loveable, and pleasing to God. I am going to concentrate just on verses 22 and 23 this morning. Even that is an assignment much too large for the time we have available. As a matter of fact when Brad and I preached through Galatians in 1987 we spent three weeks just on these two verses. What I wish to do today is to look at these character traits from the standpoint of family life.

Now no doubt someone is anxious to point out to me that marriage is mentioned nowhere here in Galatians 5. I understand that. Gal. 5 is bigger than marriage; it speaks of all human relationships. There is no relationship between two human beings that is not damaged by the desires of the sinful nature or that is not enhanced by the fruit of the Spirit. None. The reason I have decided to preach from this text today is that I want us to see that a happy home is, more than anything else, the result of the character of Christ being formed in us.

Before we begin we must be reminded again that these qualities are called fruit. Fruit is not something made, manufactured or engineered. It is not the invention of a genius, or the product of sophisticated technology, or even the result of hard work. Fruit is the result of a long organic and living process–in this case a process that is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Furthermore, if these traits are the fruit of the Spirit, then I would assume the only people who can exhibit these characteristics in their true form are those indwelt by God’s Spirit.

Oh, there are a lot of unbelievers and even a few carnal Christians out there who appear to be loving and patient and kind and self-controlled, but they remind me of the wax fruit you can buy in some of your better gift shops. Frankly some of it looks pretty good; in fact, from a distance you can’t tell it from the real thing. But when the heat is turned up, it melts. It’s only the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit in the lives of true believers that can stand up to the test over the long haul.

The Holy Spirit indwells every true believer. That’s a Scripturally demonstrable fact. But the Holy Spirit does not have control over every believer’s life. That’s an experientially demonstrable fact. The true test of how much control the Holy Spirit has over our lives is seen principally in whether the fruit of the Spirit is clearly in evidence in our daily living, especially in the home.

You see, it is much easier to exhibit these characteristics with strangers than with those who know us. It is easier to exhibit them at church, where we spend a few hours a week, than it is at school or at the office where we spend dozens of hours. The hardest place to exhibit them is in the home. So that’s the place where our examination should take place to see if love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest of these qualities are really present in our lives. Jesus said in Matthew 7:15-19, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit.”

I think it is not at all foreign to this text to suggest the following observation: a person of good character cannot produce a rotten marriage, while a person of rotten character cannot produce a good marriage.

Now let’s play the role of fruit inspectors this morning, not to inspect other people’s lives, but rather to inspect our own in relationship to what we see here in these verses.

Love

There is no more important word for marriage and family than this one. So important is it that we will be devoting an entire message to it in a few weeks. But this morning I want to make a few general observations. As many of you know, there are a number of different words in the Greek language that are all translated “love” in our English Bibles. There is a love that is sensual in nature, there is a brotherly love, there is family love. But the word used here is the term agape. It not an emotional love; it is a love of the will, it is love in action. It is a love which causes a person to take the attitude, “I will do what is best for my spouse, no matter what I get in return.” Imagine how that kind of attitude could revolutionize a marriage! But do you know how rare that is in some homes?

Recently I came across a story that says it better than I can. A man named Tom Anderson wrote it of himself.

I made a vow to myself on the drive down to the vacation beach cottage. For two weeks I would try to be a loving husband and father. Totally loving. No ifs, ands, or buts.

The idea had come to me as I listened to a commentator on my car’s tape player. He was quoting a biblical passage about husbands being thoughtful of their wives. Then he went on to say, ‘Love is an act of the will. A person can choose to love.’ To myself, I had to admit that I had been a selfish husband–that our love had been dulled by my own insensitivity. In petty ways, really: chiding Evelyn for her tardiness; insisting on the TV channel I wanted to watch; throwing out day-old newspapers before Evelyn had a chance to read them. Well, for two weeks all that would change.

And it did. Right from the moment I kissed Evelyn at the door and said, “That new yellow sweater looks great on you.”

“Oh, Tom, you noticed,” she said, surprised and pleased. And maybe a little shocked.

After the long drive, I wanted to sit and read. Evelyn suggested a walk on the beach. I started to refuse, but then I thought, Evelyn’s been alone here with the kids all week and now she wants to be alone with me. We walked on the beach while the children flew their kites.

So it went. Two weeks of not calling the Wall Street investment firm where I am a director; a visit to the shell museum, though I usually hate museums; holding my tongue while Evelyn’s getting ready made us late for a dinner date. Relaxed and happy, that’s how the whole vacation passed. I made a new vow to keep on remembering to choose love.

There was one thing that went wrong with my experiment, however. On the last night at our cottage, preparing for bed, Evelyn stared at me with the saddest expression.

“ What’s the matter?” I asked her.

“ Tom,” she said, in a voice filled with distress, “do you know something I don’t?”

“ What do you mean?”

“ Well . . . that checkup I had several weeks ago . . . our doctor . . . did he tell you something about me? Tom, you’ve been so good to me . . . am I dying?”

It took a moment for it all to sink in. Then I burst out laughing.

“ No, honey,” I said, wrapping her in my arms, “you’re not dying; I’m just starting to live! ”

Now my impression is that this man’s marriage was not exactly on the rocks; it just needed a tune-up. But it’s pretty sad when exhibiting one of the fruit of the Spirit for just two weeks would cause one’s spouse to think she’s dying. But frankly, friends, I suspect many of us might get a similar response.

I probably shouldn’t share this, but this little story reminded me of an embarrassing situation in my own family. I haven’t spent a lot of money on flowers in my life, but I have frequently brought home flowers from funerals I performed. You know, there’s umpteen flower arrangements and after the funeral the family says, “Pastor, if you know anyone who might enjoy these flowers, feel free to take them.” So I would take some to the hospital, some to shut-ins, and some I would bring home. Well, one day I stopped at Dierberg’s on my way home and bought my wife some flowers. It wasn’t for her birthday or Valentine’s or anything–just because I loved her. As I walked in and handed her the flowers she asked me in a rather concerned voice, “Who died?” Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

As I said, we’re going to return to the topic of love in a few weeks, so allow me to go on to the second in our cluster of fruit.

Joy

Joy is underrated as a godly characteristic in the home. As I read books on Christian marriage I find a lot of attention given to love, kindness, gentleness, and self-control, but this one is given short shrift. But the fact of the matter is that joy sets the tone for a household, providing an atmosphere where problems can be solved and the future looks bright. On the other hand, one of the quickest ways to destroy a marriage is by means of a negative, pessimistic, and complaining spirit.

The Psalmist says, “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” You say, “But you don’t know the circumstances I live with.” Or “You don’t know my wife or my husband.” True, I don’t, but the Lord does, and He indicates that joy doesn’t have anything to do with circumstances. True joy is a delight in life that comes from the knowledge that we belong to God and that no matter what situation we are in, He is in total control. Joy has its source in the Holy Spirit through a vital relationship with Jesus, and it is not subject to circumstances! The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice,” and he wrote that from a Roman dungeon.

Is there laughter in your home? Is there a light-hearted spirit? Can you play practical jokes on one another without taking offense? Is there singing? Joy is something the Holy Spirit would like to bring into your home. Third, we come to peace.

Peace

The most important peace attainable in this world is, of course, peace with God. Man is naturally at enmity with God, but God Himself declared a truce when He allowed His one and only Son to go to the Cross as a common criminal to die for the sins of mankind. We can have peace with God when we lay down our arms and put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God enables us to enjoy the peace of God, which is the quiet confidence that God can be trusted with anything and everything we face.

The peace of God, in turn, allows us to be at peace with one another. Jesus broke down the dividing walls between Jew and Gentile, between slave and free, even between men and women. The Holy Spirit enables two people with different backgrounds, different desires, different ideas, and different goals to live in harmony with one another. If a battle is going on in your home, it’s not because men are inherently impossible to live with or because women are impossible–it’s because sin has violated the peace God has arranged.

But what does peace in the home look like? First of all, it involves cessation of open warfare. It means that husbands and wives and parents and children make a decision to solve their conflicts by communication and compromise and forgiveness and, if necessary, counseling, rather than by physical violence or verbal abuse. But cessation of open conflict is not the only kind of peace God wants for us in our homes. We have that kind of peace in Bosnia today, but none of us would want to go there, and we surely wouldn’t want to model our homes after the situation there.

A second kind of peace is like the peace of a stagnant pool. In this kind of home no one’s fighting because no one cares. Husband and wife are living in the same house but not engaging one another. Conflict is dealt with, not by screaming or hitting, but with the old silent treatment.

The kind of peace God wants for our homes is different from either a truce or a stagnant pool; it is the refreshing kind of peace one experiences when one goes to his favorite vacation spot and unwinds. For me it’s Beaver Lake in NW Arkansas, where my parents live, or Door County, WI, where we have spent a week of vacation each of the last three summers. I can go to either of these places and completely relax. Walking the shoreline, soaking up the sunshine, eating Swedish pancakes at Al Johnson’s restaurant with the goats on the roof, or Norwegian lefsa hot out of mom’s oven. That’s peace.

By God’s grace our homes can be like that. In fact, I enjoy that kind of peace with my wife. We don’t fight. We don’t yell at each other. We don’t ignore one another. We’re friends. And my home is a refuge from the sometimes difficult and demanding issues that I face at work.

Now let’s be honest. I have a son who turns 13 this year, so the peace I’m talking about is not absolute; it does get disturbed from time to time. But I’ll tell you this; if my wife and I are at peace with one another it makes any other disturbance a lot easier to handle.

Now the fourth fruit on this cluster is patience.

Patience

There are two principal NT terms for patience, one speaking of patience under circumstances, and the other addressing the matter of patience with people. The word for patience under circumstances is a Greek compound made up of two words, meaning “to remain under.” Sometimes God calls us to remain under a pile for a while, without giving up. Patience with circumstances is not easy and the heavier the circumstances, the harder it is to exercise patience. But the second kind of patience is even harder to exercise, and that’s patience with people. And it is patience with people that is listed here in Gal. 5 as a fruit of the Spirit.

For a definition of this term I think Reader’s Digest came up with as good a one as I have seen: “Patience is the ability to count down before we blast off.” Losing patience is a childish characteristic, but it’s amazing how many adults do it regularly, especially in the home. No doubt there are dozens of things that try your patience with your spouse–things you have mentioned a hundred times but they keep on happening–like moving your keys from the table where you put them, like taking the towels out of the bathroom to wash them without replacing them, so when you come out of the shower there’s not a towel in sight, like turning up the thermostat instead of putting on more clothes, like failing to keep hand soap at the kitchen sink. (My wife’s teaching S.S. this hour, so I can get by with this).

