Marriage: A Great Masterpiece!
Introduction. Like all great masterpieces, a good marriage requires both genius and hard work. Fortunately for us, God supplied the genius. He created us in his image and after his likeness and created us male and female giving us the power to become one flesh.
Because of God’s wisdom, every marriage is a potential masterpiece of function and elegance, bringing joy and security to the husband and wife and great blessings to their children. Since we all have this power from God, the deciding factor will always be our own efforts.
Most of us learn within the first few months of marriage that if we are to make it a beautiful work of art we are going to need a lot of help. The selfishness of sin dooms a marriage to mediocrity or even the bitter sorrow and treachery of a divorce. Human wisdom has rushed in with self-help and how-to marriage manuals. But as with other consequences of sin, only God truly understands the problem and how to solve it.
God’s wisdom for marriage falls into two broad categories of “loving” and “serving.” But this is service and love as God created them to be and not as man has wrested them. Human wisdom sees service as a one sided demeaning act and turned love into the selfish enjoyment of pleasure.
Jesus' example. God swept all this aside by placing it into the context of Jesus and the plan of salvation. The service necessary to make marriage a pleasure is the same service the church gives to Jesus Christ. The love which God wills be shared in marriage is the same sacrificial love Jesus gave the church. A husband learns to love and sacrifice himself for his wife as Jesus did for the church and a wife learns to respect and serve her husband as the church does Christ. When we consider how well this worked in our own salvation, we see how powerful love and service are in all healthy relationships. We don’t have to learn anything new! We simply have to make our marriage exactly like the church and when we do the same manifold wisdom of God revealed in the church (Eph. 3:9-10) will also be seen in our marriage.
Loving. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. (ESV) 1 Cor. 13:4-8
When we say “I love you” this is what God expects us to mean! This is love as we received it from God when created in his image and likeness. It is the love Adam had when he awoke and saw Eve. Think what this will do for our marriage. If you and your spouse were always “patient and kind,” never “rude” and never “insisted on” getting your “own way”, would it change the relationship for the better? If no matter how the day went, we were never “irritable or resentful” in word or action, would we have more tenderness? If we could always depend on each other until death do us part to always “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” would we feel more secure? Any marriage would be well on its way to becoming a masterpiece if we meant all of this when we say “I love you.”
Serving. To define service we must look at how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples before the Passover. He did it because they were uncomfortable and he wanted to help them. Though Teacher and Lord, he did it because he loved them. He called it “an example, that you should do as I have done to you,” and said “if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (Jn. 13:1-17).
We must also look at Jesus who “although he existed in the form of God ...emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant.” Then, “have this attitude in yourselves,” don’t “look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others,” and “regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:1-11).
Conclusion. In light of these two examples it is impossible to cling to the worldly view that service is demeaning or beneath our dignity. Service has nothing to do with position and everything to do with love and devotion. When we see service as a badge of honor we will see our marriage improve. Instead of seeing unfinished work as something to use against them, we finish the work for them. With a heart like Jesus, filled with love and service, the greatest things are possible in any relationship, but especially in a marriage.
Because of God’s wisdom, every marriage is a potential masterpiece of function and elegance, bringing joy and security to the husband and wife and great blessings to their children. Since we all have this power from God, the deciding factor will always be our own efforts.
Most of us learn within the first few months of marriage that if we are to make it a beautiful work of art we are going to need a lot of help. The selfishness of sin dooms a marriage to mediocrity or even the bitter sorrow and treachery of a divorce. Human wisdom has rushed in with self-help and how-to marriage manuals. But as with other consequences of sin, only God truly understands the problem and how to solve it.
God’s wisdom for marriage falls into two broad categories of “loving” and “serving.” But this is service and love as God created them to be and not as man has wrested them. Human wisdom sees service as a one sided demeaning act and turned love into the selfish enjoyment of pleasure.
Jesus' example. God swept all this aside by placing it into the context of Jesus and the plan of salvation. The service necessary to make marriage a pleasure is the same service the church gives to Jesus Christ. The love which God wills be shared in marriage is the same sacrificial love Jesus gave the church. A husband learns to love and sacrifice himself for his wife as Jesus did for the church and a wife learns to respect and serve her husband as the church does Christ. When we consider how well this worked in our own salvation, we see how powerful love and service are in all healthy relationships. We don’t have to learn anything new! We simply have to make our marriage exactly like the church and when we do the same manifold wisdom of God revealed in the church (Eph. 3:9-10) will also be seen in our marriage.
Loving. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. (ESV) 1 Cor. 13:4-8
When we say “I love you” this is what God expects us to mean! This is love as we received it from God when created in his image and likeness. It is the love Adam had when he awoke and saw Eve. Think what this will do for our marriage. If you and your spouse were always “patient and kind,” never “rude” and never “insisted on” getting your “own way”, would it change the relationship for the better? If no matter how the day went, we were never “irritable or resentful” in word or action, would we have more tenderness? If we could always depend on each other until death do us part to always “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” would we feel more secure? Any marriage would be well on its way to becoming a masterpiece if we meant all of this when we say “I love you.”
Serving. To define service we must look at how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples before the Passover. He did it because they were uncomfortable and he wanted to help them. Though Teacher and Lord, he did it because he loved them. He called it “an example, that you should do as I have done to you,” and said “if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (Jn. 13:1-17).
We must also look at Jesus who “although he existed in the form of God ...emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant.” Then, “have this attitude in yourselves,” don’t “look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others,” and “regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:1-11).
Conclusion. In light of these two examples it is impossible to cling to the worldly view that service is demeaning or beneath our dignity. Service has nothing to do with position and everything to do with love and devotion. When we see service as a badge of honor we will see our marriage improve. Instead of seeing unfinished work as something to use against them, we finish the work for them. With a heart like Jesus, filled with love and service, the greatest things are possible in any relationship, but especially in a marriage.