The greatest commandment is given to us by Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” If you are married, it’s important to remember that no matter what season we are in - our mission is the same. Love God first - love others second. How we do that in marriage will impact the quality of our marriage.
Marriage Is A Gift From God
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). Marriage is one of those good and perfect gifts from God. Proverbs 18:22 says that “he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” Marriage is a blessing that God gives us to bear witness to His love, raise disciples, and for our enjoyment.
When we see the creation narrative in Genesis 2, God consistently calls all of his creation good - until he declares that “it is not good for man to be alone” in verse 18. This is the first time that he says something is not good. As an answer to his own observation, he establishes the very first divine institution - marriage. God intended husband and wife to be a spiritual, functional union - where man and woman walk together in integrity, serve God, and keep His commandments together. When this harmony is operative, society prospers under God’s hand.
Keep Christ At The Center
Of Your Relationship
In order for your marriage to prosper, you must keep Christ at the center of your relationship. Your relationship with God is the most important relationship in your entire life. Many people will tell you that if you want a better marriage, you should focus on your spouse. I would disagree - if you want a better marriage, focus on Christ together. Your spouse should be the most important earthly relationship in your life, but they cannot overshadow your first love.
As Christians, we worship God, not marriage. Culture often worships romance, family, and the ideal of a perfect relationship. We tend to look for someone who will complete us or make us feel whole. But our spouse isn’t capable of completing us - only Christ can do that. If you find your wholeness in Christ instead of your spouse, your relationship with your spouse will be so much more vibrant and healthy!
Always remember the order Christ gives us in the Greatest Commandment found in Matthew 22:37-38. We love God first and others second. That order of priorities must ring true in every aspect of our lives - even within our marriage.
The Purpose of Marriage
When you understand the purpose of marriage, it only makes sense to put Christ first within it. Culture will tell you that marriage is for the purpose of personal fulfillment. Biblically, however, marriage exists to bring God glory. If God has brought you together with a spouse, He has done so because He has a greater work for you to accomplish together than what either of you could accomplish on your own.
God institutes marriage so that you can accomplish more together than you can apart. In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, we see a Biblical principal that “two are better than one” and that “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” This principal can apply to relationships of all varieties - but we see it exemplified in marriage particularly well. When two people come together, there is a new level of support and effectiveness that one person alone cannot achieve. This only happens, however, when that third cord is present - Christ Himself.
Your marriage is a symbol to the world of Christ’s love for the church. The way we love our spouse should make the love of Christ believable and true. We are God’s plan to make it believable that He is good and loving and true. We can’t afford to waste our marriage by merely pursuing our own happiness. Godly marriages magnify God’s ingenuis creation, but few marraiges radiate that glory.
If you live into that and view your marriage as a means by which to serve God together and glorify Him - then you will naturally begin to put Christ first in your life and in your marriage.
Love & Submit To One Another
It is precisely because marriage is a symbol to the world around us that we must reflect Christ within our marriage. We are given directions in Ephesians 5 about how wives and husbands ought to treat each other within the context of marriage. It is important to note that these instructions are given on the foundation of mutual submission (see Ephesians 5:21). Then, upon that foundation, we are given further instructions in Ephesians 5:22-33.
Wives are told to “submit to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” This command is given as a means by which women can serve Christ by faithfully submitting to their husbands. This command only works when men are also doing their part - living in a pattern of mutual submission and following the subsequent commands.
Men are told to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” and “to love their wives as their own bodies.” Husbands have a high calling to lay down their lives in every sense for their wives. To live selflessly, honorably, and sacrificially for their wives.
When husband and wife are both living according to these commands, marriages thrive and paint a beautiful picture to the rest of the world about Christ’s love for His church.
Love & Respect
One of my favorite books on marriage is Love and Respect by Dr. Emmerson Eggerichs. He found that women’s greatest need is to feel loved, while a man’s greatest desire is to feel respected. This fact is a reflection of the commands we see in Ephesians 5. In this book, Dr. Eggerich suggests that there is a negative relationship pattern where a husband’s lack of love leads to a wife’s lack of respect (or vice versa), which compounds the pattern repeatedly into a vicious cycle.
If you find yourself in this vicious cycle, or you are having trouble submitting to one another or sacrifically loving one another, you have to break it. In order to break this cycle, someone has to go first. Husbands must show love even when they feel disrespected. Wives must show respect even when they feel unloved. When both parties are committed to living this way, an Ephesians 5 marriage is easier to imagine.
Don’t Waste Your Marriage
If we aren’t careful, we can waste the precious time that God has given us chasing after trivial things. Matthew 6:33 tells us exactly how to get our priorities straight - “Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Christ has given us a clear mission - make disciples. We cannot change this mission to “make happy families.” This is not the mission that Jesus gave us. Are we trying to justify idolizing marriage because it’s what we want? When we focus on what is most important, our marriages will thrive because they are functioning according to their design.
I encourage you to view your marriage as a tool to live out the great commission together. Seek God’s Kingdom. Be on the same team and push each other towards Christ first and foremost. Being in a war together is what keeps us from being at with each other!
As you dedicate your marriage to Christ, here are two take aways to practice this week:
Cherish one another. When you cherish something, you protect it, honor it, treat it with tenderness, nurture it, and go out of your way to indulge it. View your marriage as a precious gift from God that you want to protect and preserve at all costs. When the world around us sees marriages like this within the church, God is glorified and His Gospel is shown to be true.
Pray together. Did you know that spouses who pray together have a 1% chance of divorce? That is 39-49% lower than the national average. When we put Christ first in our marriages, he blesses us. Find ways to practically seek Jesus together. This starts with prayer!
It is our desire that your marriages would prosper greatly and be used by God to share His love to the world!
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Relationship Status Week 2: February 16th, 2025. Preached by Ben Dieterly
Article Edited by Julia Castro
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