Now stop and think about this list or your list for a moment. How many of the things we lose patience over are really earth-shattering? Not many. Strangely, I think most of us probably handle the earth-shattering things better than the little things. God wants us to have patience with people in the little things. (But those towels really drive me nuts!)

We’re going to consider the next two pieces of fruit together because they are so similar.

Kindness and goodness

Friends, tell me, who would you rather have as a neighbor–a brilliant surgeon, a famous athlete, a great movie star, or someone who is just ordinary in every way except he is kind? It’s not even a contest, is it? The same could be asked about whom you’d like to be married to, couldn’t it? Simple kindness turn an ordinary person into a saint. Perhaps more importantly, simple kindnesses are contagious. Someone has said, “One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness, for it is almost always returned.” That’s why, of all the fruit of the Spirit, kindness and goodness may be the most effective instruments of healing for a troubled marriage. I am convinced that there are very few people so hard of heart that they can resist a persistent barrage of kindness for any length of time.

Kindness is closely related to forgiveness. Eph. 4:32 says, “Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.” One of the kindest things you can do for another person is to forgive him. And if you refuse to forgive the one who has wronged you, any kindnesses you do will seem empty and hollow. If a wife is holding angry feelings against her husband, or vice versa, the little kind things that make a house a home are nothing but hypocritical gestures if forgiveness does not come first. The sixth fruit is

Faithfulness

Faithfulness is loyalty to long-term commitments based on invisible values rather than immediate and tangible self-interests. Faithfulness and marriage should be synonymous terms, but sadly they often are not . The fabric of many marriages has been damaged by a one-night stand or a clandestine love affair, or even a series of such affairs. Do you know how serious this is in God’s eyes? The Scriptures tell us that God hates divorce. It is contrary to everything He planned for the epitome of His creative power, namely mankind. Yet, unfaithfulness in marriage is so heinous to Him that He grants permission to the one who is a victim of sexual unfaithfulness to get a divorce. He hates divorce, but He hates unfaithfulness even more.

It’s important, however, that we come to understand that faithfulness in a marriage is more than abstaining from adultery. It is more than a negative concept, more than what we haven’t done. Faithfulness means we are committed to being there for our spouse–body, soul, and spirit. By that definition there are probably some people who have made a tragic mistake in a moment of passion, but, having repented, actually fill the bill of faithfulness better than many spouses who have never climbed into the wrong bed.

Gentleness

Men, I think this may be the sweetest piece of fruit in this entire cluster to most of our wives, but unfortunately it is also very rare. It is not in most men’s nature to be gentle, and not a few women come up short here as well. When I think of gentleness I cannot help but go back to a letter I came across years ago, written by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, the Bible scholar I often mentioned in our series on Romans. Dr. Barnhouse was widowed in 1944, and then a decade later he met Margaret, to whom he became engaged. He wrote this letter to himself, a few excerpts from which I would like to read:

Memo from D.G.B. to D.G.B. about Marge:

In just thirty days you are due to marry Marge. My boy, you have hit the JACKPOT, and you are in the position of a man who has never had money and is suddenly coming into a brace of oil wells. Or of a spinster who has just inherited her sister’s nine children. Or of a bull who is taking title to a china shop. In other words, you have a very valuable property with great potential that must be handled with extreme care. So stop and assess the situation.

The Bible says a husband is to love his wife. There will be no difficulty here. You love her all right, and with a love that scares you because it is so different. You loved and married before, but it was not a love that made you want to think of D.G.B. in second place while this distinctly is. The first was selfish. You were going someplace and nothing should get in the way. Now you have been someplace and you don’t want to travel alone anymore. And it is rather wonderful and a little frightening to have a love that does all this to you at your age . . . . This, then is something that must be watched, protected, safeguarded. Bull, watch out for that china as you walk in the aisles.

I think it would please the Lord if a little topsoil were taken off and the bulb allowed to flower . . . . Watch your step lest Marge become a yes-woman. Delight when she says no in a good cause. Learn to listen when her spiritual perception catches something that is even slightly off-key.

Watch the growth of her feathers. She has flown for many years with wings clipped. . . . Encourage her to soar. You know that she has great capacities and will be hesitant because of past restraints. She probably doesn’t realize the heights of her possibilities. It will be up to you to lead her gently to greater and greater heights.

Now the modern women’s movement would undoubtedly consider the whole tone of this letter to be condescending, perhaps even chauvinistic. There’s nothing they hate more than the perception that a woman needs to be treated with any special deference by a man. But 99% of the women I know would give their right arm for a husband who saw gentleness as a top spiritual priority and practiced it.

Children, too, need to be treated with gentleness. Their spirits are so delicate, so easily bruised, and great damage can be done to their futures when father or mother do not understand gentleness.

Now the last piece of fruit is self-control.

Self-control

Proverbs 25:28 says, “Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.” Paul adds in I Cor. 9:25, “Everyone who competes in athletic competition exercises self-control in all things. Athletes do it to receive a perishable wreath; but we an imperishable one.”

What is self-control? It is the healthy regulation of our desires and appetites, avoiding harmful excesses. It is needed because we are bingers by nature. Some people binge on food, others on sleep, others on work, and others still on TV or golf. We need self-control of our bodies, self-control of our minds, and self-control of the emotions. The latter may be the most important in respect to our homes. Some of the emotions that need control are anger, resentment, self-pity, and bitterness. Solomon warned, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” When one allows his emotions to control his life, rather than exercising control over his emotions, the springs of life are polluted and great problems result.

Our Scripture reading this morning is taken from 1 Peter 3:812.

“Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. {9} Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. {10} For, ‘Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. {11} He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. {12} For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.’”

I would love to preach verse by verse through this passage this morning, as is my normal pattern, but today I believe that we can receive greater profit by focusing our attention on just two phrases in verse 9. You might even want to underline them in your Bible: “With blessing” and “inherit a blessing.” Actually I like the New American Standard Bible rendering better; it reads, “not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.”

Whichever translation is used, the concept is clear that God desires for each of us to give a blessing to those around us, especially our family members, and His goal for each of His children is to inherit a blessing from others, particularly our parents, but also from our spouses and siblings, as well as from our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.

A profound book came off the religious press ten years ago, entitled The Blessing, by two Christian psychologists, Gary Smalley and John Trent. I want to borrow some of the insights of that book this morning as we conclude our series on the Christian family by focusing on “the blessing” as a crucial entity in the believing home.

By the way, I know we have not dealt with all the important issues related to the family in this two-month series. Even if we had, it is hardly possible to “fix” marriages from the pulpit, though I hope we have given you some tools to begin the process. Our hope and prayer is that awareness of our responsibility to family has been heightened, that these messages have stimulated some to talk about issues in their families that were too hurtful to address before, and that some have been motivated to seek godly counsel. I know that my own counseling load has quadrupled during this series.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed by it all, I suggested to Paul that we begin a new series on Leviticus–that ought to cut down on the counseling. But seriously, I’m glad that so many have come forward for help, and if you have been thinking about it and haven’t gotten up the courage, you come and we’ll do our best to help you or find some help for you. By the way, it will not be ten years before we do another family series. Paul and I are seriously considering setting aside a month each Spring to deal particularly with the Christian home.

As we begin this morning, I want you to consider with me the familiar account (in Genesis 27) about how Jacob received the blessing from his father, Isaac, instead of his brother Esau. in Old Testament times the receiving of a father’s blessing was a momentous event, eagerly anticipated by the children, especially the eldest son. It gave them a tremendous sense of being highly valued by their parents and even pictured a special future for them.

The time had come for Esau, Isaac’s eldest son, to receive the blessing from his father, and Isaac had told him to go and bring in fresh game for a savory meal, and when he returned the long-awaited blessing would be given to him. However, while he was out hunting his conniving, scheming brother Jacob stole the blessing by coming to his nearly blind father, Isaac, and pretending to be Esau. In Gen. 27:3134 we read about what happened when Esau returned from the hunt:

“‘My father, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.’ {32} His father Isaac asked him, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am your son,’ he answered, ‘your firstborn, Esau.’ {33} Isaac trembled violently and said, ‘Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him and indeed he will be blessed!’ {34} When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, ‘Bless me too, my father!’”

For a father in biblical times, once a blessing was spoken, it was irretrievable. In response to his pitiful cries, Esau did receive a blessing of sorts from his father, but it was not the blessing of the first-born he had longed to hear. His cry rings out, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!”, the same cry that can be heard, though often silently, from thousands upon thousands of people today who have never received the blessing from their parents.

Now there are certainly aspects of this O.T. blessing that are not applicable today, but many aspects are profoundly relevant. The issue at the heart of the blessing is genuine acceptance. Those who have never received it often become emotionally chained to their parents’ home, unable to cleave to another person in a lasting relationship.

Perhaps the most important place to begin is to talk about the elements of “the blessing” that are the common thread from O.T. times, through the N.T., right through to today?

The Blessing that Believers Need to Both Give and Receive Consists of Five Key Elements.

Meaningful touch

Spoken words of affirmation

Attaching “high value” to the one being blessed

Picturing a special future

An active commitment to fulfill the blessing

Meaningful touch. This was an essential element in bestowing the blessing in O.T. homes. When Isaac blessed his son he said, “Come near now and kiss me, my son.” And every time a blessing is given in the Scriptures there is hugging or kissing or a laying on of hands. The act of touching is a key to communicating warmth, personal acceptance, and affirmation.

Most of you have heard the story of the little 4yearold girl who became frightened late one night during a thunderstorm, but it bears repeating. After one particularly loud clap of thunder, she jumped up from her bed, ran down the hall, and burst into her parents’ room. Jumping right in the middle of the bed, she sought out her parents’ arms for comfort and assurance. “Don’t worry, Honey,” her father said, trying to calm her fears. “The Lord will protect you.” The little girl snuggled closer to her father and said, “I know that, Daddy, but right now I need someone with skin on!” God knows that we need the comfort and security that comes from meaningful touch. That is why when we accept Christ, we gain not only a secure relationship with our heavenly Father, but we join an entire family of brothers and sisters in Christ–men and women “with skin on” who can hug us and hold us and communicate God’s love and blessing to us.

Several months ago I preached a message from Romans 16 on the phrase, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” I shared at that time how often the Scriptures speak of touching as a meaningful way to communicate love and affirmation to a brother or sister in Christ. I’m not suggesting that there are no dangers here for anyone, but I have discovered that when one’s heart is pure before God one can hug another Christian in purity. And if touch is important in the church, how much more in the home? It’s not always easy to hug a kid. Sometimes they resist it. At other times the circumstances make it unusually difficult; my son Eddie was 6′ 5″ when he was 13, and it’s really awkward to hug a kid when your arms only reach to his waist. But even teenage boys need to be hugged. Perhaps I should say, especially teenage boys need to be hugged.

Friends, thousands of Christian people are touch starved, kids, wives, husbands, elderly parents. Psychologists and medical doctors are telling us that there is a very definite physiological benefit to both the toucher and the one being touched. Would you like to lower your husband’s or wife’s blood pressure? Protect your grade school child from being involved in an immoral relationship later in life? Even add up to two years to your own life? These are all potential results of the incredible power found in meaningful touching.

Studies have shown that most promiscuous women were severely deprived of appropriate touching and holding by their fathers. In a similar study with homosexual men, a common characteristic they shared was the absence of meaningful touching by their fathers early in life. Dr. Ross Campbell writes, “In all my reading and experience, I have never known of one sexually disoriented person who had a warm, loving, and affectionate father.” I have known a few, but not many. And Moms, your hugs are important too, but Dads, yours are absolutely critical.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus touched people from little children to grown men. Consider the words of Mark 10:1316:

“People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. {14} When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. {15} I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ {16} And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”

And Jesus met even a grown man’s need for meaningful touch when he came upon a leper who was barred by law from ever touching anyone again. Mark 1:4042 reads,

“A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, ‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ {41} Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ {42} Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.”

Spoken words of affirmation. There’s an old saying that everyone of us used numerous times when we were growing up: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” It’s a lie if there ever was one. The very fact that we spoke those words was an indication that we were hurt. Words have an incredible power to build us up or tear us down emotionally, and this is particularly true when it comes to giving or gaining family approval. Many of us can clearly remember words of praise our parents spoke years ago. And others can clearly remember longing for such words and never hearing them, or even worse, hearing negative words of disapproval.

I want to read a letter I received about six weeks ago from a woman in this church. It was ten pages long, single spaced, so I can only read a few selected paragraphs. In some ways it’s a tragic letter, as she shares about her own promiscuous past. By the way, she gave me permission to read these portions.

Dear Pastor Mike,

This is not an easy letter to write, but the Lord has put it on my heart to do so. Your sermon on Security and Significance moved me greatly and brought me to tears, just as Paul’s had the week before. Here I had thought that I was doing so well and life was “comfortable” and God decides it’s time to finish healing! God is so awesome and I praise Him for what he has allowed me to endure so that I might use it to glorify Him. But, it is painful and awful, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

My Dad is an Episcopalian priest and the son of an alcoholic mother. He blames everyone but himself for any problem in life he has had (and there have been many). He is incredibly bright, but he was always making someone angry and thus getting fired, so as a result I attended 6 elementary schools in 3 different states. He has an explosive temper and I remember clearly several physical fights between my parents. When I was 10 my mom just could not take the physical and emotional abuse anymore and moved us to California where she had grown up.

My dad remarried almost immediately and had two more kids within 18 months. I guess what bothered me so much was that my dad could not afford to pay $100/month in child support, yet here he goes and has two more kids. All I wanted was to feel loved, cherished and accepted by him (as well as approval). When I would visit (he was living in California by then, too) and we would go out, I would ask him if I looked OK, and he would say things lie, “well, if you like it then I guess it’s alright.” All I wanted was to be told that he loved me, that I was OK, that he was proud of me, that even though he’d had two more kids, I was still important and a priority to him. It never happened. It still hasn’t happened.

I tried to hide my pain behind a very self-destructive facade of alcohol, drugs and promiscuity. I was so desperate to feel loved and valued that I looked anywhere I could to find that.

My dad never accepts responsibility for his actions and never says he’s sorry. He has never apologized to me for all of the crummy things he has said. That’s part of what hurts me so much. I have tried to forgive him, and feel like for the most part I have. Occasionally though, like when I heard your sermon, I realize that there is still a lot of pain.

Friends, this is not a terribly rare situation. There’s good reason for the exhortation in our text to the effect we should not return evil for evil or insult but to give a blessing instead. Insults are common practice in many homes. Even where such is not common, words of love and acceptance may be lacking. A tragic misconception parents in these homes share is that simply being there communicates the blessing. The fact is that for a child in search of acceptance and affirmation, silence communicates confusion. No amount of presents, gifts, money or privileges can take the place of spoken words of blessing and affirmation.

There are, of course, many natural enemies of the spoken blessing. There is the busyness of many of our lives; there is the lack of sensitivity to the need for speaking words of affirmation; there is the tragic misconception that such words will inflate a child’s ego; and there is the most common enemy the fact that many parents never received such words from their parents, so they don’t know how to give it. We’ll talk in a few moments about what people should do if they find themselves in that category.

Attaching high value to the one being blessed. The word “to bless” literally means to bow the knee to, to show reverence to an important person. When Isaac blessed Jacob he said, “The smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed.” Now we wouldn’t perhaps use the same imagery, but in an agrarian society that was a compliment to Jacob to communicate to him how highly valued he was to Isaac.

The key here is to recognize that when words of value are only linked to a child’s performance, they lose much of their impact. Children who have to perform to get a blessing retain a nagging uncertainty about whether they have ever really received it. If their performance ever drops even a small amount, they can ask and reason, “Am I loved for ‘who I am’ or only for ‘what I can do’?” The result is that such children often become driven perfectionists, workaholics, or notoriously picky house cleaners. They go after the blessing the old fashioned way: they try to “earnnnnnn it.” But they soon find that the blessing cannot be earned or bought. It must be given on the basis of character, relationship, and intrinsic value.

I made good grades in school and my parents were good to give me strokes for that, but the words that I remember more than all others are the words of praise my mother gave me for befriending Bob Tweedie and for being nice to the little old ladies at Old Orchard Church, where my father was pastor. Bob Tweedie was a deaf boy at Lockwood Elementary over in Webster, now called College School. He moved there in the fourth grade and was put in my class. We had never had a hearing impaired child in our school, and the other kids made fun of Bob because he talked funny and called him Tweedie Pie, but for some reason I can’t even remember why I reached out to him and became his friend.

Mother not only told me that she appreciated that, but she wrote to my grandmother, she told missionary guests in our home, she told the neighbors. When other women were bragging about their children’s sports activities or grades or looks, my mom bragged about how I treated a little deaf boy or about how I was friendly to the old people.

By the way, I used this illustration about Bob Tweedie nine years ago in a sermon, and Phyllis Easterbrook came up to be after the message and said, “I think Bob Tweedie still lives here in St. Louis.” Phyllis was taking signing classes for the hearing impaired and had come across the name. The next week I did some searching, and sure enough found him living in Kirkwood. He remembered me immediately and we had a joyful reunion.

Picturing of a special future. A young Jewish mother was proudly walking down the street pushing a stroller with her infant twins. As she rounded the corner, she ran into a neighbor, who said, “My, what beautiful children, what are their names?” Pointing to each child, she replied, “This is Bennie, the doctor, and Reuben, the lawyer.” The woman believed her children had a special future and great potential before them and communicated that to them from their earliest years. No doubt it had an enormous impact on them in their formative years. The point is not that parents should choose their children’s careers or pile up unattainable expectations for them, but they should believe in them and let them know that they believe in them.

My parents affirmed a special future for me as a teacher from the time I was in the second grade. They constantly told me I could do anything I set my mind to.

Too often children hear only words that predict relationship problems or personal inadequacies. When that is the case it often turns out that they travel down the hurtful path that has been pictured for them. This can happen if they hear statements like: “You’d better hope you can find someone who can take care of you when you’re older. You’re so irresponsible you’ll never be able to do anything for yourself,” or “Why bother to study so much? You’ll probably just get married instead of going to college anyway?” What parents who say such things don’t realize is that such words are planted in a child’s psyche and can become self-fulfilling predictions.

An active commitment to fulfill the blessing. The point here is that it is not enough to just give verbal affirmation and blessing to our children; words need to be backed up with a commitment to do everything possible to help the one blessed be successful. We can tell a child, “You have the talent to be a very good pianist.” But if we neglect to provide a piano for that child, or refuse to let them play it while we’re reading the paper, our lack of commitment has undermined our message. This principle is what the Apostle James wants us to understand in chapter 2 of his letter, verses 15 &16: “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. {16} If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” Nothing, of course. Such words are as useless as a politician’s promises the day after election.

There are several important aspects to the active commitment that is needed to back up our words. First, we need to commit the person being blessed to the Lord. The patriarchs, in blessing their children, always called upon God to bless them because they were sure of His commitment to them. Periodically we dedicate the young children of our families and call upon God to bless them, because we believe He is intensely concerned about the lives of those children. Secondly, we need to commit our time, energy and resources to the unique needs of the one we are seeking to bless. If you are the parent of more than one child no one needs to tell you that no two children are alike. My two are so different they could have come from different planets. Jacob had the same experience with his 12, and when he blessed them in Gen. 48 & 49 he focused on the uniqueness of each one. In fact, Gen 49:28 reads, “This is what their father said to them; when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one, with the blessing appropriate to him.”

There is one more subject I think we need to deal with this morning. What should you do if you have not received the blessing? For some here today the acceptance and affirmation you long for from your parents or spouse is out of reach because they are gone or you are divorced. For others you may feel it is out of reach because the one from whom you desire it seems to be incapable of providing it. What do you do?

Those Who Have Been Deprived of the Blessing Still Have Hope.

Begin by being honest with yourself. Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” The truth is always freeing, though often painful. Many of us need to turn on truth’s searchlight and shine it on our troubled past. Only then can we be free to walk confidently into the future. Quit trying to cope through denial, and if you have never received the blessing, acknowledge the fact.

Seek to understand your parents’ or spouse’s background. Those who do not give the blessing generally never received it themselves. To understand is to pity rather than to hate. I believe it is possible for one who has never received the blessing to find healing and eventually become one who blesses others, but it’s not easy, and such people need a lot of help and encouragement.

Understand that even a curse can be changed into a blessing. In Deut. 23:5 Moses speaks to the children of Israel and says regarding the curse of Balaam, “the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you.” For some the blessing must be found in the spiritual family of God. No one knows the value of a believing church like the person who found within its numbers the affirming family they never had at home.

Let me return to the letter I was reading once more:

Eventually God put three wonderful godly men into my life. My brother Sean was the first. Our relationship began to grow into a loving and close friendship and I became aware of who God really was and what He was capable of. Here was my brother, who came out of the exact same set of circumstances and chose the other road, the right road, to live on. And even as horrible as I had been, Sean still loved me, just as God did. The Christ-like love he showed me made me realize that God is a loving, kind, consistent and caring God. Not the one I had perceived Him so wrongly to be. (She then went on to talk about two others who contributed very significantly to her recovery).

(Here is how she concludes): I’d jump off of a bridge if I knew Dad would tell me how proud he is of me! Learning to seek approval from Jesus has been a hard thing to learn and often I forget. I’ll probably always be hungry to have my “Daddy” but at least now I’m no longer destroying my life “searching” for him.

Friends, there’s a great lesson here. It is possible to get the blessing from others, even if we didn’t get it from the ones who should have given it to us.

I have focused largely upon children today, but the fact is that the elements of the blessing we have looked at apply equally to every healthy relationship husband-wife, brother-sister, aging parent-adult child, you name it. It also applies to relationships within the body of Christ. In fact, I would like to ask you to consider what a church would be like if everyone in it were bent on giving the blessing to those who are part of their forever family. It’s a sad day when people find more elements of the blessing in a local tavern or bowling alley than they do in church.

I thank God that’s not true here. There are so many here today who really believe and live the words of our Lord in John 13: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another . . .All people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Ken Medema has written a powerful song about the church entitled, “If This Is Not a Place”:

If this is not a place, where tears are understood,

then where shall I go to cry?

And if this is not a place, where my spirit can take wings,

then where shall I go to fly?

I don’t need another place, for trying to impress you,

with just how good and virtuous I am.

No, no, no, I don’t need another place, for always being on top of things. Everybody knows that it’s a sham, it’s a sham.

I don’t need another place for always wearing smiles,

even when it’s not the way I feel.

I don’t need another place, to mouth the same old platitudes;

everybody knows that it’s not real.

So if this is not a place, where my questions can be asked,

then where shall I go to seek?

And if this is not a place where my heart cry can be heard,

where, tell me where, shall I go to speak?

So if this is not a place, where tears are understood,

where shall I go, where shall I go to fly?

We started today with a reading from I Peter 3. Let me read again verses 8 & 9 of that text: “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

CONCLUSION

In conclusion this morning I would like to refer to the conclusion of Smalley’s and Trent’s book which has a list of “One Hundred Homes that Gave the Blessing to Children.” I’d like to read just a few of these testimonies:

1. My parents would take the time to really listen to me when I talked to them by looking directly into my eyes.

2. We were often spontaneously hugged even apart from completing a task or chore.

3. They would always let me explain my side of the story.

4. They would take each of us out individually for a special breakfast with Mom and Dad.

5. I got to spend one day at Dad’s office, seeing where he worked and meeting the people he worked with.

6. My parents would make a special Christmas ornament for each child that represented a character trait we had worked on that year.

7. They were willing to admit then they were wrong and say, “I’m sorry.”

8. My folks wrote up a special “story of my birth” that they read to me every year.

9. They attended all my open houses at school.

10. Dad would always ask us children our opinions on important family decisions.

11. When I wrecked my parents’ car, my father’s first reaction was to hug me and let me cry instead of yelling at me.

12. My parents would tell me over and over that I was a good friend to my friends.

13. If it was really cold, my mom would get up early and drive me on my paper route.

14. Sometimes when I would get home from school, my mother would leave a plate of cookies on the counter with a special note saying she loved me.

15. My dad gave up smoking because he knew how much it bothered mom and us kids.

16. My parents would always make sure I knew why I was being disciplined.

17. When I was down about my boyfriend breaking up with me, my father took extra time just to listen to me and cry with me.

18. My father went with me when I had to take back an ugly dress a saleswoman had talked me into buying.

19. My father worked with me for hours on my soapbox derby racer.

20. My parents always went to my piano recitals and acted interested.

21. My father would let me practice pitching to him for a long time when he got home from work.

22. Every Saturday morning my father would get up before anybody else and cook us all pancakes and bacon.

23. My father would ask to talk to each of us kids personally when he called in from a trip.

24. We would all hold hands together when we said grace; then when we finished, we would squeeze the person’s hand next to us three times, which stood for the three words, “I love you.”

I am one who received the blessing from my parents and am very grateful for it. I have tried to pass it on to my own family, though I often feel like a failure. I am so glad there’s forgiveness for failure.

Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Peter 3

I would like to suggest four ways that a wife can really respect her husband.

A wife respects her husband when she submits to his leadership in the home.

Listen to the Word of the Lord, as found in Eph. 5:22-24: “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.” Now I’m going to spend a lot of my time this morning on this point, because it is the single most fundamental statement the Bible makes to women about their relationship with their husbands. Furthermore, it is one of the most misunderstood commands in the Bible–misunderstood by both husbands and wives.

It’s unfortunate that in many Bibles, like the one I am using, there’s a major divisional break between Eph. 5:21 and 22. There really should be none at all because verse 22 has no verb of its own in the original Greek, but borrows its verb from verse 21. Here’s how it should read: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives, to your husbands.” Later on he will speak of submission of children to their parents and of workers to their bosses. But it’s important for us to note that before the Apostle discusses any of these specific areas of submission, he states that there is a mutual responsibility for believers to submit to one another.

The mutuality of submission. This is addressed to every Christian, regardless of race, gender, or station in life. This means clearly that there must a mutual submission of wives to husbands and husbands to wives. What does it mean, practically, to be in submission to one another? Well, negatively, I think it means we must not be: thoughtless, selfish, self-centered, opinionated, dictatorial, impatient, or resentful of constructive criticism. Instead we must be willing to forego our rights, willing to let others speak and to express themselves, loving, humble, understanding, and sensitive.

The one who practices these latter characteristics is fulfilling the universal command to “submit to one to another.” The motivation that is offered is this: “out of reverence for Christ.” We are to submit because submission was taught and modeled by Christ, because we desire to please Him, and because we fear grieving Him.

That’s the general principle. But there is, in addition, a specific application of the principle of submission to wives. What does it mean?

The explanation of submission. In a nutshell it means that the wife must acknowledge her husband’s leadership in the home, for as verse 23 states, “the husband is the head of the wife.” We hear a great deal today about changing roles for women in our society, in government, and in business. That’s all fine, but for the home God Himself has laid down a divine blueprint. The husband is the head, and the wife is to acknowledge his leadership through submission to his God-given authority.

Does that give the husband a divine mandate to be a tyrant, or even a benevolent dictator? No! Nor does it mean that the husband has to make all the decisions, or carry out all the discipline of the children, or do all the bread winning. Nor does it mean that the wife should be passive and refrain from offering her opinions. But it does mean that the wife has no business declaring her independence from her husband. He’s the head. When a body operates independently of the head we call the result convulsions or spasms. There are a lot of families going through convulsions today because there is a knock-down drag-out going on about who should be the head of the home.

Now the marriage relationship is ideally a partnership, a cooperative effort in which both partners have the freedom to exercise their gifts, talents, and abilities to the fullest. If the wife is a financial genius and the husband can’t even balance his checkbook, then there’s no reason why he should think he’s got to make financial decisions for the family just because he’s the head of the home. And if the husband is a gourmet cook and the wife burns water when she boils it, there’s no reason in the world why she needs to do the cooking just because she’s supposed to be submissive to her husband. In the truly Christian home each partner is allowed to use his or her gifts for the fullest benefit of the family. Furthermore, all major decisions are discussed and jointly agreed to, and if they’re not agreed to, they’re postponed.

But, and here’s the kicker, what if agreement can’t be reached and a decision must be made? The buck has to stop somewhere, and God says it stops with the husband. If God hadn’t made that decision for us, every home would be a battlefield until one of the partners established his position over the other. God decided to spare the bloodshed and named the husband as the head. The husband can abrogate this responsibility or his wife can usurp it, but only to their own detriment.

Let me appeal to an analogy I have often used in premarital counseling. Every major corporation has a Chairman of the Board. No corporation has more than one Chairman. Of course, there is usually at least one president under the Chairman and a number of vice-presidents. Now the Chairman doesn’t make all the decisions himself; in fact, he makes hardly any by himself. Rather he delegates responsibility for various aspects of the business to people who have expertise in those areas. But if in a cabinet meeting agreement cannot be reached as to what course of action the company should pursue, everyone recognizes the right and the responsibility of the Chairman to make the necessary decision.

The Chairman doesn’t have to be a tyrant or a dictator. He doesn’t even have to act like a man with authority to waste. But if he refuses to exercise his responsibility, or if one of the other company officers usurps that authority, there is grave danger ahead for that corporation. It is a house divided. So, too, with the family where the wife does not recognize her husband as head of the home.

The motivation for submission of the wife to her husband (22b). Wives, submit “as to the Lord.” This phrase is easily misunderstood. I do not believe it means, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands in the same way you submit yourselves to the Lord.” That is going too far, for the woman’s relationship to the Lord is one of complete, entire, absolute submission. Rather, “as to the Lord” means “because it is your duty to the Lord” or “out of obedience to the Lord.”

Wives should not submit to their husbands because of some sociological theory, or because of the traditions of the church, or because their husbands demand it, or because their husbands deserve it (many don’t), or for any other human reason. Wives should do it because the Lord commands it. But why does the Lord command it?

The rationale for submission of wives to their husbands. Actually two rationales are given. First, the creative order demands it. Verse 23 states, “for the husband is the head of the wife.” He doesn’t say he should be, but rather he is. I have to assume that since God created us and knows us better than we know ourselves, He knows that the husband is better suited for this role than is the wife.

Of course, husbands are sinners, and some husbands are great sinners, and their ability to function as head of a home has been seriously damaged, but the answer is not for the wife to become the head but for the husband to get right with God and begin to take his responsibility seriously.

Second, the pattern of Christ and the Church models it. Eph. 5:23 reads, “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body.” What is the example Christ has set as head of the Church? He is not a tyrant. He is not a dictator. In fact, He allows the Church an enormous amount of freedom. He leads her rather than drives her; He sets an example for her; He encourages and loves her. The Church, on the other hand, looks to Christ and His Word before making decisions; she views Him as the final authority; she honors and respects Him above everyone else.

The extent of submission. Verse 24 says, “in everything.” Now that’s pretty broad, isn’t it? But frankly, “everything” doesn’t always mean “absolutely everything” in Scripture. It sometimes means “everything for which an exception has not already been specified.” Obviously a wife should not submit to her husband to the extent of violating a clear precept of Scripture. The Scriptural dictum that “we ought to obey God rather than man” applies even to the home. Furthermore, no wife should feel compelled to submit to her husband to the point of violating her own conscience. Rom. 14 indicates that it is always wrong to violate one’s conscience.

However, while there are a few limitations to the need to “submit in everything,” we must not undermine the fact that submission is very broad in its application. The wife must be willing at times to accept decisions that she knows in her heart are bad decisions (and not say “I told you so” later.). She must be willing to show her husband respect as the head of the home, even if he sometimes acts like a jerk. And he will. You don’t have to respect the behavior, but you do have to respect his person and his position.

Ladies, this is God’s Word. You can reject it and suffer for it, or you can resent it and chafe under it, or you can accept it and prosper.

Now I have already spent more time than I intended to on this topic, but there are some questions that are frequently raised about the biblical doctrine of submission. Since it would take the rest of my time to deal with them, and I have other issues that I would like to answer. I want to address, I decided to write out these questions and suggest answers for you to consider. The ushers will make them available to you as you leave this morning. I have raised six questions:

1. Wasn’t the Apostle Paul a chauvinist, and, if so, so we need to accept his opinions as inspired?

2. Doesn’t submission automatically entail the concept of inferiority?

3. Some husbands aren’t Christians, so how can they exercise spiritual headship?

4. Even some Christian husbands won’t accept their leadership position in the home, so what is the wife supposed to do?

5. Some wives are naturally better leaders and are more capable than their husbands. Why shouldn’t they be head of their homes?

6. What about a single mother?

Now the second major way in which a wife really respects her husband is this:

A wife respects her husband when she seeks to meet his need for sexual fulfillment. (1 Cor. 7:3ff)

Listen to 1 Cor. 7:3ff: “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

Now this text is obviously addressed to both women and men, but I mention it this week rather than last because my impression is that this is a greater area of struggle for women. The essence of the instruction is that sexual abstinence in marriage should be practiced only when both agree and then only for a limited period of time, and only for spiritual purposes–i.e. so you may devote yourselves to prayer. In other words, it’s a kind of fast. The reason the time should be short is so that Satan’s temptation will not get the best of you.

Adultery is an inexcusable sin–always. But it is not always without explanation. Some men are very vulnerable to sexual temptation because they do not receive sufficient physical intimacy from their wives, just as some wives are because they don’t receive enough loving attention from their husbands. Many men who don’t yield to temptation still get resentful and hard to live with. Now if you were here last Sunday you will remember that I gave the other side of this issue very clearly. I told the men, and I quote, “If physical intimacy is not what we men want it to be in our marriage, it is almost always because we have failed in demonstrating agape love.” While that is true, it does not excuse the wife from withholding affection. Even if the husband is not fulfilling his responsibility to love his wife, I Cor. 7:3 is still in the Bible. But, Pastor, should a wife have to give herself to a husband who treats her like dirt?

Friends, here is the source of untold problems in Christian marriages. We each excuse ourselves for not fulfilling our responsibility based on the fact that our spouse is not fulfilling his or hers. If we keep operating on that basis we find ourselves in a vicious downward spiral to which there is no end. Someone has to stop the headlong dive and say, “This is destructive behavior, and I am going to unilaterally call a truce. Furthermore, I choose to be obedient to God whether you choose to or not. Even though I don’t like your behavior, I am going to respect you as the head of this house, or I am going to love you as my wife. I am going to fulfill my obligations to you out of an attitude of love, and I will trust God to meet my needs in the process.” Wives, I’m calling on you to consider stopping the spiral, as I called on the husbands to do last week.

So you can respect your husband by seeking to meet his need for sexual fulfillment. It can pay great dividends in your life, too. By the way, sexual compatibility is a very difficult area in many marriages, but help is available. There are some great books on the subject, and there are counselors who can help revolutionize your lives. Don’t be afraid to seek help.

A wife respects her husband when she makes herself beautiful. (I Peter 3)

Some of you will recall that this is one of Willard Harley’s themes that he shared in the marriage seminar we had here at the church a year ago. Some of you reacted quite negatively to Harley’s statement that the third most important need a man has is for a good-looking wife. In that chapter he stated, “It may sound immature or superficial, but most men do not appreciate a woman for her inner qualities alone. A man’s need for physical attractiveness in a woman is profound.” He even went so far as to suggest to one of his single female counselees who was tired of being single, “First, let me tell you I think you’re a striking woman with a nice figure who has been robbed of attractiveness by those premature wrinkles and gray hair. . . . A plastic surgeon can get rid of the wrinkles, and a good hair-dresser can color and style your hair in a way that will really bring you to the attention of the men you see every day. Then you need to go out and buy a wardrobe that shows off your figure.”

Now if you are troubled by these statements, I’m glad, because I am troubled by them too. I think Willard Harley has seriously missed the boat in this chapter of his book, His Needs, Her Needs. His biggest mistake is that he has totally ignored the one passage in the Bible that tells a woman to make herself beautiful, and I think he ignored it because it directly contradicts what he has to say. Turn with me to I Peter 3:

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

There is a lot in this passage that we do not have time to examine this morning, but one thing is absolutely clear. God puts a greater emphasis on inner beauty than he does on outer beauty. God places a higher priority on purity and reverence, on a gentle and quiet spirit, and on submission than on fancy hairdos or jewelry or clothes.

Frankly, most Christian men I know put a higher priority on those things as well. I have been doing marriage counseling for well over 20 years and I have yet to have a man tell me, “the problem in our marriage is my wife is ugly.” I’ve certainly never had a man complain to me about his wife’s wrinkles. Most men think their wives are physically beautiful. It’s their attitudes that I hear about it–it’s their complaining or their coldness or their independent spirits or their negativism. In other words, it really is the inner beauty (or lack thereof) that affects a marriage most.

Now that doesn’t mean the outer is unimportant. If the barn needs paint, well, paint it. Every man wants to be proud of his wife when he takes her out, and every man is stimulated by the visual. But the outer without the inner is worthless, even dangerous. Wives, respect your husband by making yourself beautiful for him.

A wife respects her husband when she affirms him and builds him up. (Eph. 4:29-32)

Turn back to Ephesians again with me, this time to the fourth chapter, the 29th verse. This is not a marriage passage per se, but it certainly is a relationship passage, and I think it serves well to make an important point about the wife’s respect for her husband. Listen: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Men often put up a tough facade, but underneath, their egos are very fragile, especially as related to their work, their careers. I spoke several weeks ago about the fact that men tend to find their greatest significance in their work. Granted, that’s not always healthy, but it is a fact and it must be reckoned with. A wife who ignores her husband’s work, or worse yet, criticizes his lack of success or his inability to advance does so to her own great detriment.

This applies whether the husband’s career is going poorly or he’s a screaming success. If work is tough and the hours are long, if job security is non-existent, if he gets no affirmation but rather is constantly beaten down in his job, and then he comes home to face further negative comments (why don’t you spend any time with me, why don’t you play more with the kids, why don’t you get a better job?), that is almost more than he can handle. On the other hand, if he is very successful in his job and gets lots of affirmation and adulation at work but gets none at home, he becomes very vulnerable at work and very resentful at home.

The passage I just read, though it is admittedly a general principle about human communication, certainly applies in this situation. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths (that would include nagging, criticism, put-downs, etc.), but only what is helpful for building your husband up according to his needs.” Men have great need for their wife to affirm their work.

I know this from personal experience. Some years ago my wife and I went through a difficult time in our marriage. I couldn’t even tell you what started the spiral, but I do know that I was not loving her and she was not respecting me. The single thing that hurt me most–more than the arguments, more than physical coldness, more than lack of peace in the home–was the fact that for a long time she never said anything about my preaching. I would come home from church, where most Sundays I heard from a number of people that they appreciated the sermon or that it had helped them significantly, but we would sit down to dinner and she wouldn’t say a thing about the message. Week after week this went on, so I decided to take a mature approach to this. I decided to quit saying anything good about her cooking. This went on for some time.

What was going on here was the old downward spiral. I wasn’t loving her as I should, so as far as she was concerned no matter how good a sermon I was preaching, I was a hypocrite. How can you affirm a hypocrite? But when I received no affirmation from her, I refused to give her any in return. When she didn’t hear any thanks for the meals I began to get lots of spaghetti and hot dogs. When I got lots of spaghetti and hot dogs I got even grumpier. I don’t even remember how we got out of that particular situation, but I’m sure one of us, more than likely Jan, decided we were getting nowhere fast and broke the cycle, enabling me to save face and get back on track.

We don’t play those silly games anymore, and one of the things that has helped tremendously is that my wife gives me a great deal of affirmation about my work. She tells me I’m the best preacher in St. Louis (by the way, it’s OK to lie a little when you’re affirming your husband! We need all the help we can get!). Believe me, one affirming comment from her is more important than a standing ovation from you’all.

Another passage that teaches this same truth is from the last chapter of 1 Thessalonians. Beginning in verse 11 we read, “Encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” Now this is addressed particularly to the Lord’s servants in the church, but the principle of respecting those who work hard and holding them in the highest regard in love because of their work applies to the home as well.

I find a lot of men putting themselves down, going on regular guilt trips, and getting beat up by the women’s movement.Today I want to encourage you men to love yourselves. You have a lot going for you; you have great potential for the future; you can change the world. As a matter of fact, husbands are among the greatest people around. So love yourself. That’s my theme for today. OK? (I thought for sure I’d hear a few “amens” on that. I’ll bet most of you are afraid you’d get jabbed in the ribs).

Now before the wives start walking out, there is one important fact about my exhortation to the husbands which I haven’t mentioned yet–and that is the matter of how we are to go about loving ourselves. What is the most important thing a man can do to show himself love? The answer is found in Eph. 5:28: “He who loves his own wife loves himself.” Guys, if you want to do the nicest thing in the world for yourself–love your wife! The rewards are enormous.

But I’m a bit ahead of myself already. If you’ll open your Bible to the passage of the morning, I’d like to read it and then point out the structure of Paul’s reasoning in Eph. 5:25-33:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her {26} to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, {27} and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. {28} In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. {29} After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church {30} for we are members of his body. {31} “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” {32} This is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church. {33} However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Bible Scholar Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has stated in respect to the parallel passage in Colossians), “The failure to understand and implement the truth of these verses is the cause of most of the problems in the world today.” That may sound like an overstatement, but if it is, it is not by much. A member of our congregation told me she was listening to a talk show and the guest had written a book entitled, Husbands from Hell. There are a lot of women, unfortunately, who feel they could contribute a chapter to that book. But there are also a number who would be glad to contribute to one entitled, Husbands from Heaven. Hopefully before we are through with this series there will be more.

I want to take a moment to review last week’s message. We laid some extremely important groundwork by pointing out that every one of us has two basic needs in our lives–the need for security and the need for significance. Unless those two needs are met, it is almost impossible for us to function effectively as a loving partner in marriage. The problem is that many of us are looking to our spouse for our security and significance, while the Bible teaches us that we must look to God. Because He loves us unconditionally (and, in fact, is the only one who loves us unconditionally) He is the only sure source of security. And because He created us, gifted us, and called us to serve Him, our basic significance and self-worth must also be found in Him. Once we believe, understand, and appropriate these truths, then we are able to reach out in love to others. We can be reinforcers rather than contradictors of the ministry of security and significance that God has in the life of our spouse and our children.

I was talking to a man in the church this week, a man who deeply loves his wife and has a good marriage, and he responded, “When my wife hurts me, I don’t automatically think about my security and significance being in God. I get angry and fight back. That’s what’s automatic.” Yes, that is our natural response, but I am convinced that the deeper our experience with God and the more we learn of His unconditional love, the more hurts we will be able to overlook, forgive, and even respond to in love instead of in anger.

This is a process, friends, not an event. If we are insecure or lack genuine self-worth, we didn’t get that way overnight; and we won’t resolve those feelings overnight. But neither will we resolve them by going to assertiveness classes and reading secular books on empowerment. We need to go to the right source, which is God Himself. As we allow Him to meet our needs, then we are able to begin meeting our wife’s needs.

Now Paul’s main point is obvious–it’s found in the command, “Husbands, love your wives,” and those words are repeated three times for emphasis–in vs. 25, 28, and 33. Two primary arguments are offered as to how a husband should love his wife. In vs. 25-27 the Apostle develops the notion that husbands should love their wife as Christ loved them. Then in 28-33 we are told that husbands should love their wife as they love themselves. Then thirdly, in a parallel passage from I Peter, we learn that husbands should love their wife as her needs dictate.

I would infer from this that if we’ll study how Christ loved us, and if we’ll study how men love themselves, and if we’ll study the needs of our wife, we should gain significant insight into how to love our wife effectively. Love is something we have to work at. It is an art to be learned and a discipline to be maintained.

So, let’s consider the Apostle’s first argument.

Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved you. (25-27)

I want to mention four things about Christ’s love for the Church which I believe we need to imitate in our relationship with our wife.

Love her with an active love. It should be obvious that this command has nothing directly to do with emotions. Paul is not saying, “I command you husbands to tingle up and down your spines when you see your wife.” That would be ridiculous (I don’t mean it’s ridiculous that we should tingle up and down our spines, but that anyone should command us to do so). Emotions are simply not something that are subject to commands. The kind of love Eph. 5 is addressing is agape love. The Apostle Paul had other words available to him which describe emotional love, sensual love, and deep friendship, but he ignored those words and chose agape. This kind of love is best defined as “love that acts for the best good and promotes the well-being of the other person, demanding nothing in return.”

Agape love is a love of the will, not the emotions. It is a love that one chooses, not just happens to fall into. It is a love that walks the walk, not just talks the talk. Clearly this is the kind of love Christ has for us. He acted in love toward us by dying for us, redeeming us, forgiving us, interceding for us; He didn’t just talk about His love, He acted upon it.

However, while agape love is concerned with the will, not the emotions, there’s an interesting phenomenon which I have noticed countless times in the marriage relationship. When a husband fulfills the command to love his wife with agape love, he will almost invariably find emotional love between him and his wife rekindled. I have seen cases where a husband and wife could hardly stand one another–they actually turned each other’s stomachs. But when one of them began to act toward the other with agape love, even when they didn’t want to, the flames of emotional love began to flicker, and eventually real passion broke out once again. But we have to start with God’s kind of love–agape love, an active love.

Love her with an unselfish love. Agape love is totally unselfish. It does kind things expecting nothing in return. You say, “that’s not human.” I agree. This is divine love. But God wants to share it; He wants us to learn it. And the best way to grasp it is to look at the kind of love Christ exercised for the Church. He never sought His own benefit; He never loved the Church for what He could get out of her; He always sought her best good.

Think with me, men, about some of the ways we exhibit selfishness in our marriages: taking the many contributions of your wife to the home for granted; making decisions without consulting her or worse yet, against her expressed desires; refusing to open up and share what is going on in our jobs or in our minds; paying more attention to the news or sports or the dog than we do to her; expecting physical affection without first connecting with her emotionally.

Let me comment about this latter issue briefly because I hear a lot about it in marriage counseling. Wives crave affection from their husbands–not affection that leads to something else, just affection. A hug, a light kiss, cuddling, holding hands–these show her she’s important and cherished in her own right. But to offer this frequently without demanding anything further requires unselfish love on the part of the husband.

Love her with a sacrificial love. (25) It says in verse 25 that Christ “gave himself up for the Church.” The entire Incarnation was a sacrifice, but without a doubt the greatest way in which Christ demonstrated His love for the Church was through His sacrifice on the Cross. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Christ’s sacrifice for the Church serves as an example for husbands. Not that we can make the same quality of sacrifice He made, but we need to be willing to give up that which is important to us if it is for the good of our wife.

For example, when a man marries, he must sacrifice the ties he had to his parents (remember? “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife.”) I’ve never seen a healthy marriage where this didn’t take place. It doesn’t mean he abandons his parents; it doesn’t mean he refuses their counsel; but it does mean that he puts his wife first. If the time ever comes when his parents force him to choose between them and her, he chooses her. I witnessed a situation where this happened in the past year, and though the husband has endured a lot of pain from members of his family, he showed his wife the sacrificial love talked about here in this text.

When a man marries he must also sacrifice his independence–his right to spend his money any way he pleases, the right to control over his time, the right to make career decisions on his own. That’s a real sacrifice for some men, especially those who were on their own for a length of time before marriage. One gets used to doing it his own way, but marriage requires a sacrifice of that spirit of independence.

Love her with a purifying love. Our text goes on to tell us why Jesus gave himself up for the Church: “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.” The point is that Christ’s love for the Church is a purifying love, a love that cleanses, edifies, and refines. While Christ accepts us just as we are and loves us unconditionally, this does not allow Him to be content to leave us as we are. He has given us His Word as a cleansing agent for sin and moral impurity. The objective is to bring us to a place of maturity and holiness that brings us fulfillment and makes us fit for the presence of a King. God is constantly working in our lives to produce growth and holiness.

Likewise, a godly husband longs for growth and improvement in his wife’s life. He desires that she become all that she can be. He doesn’t try to hold her down but rather encourages her to use her talents and abilities and to be successful in all she pursues. At the same time, he cannot bear for her to be unnecessarily exposed to evil or harm. He will make sure that if she works outside the home, it is not in a degrading atmosphere.

Before leaving this theme of purifying love, allow me to mention a false concept that is very widespread today. It is the notion of “live and let live,” “accept one another’s faults and don’t try to change one another.” That, friends, is not how Christ treats us and it is not a healthy approach to marriage, in my opinion. Acceptance, certainly, is a trait we must always have; i.e. we must be willing to love despite our partner’s faults. But we must never cease wishing for and even working toward the removal of those faults. C. S. Lewis has expressed this truth in an incredibly perceptive fashion:

The Church is the Lord’s bride whom He so loves that in her no spot or wrinkle is endurable. For the truth which this analogy serves to emphasize is that Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; that the mere “kindness” which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from Love. When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Do we not rather then first begin to care? Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking? Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost; but now because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them; but Love cannot cease to will their removal. Love is more sensitive than hatred itself to every blemish in the beloved . . . . The loving husband forgives most, but he condones least; he is pleased with (only a) little, but demands all.

Of course, it makes a great deal of difference how one seeks to remove the infirmities in one’s spouse. Badgering and harassing is rarely effective. Ridicule never works. Stonewalling seldom accomplishes the goal. But loving encouragement can produce positive change in anyone. I like the way one writer put it: “The husband is to love his wife, not just because of the beauty he finds in her, but to make her more beautiful.” Or as another wrote, “Husbands should love their wives for what they are and should also love them sufficiently to help them to become what they should be.” I have seen women with terrible self-concepts blossom, literally come alive, under the careful nurture and encouragement of a loving husband.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves you! In other words, love her with an active love, an unselfish love, a sacrificial love, a purifying love.

Husbands, love your wife as you love yourself. (28-33)

Before developing Paul’s argument here, I think we need to understand one very important point, namely that there is nothing wrong with loving oneself in the sense Paul is talking about here. There is something wrong with doting on oneself, with pride, with selfishness. But there is nothing wrong with a proper and healthy self-worth. Jesus Himself said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If it weren’t proper to love yourself, then it wouldn’t be proper to love your neighbor either. As a matter of fact, people who don’t love themselves generally have a very difficult time loving other people. So when Jesus exhorts husbands to love their wives as they love themselves, He is not only acknowledging a fact, namely that men do love themselves, but He is also approving that fact.

Now as we evaluate these verses we find that the Apostle has given us an argument known as a syllogism. A syllogism is an argument form which has a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. It is a logical argument if the truth of the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. And certainly they do in this case:

Major premise: Every man loves his own body. (29)

Minor premise: The husband and his wife are one flesh. (31, quoting Gen. 2:24).

Conclusion: The husband must love his wife.

Now let’s look a bit more closely at the elements of this argument. First,

Major premise: Every man loves his own body. (28-30) This fact is stated both negatively and positively. “No one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it.” Paul is not alleging here that every man has a high self-concept, but he is saying that every man, even if he dislikes himself, still gives extraordinary care and concern to his body. Is that true, men?

Well, when you get hungry, do you say, “My stomach is growling, but let it growl. It’s always wanting something. If it were earning the money, like my hands or brains are doing, then it might have reason to complain. So I’m just going to ignore it.” No, of course not. When we’re hungry, we eat.

When you get tired, what do you do? Do you say, “This body is tired again. I can’t believe it. There’s so much work that needs to be done. I can’t see that it has done anything significant all day. All it ever does is watch TV and sleep.” No, you hit the sack. When you need a haircut, do you begrudge the fact that you just got one last month? No, you go and get one. When you want clothes, do you complain that there are clothes in the closet that have hardly ever been worn? No, you go and buy them.

I trust the point is established that every man loves his own body. That is the major premise. The minor premise is a theological one.

Minor premise: The husband and the wife are one flesh. (31,32) This point is proved by a quotation from the OT, Gen. 2:24. Since Pastor Paul spoke so clearly on that passage just a few weeks ago, we will not elaborate on it this morning, except to reiterate that marriage brings about a mystical and physical union between a husband and his wife which simply disallows each to think of himself or herself independently of the other. Now it’s time for the conclusion of the syllogism:

Conclusion: The husband must love his wife. (33) Verse 33: “Each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself.” The logic is pretty clear. If you really love your own body, and if you and your wife are one flesh, then you really must love your wife. And so we’ve returned to where we started. Men, love yourselves. Seek the best for yourselves. Treat yourselves as kings! But don’t forget that the best way to accomplish this is to love your wife.

If you want to know how to live this out practically, think through the loving things you do for yourself and then do the same kinds of things for her. You get your need met for social interaction and significant conversation with adults at work; meet her need for the same when you get home, especially if she stays at home all day with three kids and a dog. You meet your need for encouragement and praise as your boss thanks you for a job well done (or at least gives you a paycheck); meet her need for the same by thanking her for the little things she does to make your house into a home. You meet your need to get away from it all by traveling on business or taking a weekend off to hunt or fish; meet her need to get away by offering to take care of the kids while she goes to the Women’s Retreat, or get a baby sitter and take her away for a weekend yourself. Love your wife as you love yourself.

Now this leads right into our third and last exhortation, which comes from another passage, I Peter 3:7.

Husbands, love your wife as her needs dictate.

I Peter 3:7: “Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” The first command here is for us to love our wife with considerate understanding.

Love her with considerate understanding. Over and over in marriage counseling I hear wives complain that their husbands do not understand them, are not sensitive to their feelings, and do not communicate with them.

Men, I know we don’t try to be this way, but the fact is we must try not to be this way. The command to be considerate means that we must be students of our wives, and at times this subject can be harder than calculus. Let me warn you, we will never graduate from this school. We can pass a course or two; a few may even get on the dean’s list; but we can never quit studying or learning. I have learned more about my wife’s needs in the past two years than I did in the first 30 years of our marriage put together, and I would still probably only merit a B-. (Don’t ask her).

Dr. Robert Seizer, in his book Mortal Lessons: Notes in the Art of Surgery, tells a remarkable story of performing surgery to remove a tumor in which it was necessary to sever a facial nerve, leaving a young woman’s mouth permanently twisted in palsy. In Dr. Seizer’s own words:

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamp light, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” She asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I , so close, can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

Considerate understanding. How a wife yearns for it! How she deserves it!

Love her with tender courtesy. I Peter 3:7 goes on, “Treat them with respect as the weaker partner.” The Apostle has no intention of belittling wives when he refers to them as weaker. He certainly isn’t speaking of intellectual abilities or talents or gifts. But women are generally weaker physically and more sensitive emotionally. That’s partly what makes them excellent partners for men, who tend to be stronger physically and decidedly less sensitive emotionally.

It seems odd that the Apostle would even have to command men to treat their wives with respect or courtesy, but the fact is courtesy toward women in the ancient world was well-nigh unknown. It was, and still is, not an uncommon sight in the East to see a man riding on a donkey while his wife trudges by his side carrying a heavy load on her head. It was Christianity which introduced chivalry into the relationship between men and women. But Christian men are sometimes more like their ancient counterparts.

We must not forget the simple courtesies that characterized our behavior during courtship. Despite what the women’s movement seems to have communicated, most women still appreciate it when her husband, opens a door for her or helps her put on her coat or holds her hand as they walk through a mall.

One of the most remarkable examples of tender courtesy I have come across came from a recent Ann Landers column:

Dear Ann Landers:

I’m going to tell you about a love story that I witness every time I go to the nursing home to see my husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, I know firsthand how this terrible illness affects family members, but I would like the world to know what love really is.

I see a man who, I understand, has spent the last eight years caring for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s. They have been married over 50 years. He cooks and feeds her every bite of food she eats. He has bathed her and dressed her every day all these years. They have no other family. She lost a baby at birth, and they never had any more children.

I cannot describe the tenderness and love that man shows for his wife. She is unable to recognize anyone, including him. The only things she shows any interest in are two baby dolls. They are never out of her hands.

I observed him when I parked my car beside his the other day. He sat in his old pickup truck for a few minutes, then he patted down what little hair he had, straightened the threadbare collar of his shirt and looked in the mirror for a final check before going in to see his wife. It was as if he were courting her. They have been partners all these years and have seen each other under all kinds of circumstances, yet he carefully groomed himself before he called on his wife, who wouldn’t even know him.

This is an example of true love and commitment the world needs today.

Love her as your spiritual partner. “Treat them . . . as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life.” This, too, was unknown in the world to which Paul wrote. Women did not worship with men in Greece or Rome. Even in the Jewish synagogue they had no share in the service. When they were admitted at all they were segregated from the men and hidden behind a screen. Only in Christianity did the revolutionary principle emerge that women have equal spiritual rights. But what we have practiced at church has often been neglected at home.

I conducted an extensive scientific survey of wives this past week. I was sitting with two of them at the hospital and asked, “What would you say are the four most important things a wife wants from her husband.” For both of them #1 was, “I want him to put God first in His life so he can be my spiritual partner.” I think that’s close to what this passage is saying. A woman told me two weeks ago (and this is a woman who deeply loves her husband) that her heart aches to have her husband pray with her, but though he is a fine Christian man, he seems incapable of doing it. At a recent men’s breakfast here at the church my guess is that over 90% of the men raised their hands to indicate failure to regularly pray with their wives other than at the supper table.

Men, why is this such a common problem for us–we are eager to pray with our PK buddies but find it so hard to initiate prayer with our wives? I think the greatest factor must be vulnerability. We have such fragile egos, and we know that our wives know us better than anyone else. We can’t fake it with them like we can at church or at a men’s breakfast. But what we find out when we try it is that our wives will honor us for at least trying to be spiritual leaders.

But please understand that there is more to loving one’s wife as a spiritual partner than just praying with her. It involves discussing spiritual issues with her, encouraging her in her ministry, including her in yours, reading and discussing a Christian book together, and setting spiritual goals for the children together.

Men, let us not fail to notice the sanction that is placed upon the man who fails in his obligation to love his wife as her needs dictate, especially to love her as a spiritual partner? It’s found there at the end of I Peter 3:7: do it “so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” As one commentator puts it, “The sighs of the injured wife come between the husband’s prayers and God’s hearing.” (Barclay, p. 224). Here is a great truth: our relationship with God can never be right if our relationship with our spouse is wrong. It is when we are at one with each other that we are one with Him. But it is also true that only when we are rightly related to Him that we are rightly related to one another.

It may seem a bit strange to you that I have preached a long sermon on “How to Really Love Your Wife,” and I haven’t even mentioned sexual love. There’s a reason for that, and it is not that sexual love is unimportant in a marriage. It is critical. But the reason I haven’t mentioned it is because sex is rarely a root problem in marriage. If physical intimacy is not what we men want it to be in our marriage, it is almost always because we have failed in demonstrating agape love. The secret is learning to give love rather than straining and striving to attract it.

Men, I think we should close this morning with a time of confession and recommitment. Wives, we know we have failed you, we want to do better, we have a little more knowledge this morning about what to do, but some of us are just at the starting gate. We need you to pray for us, be patient with us, and try to help us. But men, it’s not going to happen unless we commit ourselves wholeheartedly to change, and appropriate God’s power to do it. Whatever it takes, it’s worth it.

Ephesians 5:21-33

The command of God for Christian husbands to love their wives and for Christian wives to respect their husbands is clearly stated in Ephesians 5. You are all familiar with that text. It is my intention to examine those commands carefully and to seek practical ways to help us understand them and live them out. But I have come to the conclusion that there are some basic issues about human nature that need to be understood before a person can apply Ephesians 5. If we don’t deal first with the foundation issues, we run the risk of producing more frustration than positive change when we exhort Christian spouses to love and respect one another. So, I would like to begin today with this proposition:

The two most basic human needs, without which it is impossible to function effectively as a loving spouse, are for SECURITY and SIGNIFICANCE.

Larry Crabb started his excellent book, The Marriage Builder, this way:

“Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new?’ It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.” (Eccl.. 1:10)

Another book on marriage. Could there possibly be anything new in this one? Isn’t it time we stop writing books that dress up old truth in modern fashion and just get on with doing what we already know to do?

More than once I have pictured the wise but weary king of Israel slowly wandering through a modern Christian bookstore, searching for real help in repairing his many marital fractures. In my imagination, after several hours of thumbing through scores of books with eye-catching dust jackets that promise to “revolutionize your marriage,” old Solomon ambles toward the door with slumped shoulders and sighs, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” (Eccl. 12:12).

Daydreams like this compel me to explain why I have written one more book under the threat of Solomon’s sigh.

In my counseling, I am often troubled to see husbands and wives locked into patterns of relating that destroy any hope of developing a deeply satisfying closeness in their marriages. Whenever I stand before a Sunday morning congregation to preach, I look out upon many well-dressed couples sharing hymnals and singing praise to the Lord for His gift of abundant and eternal life, and I suspect that very few are experiencing substantial intimacy. But a large majority of these people are professing Christians who would report that they are sincerely trying to develop their marriage according to biblical principles.

Why, then, are marriages so often filled with tension, bitterness, distance, shallow satisfactions, routineness, and short-lived moments of romance? Why do I sometimes face a problem within my own marriage and, after earnest prayer and brutal self-examination, remain unsure how to respond to my wife in a way that will deepen our oneness?

Are there real solutions that will develop true intimacy? Or must we resign ourselves to publicly reciting appropriate phrases about how God designed marriage while privately wondering why these sacred principles don’t really work? Many of us have read dozens of books on family relationships. We’ve listened to the “best” evangelical speakers on the Christian home. And we have been richly blessed and helped, at least temporarily. But somehow a cloud remains. Something still isn’t quite together. Why?

I would like to make an attempt to answer the question “why” this morning, and then to offer a starting point for tackling the problem. I am indebted to Larry Crabb for some of the insights I am sharing with you.

I might say at the outset that if you’re not married I believe there is still value in this topic for you, for someday you may be married, and even if not, the principles we are dealing with this morning are applicable to every area of interpersonal relations, not just the marriage relationship. Now let me state my thesis again:

The two most basic human needs, without which it is impossible to function effectively as a loving spouse, are for SECURITY and SIGNIFICANCE.

While I cannot point you to one particular verse of Scripture that makes that claim, I believe it can be substantiated by the numerous references in the Bible to God’s unconditional love for us and our unique place in His created order. We will look at a few of those key passages in a moment, but first let’s define our terms. Security might be defined as “an awareness of being unconditionally and totally loved without needing to change in order to win love, being loved by a love that cannot be earned and therefore cannot be lost.” Significance, on the other hand, is “the realization that I am valuable and that what I am doing is worthwhile, that my accomplishments will not evaporate with time but will last through eternity.”

Security and significance are so important for people to experience that if a person lacks either of these, he or she is unable to function effectively in a marriage relationship, or in any other kind of relationship. In fact, to tell a wife who has no sense of security that she must minister to her husband’s deepest needs is to mock her. And to tell a husband who has no sense of self-worth that he must love his wife as Christ loved the Church is to mock him. It is like telling a person with a tickle in his throat to quit coughing.

Security is generally of greater importance to women and significance of greater importance to men, but actually both are essential for everyone of us. Women have traditionally looked for security in their husbands and for significance in their children or, increasingly today, in their careers. Men generally find their significance in their careers and their security in financial stability.

Now think with me for a moment about an inevitable result of the scenario I have just painted. If wives need security and generally look to their husbands to provide it, then any woman whose husband fails to provide it is going to be extremely vulnerable. Likewise, if a husband needs significance, but he gets no strokes at work, doesn’t know whether he’ll even have a job next month, or worse yet, endures a lengthy period of unemployment, and his wife doesn’t take an interest in his work, but only complains that he works too many hours and doesn’t bring home enough money, that man is going to be emotionally vulnerable and very difficult to live with. In both cases the foundational needs of those people are not being met, and their marriages are likely to be in big trouble.

Now our typical solution (and the one I was headed toward originally) is to get on the husbands’ cases and exhort them to love their wives unconditionally, and to get on the wives’ cases and exhort them to respect their husbands and build them up, and, of course, this approach would be right and biblical. But not yet! There’s something that must happen before we exhort the husbands to love their wives and the wives to respect their husbands. And that is to exhort both to quit looking to the other for their basic security and significance. Let me put it this way for our second major proposition:

The most basic problem in marriage is that we look to the wrong source for our security and significance.

I would like to suggest to you that God never intended for wives to find their security in their husbands, nor for husbands to have their significance tied to their wives’ attitude toward their careers. And as long as we look to another person, whether that be a husband, a wife, a parent, or a boss, for those basic needs to be met, we are going to be vulnerable to human failure, unless, of course, we happen to be one of the few who is married to a spouse who always shows love and respect.

Well, if we aren’t to find our foundational security and significance in our partner, where are we to find it? You know the answer, don’t you? And some of you are saying to yourself, “That’s trite! To tell us to have our basic needs me by God is just another pastoral exhortation with very little relation to reality. I didn’t marry God. I married my husband, and God says I have to stay with him for the next 45 years or until he dies, and already I’m considering murder.”

Friend, if you’re tempted to answer in that fashion, you’re mistaken. What I have said is not trite, but extremely important, and it’s important not just for married couples, but for children, singles, and the widowed as well. Why do you think the Bible says so much about God’s unconditional love for his people, if it’s not to build into us a sense of security? The Bible tells us that we are loved by a love that is freely given, that cannot be earned, and therefore cannot be lost. If we look to God to meet our basic need for security, then we will not be vulnerable, because God is completely faithful and He never fails.

Why also do you think the Bible says so much about the fact that God is our Creator, that He is active in our lives from the very moment of conception, that He has gifted us, that He has plans for us, and that He desires to use us in various ministries, if it is not to give us a basic sense of significance? All of that is made perfectly clear in the Bible before it ever tells the wife to respect her husband or for the husband to love his wife or for children to obey their parents or forefathers to nurture their children.

Let me turn your attention, if I may, to several passages of Scripture which speak of God as the principal source of security and significance for all of His children–married and unmarried alike. First, let’s look at some passages that tell us that our security is in the Lord because He loves us unconditionally.

(Deu 33:27 NIV) “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

(Psa 73:2526, 28 b,c) “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. {26} My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. . . . I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

(Psa 103:117 NIV) “Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. {2} Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits {3} who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, {4} who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, {5} who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. {6} The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. {7} He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: {8} The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. {9} He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; {10} he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. {11} For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; {12} as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. {13} As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; {14} for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. {15} As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; {16} the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. {17} But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.”

(John 10:2730 NIV) “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. {28} I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. {29} My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. {30} I and the Father are one.”

(Rom 5:68 NIV) “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. {7} Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. {8} But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

(Rom 8:1 NIV) “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (3139 NIV) What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? {32} He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? {33} Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. {34} Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died more than that, who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. {35} Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? {36} As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ {37} No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. {38} For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, {39} neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Can you imagine anything God could possibly say beyond what these passages say that would better communicate His unconditional love and, therefore, our security? He loves you right now as much as He possibly could. He would not love you one whit more if you were absolutely perfect. He would not love you one whit less if you were to turn your back on Him and deny Him as Peter did.

Do you find that hard to believe? No doubt many of you do, because you have been brought up to believe that God is a kind of celestial cop hiding in the shadows of a side street, waiting anxiously to turn on his siren and flashing lights and zap you with a ticket when you run a red light. But that is not the view the Bible presents of God. Oh, it does teach us that behavior and attitudes do have consequences. If you reject God’s commandments and insist on following your own, there are natural consequences you will have to deal with. It is still true that “a man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” But one of the consequences of sowing to the sinful nature is not that God will love you any less. In fact, the argument is made in Hebrews 12 that if there were no consequences built into the universe, that would not be a sign of God’s love; it would be a sign that He lacked love, for “the Lord disciplines those he loves, and . . . if you are not disciplined, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”

Second, let’s look at a couple of passages which tell us that our significance is also in the Lord, and that He is the only dependable source to meet that need. By the way, much of modern culture is bent on denying the uniqueness and significance of man. The whole religion of organic evolution claims that we are different from animals only in degree, not in kind. Within the past two weeks I read of a new study purporting to demonstrate that animals have ethics, another weapon against the uniqueness of man. The animal rights movement is screaming loudly that there is no unique significance to mankind. But listen to what God says:

(Gen 1:2627 NIV) “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ {27} So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. . . . God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

(Psa 139:16 NIV) “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. {2} You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. {3} You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. {4} Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. {5} You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. {6} Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. (1316) For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. {14} I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. {15} My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, {16} your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

(Rom 12:46) “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, {5} so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. {6} We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.”

The truth that comes across to me through these passages is that we have been created, molded, gifted, and showered with God’s grace. We are, in effect, ambassadors for Christ. If President Clinton were to appoint you as an ambassador to a foreign country, you would be greatly honored–even if it were a small and insignificant country. The honor comes not so much from the country you would go to as from the country you would represent. But how much more honor is there to be appointed an ambassador for Christ?

So I am unconditionally loved by God, and I have worth and value because He created me, gifted me, and called me to serve Him. Now, having established that we must look to God, rather than to someone else for our security and significance, consider with me the impact such an understanding can have upon a Christian marriage. If I know I am secure and significant already, whether or not I happen to feel it at any given moment, if I know it, then I am free to minister to my spouse without building up walls of protection to avoid being hurt. Nothing my spouse can do or say can destroy my security or my sense of significance.

Oh, my spouse can hurt me and hurt me badly, but he or she cannot destroy me, because the foundation of my security and significance are not in my spouse. Furthermore, realizing that God is the ultimate source of my wife’s security and significance takes a lot of pressure off of me, because frankly I’m not up to the assignment of providing all the emotional support she needs, nor can she for me. However, while the pressure is lessened, the responsibility for me to love her and respect her and for her to love me and respect me is not removed, for Ephesians 5 is still there. Next Lord’s Day we will try to take a fresh look at those commands for husbands and wives.

Now there is a danger in this approach I have shared this morning. And the principal danger is that we will become self-sufficient and conclude that we don’t need our spouse or anyone else. We can say, “Since Christ is all I need, I can withdraw from you emotionally.” That is why it is so important to realize that although it is true that our basic needs for security and significance are met in God and in Jesus Christ, it is also true that the Lord normally uses husbands and wives as His principal instruments to develop within each other a conscious awareness of unconditional love and personal worth. While marriage partners cannot add to the fact of one another’s security and significance, they can certainly contribute to feelings of security and significance.

One way to put it is that God intends for us as spouses to be reinforcers of the security and significance that He provides. And that brings us to our third major point:

The most basic responsibility in Christian marriage is for spouses to become reinforcers rather than contradictors of the security and significance that comes from God.

Unfortunately, many Christians are not reinforcers but rather living contradictions, so much so that some wives are saying, “If Christ loved the Church like my husband loves me, I think the church is a lost cause.” And some husbands are saying, “If this is all the respect I get from my wife, then I’m no longer responsible to love her.” And some children are saying, “If my father is a picture of the Fatherhood of God, then I can’t put much faith in God.”

Ephesians 5, the principal passage on the subject, says that I am called to minister to my spouse by modeling God’s concern for my partner’s deepest needs, rather than manipulating my spouse to meet my own deepest needs. It is intimated in this passage that a husband’s greatest need is for respect and the wife’s greatest need is for love. Those are not the only needs we have, but the wife who is not reinforcing the value God places upon her husband and the husband who is not reinforcing God’s unconditional love for his wife are not fulfilling even the most basic responsibilities of marriage.

I firmly believe, though I don’t always act like it, that preoccupation with my wife’s needs will ultimately lead to a fuller meeting of my own needs, if for no other reason than that kindnesses persisted in are generally eventually reciprocated. But God makes no specific promises in that regard, and I repeat that even if my partner never did reciprocate, I am still under the requirement of God’s Word to reinforce God’s ministry of security and significance in the life of my spouse.

Perhaps you are thinking by this time, “I know what the Bible teaches, but when I never get any reinforcement at home, I just don’t feel unconditionally loved or valuable.” Well, what do you do if you wake up some morning and don’t feel saved? Do you conclude that you lost your salvation during the night? Most of us would go back to the Word of God where the matter of our salvation is made perfectly clear, and where we are told that our salvation doesn’t depend upon us, but rather upon God. And we accept that truth by faith, even if it doesn’t feel right.

The same must be done in regard to this matter of security and significance. If you don’t feel secure or significant, you go back to the Word of God which says in no uncertain terms that God loves you unconditionally and that He created you in His own image. Therefore, you are secure and significant whether you feel like it or not. And you move ahead on the basis of what you know to be true. And when Satan tells you nobody loves you and you’re worthless, you call him a Liar.

I have not tried to solve specific marriage difficulties today. Rather what I have tried to do is to lay a foundation for meaningful progress in godly living in the home. If Ephesians 5, our text for next Sunday, is going to become the rule rather than the exception in our homes, I believe it is essential that we start where the Scriptures start–by finding our needs met by our heavenly Father, and then from that firm foundation reach out in agape love to minister to the needs of our spouses, our children, and those around us.

Let me summarize my sermon with a sentence, albeit a long one: “Christ is all I need for security and significance; therefore I don’t need to depend on my spouse to meet my needs, and I can freely devote my life to sacrificial ministry to my partner, believing that the Lord will replenish my resources when they run dry.”

There is a concluding observation I would like to make. No one can find security and significance in God unless he becomes a part of God’s spiritual family. You’re a part of His physical family by reason of birth; you become a member of His spiritual family by the new birth. Jesus Himself said, “Except a man be born again, or born from above, He cannot see the Kingdom of God.” The new birth is by faith in Jesus Christ.