February 27, 2025 • 25 mins
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You can read the blog articles for this month's series on Marriage here:
Part 1: You Can Have a Happy Marriage
Part 2: The Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Marriage
Part 3: The Purpose of Marriage
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Audrey (00:00):
Hello, welcome back to Grace From my Home.
I'm Audrey McCracken and I amhonored to join you again this
week.
I hope that you're doing well.
We are in the middle of aseries on marriage.
This is the third week and Ihope that you have enjoyed this.
If you missed the first two,you can go back to the show
(00:21):
notes and click on the first twoepisodes.
Go back to the show notes andclick on the first two episodes
Also, just so you know, I writea blog post with each of these
podcast episodes and sometimesyou can get more information.
If it's a subject that you'reinterested in, you can get more
information from the blog postbecause I put scripture
references.
I also will list some booksthat I recommend, some things
(00:44):
that I've read that I foundhelpful, especially during this
series on marriage.
I'll put the blog post in theshow notes so you can click on
that Also.
I've put together a freeresource for you.
It's called Seven PowerfulPrayers to Pray Over your
Husband, to pray over yourhusband and I just.
(01:10):
You will be amazed at how muchcan change in just one week.
Praying for your husband daily.
You know God answers ourprayers and it's amazing to me,
you know, if you pray, if youcommit to seven days of praying
for your husband, god will dosomething in him.
God will do something in yourmarriage, but God will also do
something in you.
I've seen it time and timeagain.
I've thought Lord, my husbandneeds prayer, he needs to change
.
And as I go to the Lord inprayer and I start to pray for
(01:33):
my husband, god will do a workin my heart and he'll show me
that there's areas I need tochange too.
And prayer opens up our heartsto the Lord where he can do a
work in us, and also in ourhusbands, of course.
But if that sounds likesomething that would be helpful
for you, just go to the shownotes and click on Seven
Powerful Prayers to Pray Overyour Husband.
(01:55):
And that is a free resource andI encourage you to take
advantage of it.
This week we're going to talkabout the purpose of marriage.
This week we're going to talkabout the purpose of marriage.
The first week we talked aboutthe first episode in this series
.
We talked about you.
The name of that episode wasyou Can have a Happy Marriage,
(02:15):
and we talked about the redeemedmarriage.
In the second episode, wetalked about the most important
thing you can do for yourmarriage.
And then today we're going totalk about the purpose of
marriage.
And to me it's helpful to talkabout the purpose of marriage
because if I know the purpose ofsomething, it kind of gives me
insight into how to treat thatthing.
If I know why something wascreated, if I know the purpose
(02:37):
of it, it gives me insight intohow it functions and kind of my
place in it.
And so I'm hoping today, as Ishare with you the purpose of
marriage, that it will give youan insight into where's my place
in marriage and why did God setit up this way.
And hopefully that will helpyou in your everyday life,
(03:00):
because I like to know, I feellike if I have an idea of how
and why something is set up,then I can treat it better.
And so today I'm going to sharewith you five purposes that I
see when I study marriage, thatI see in marriage.
There may be more, but theseare the five that I see when it
(03:23):
comes to marriage.
The first purpose of marriage isthat marriage helps us to
fulfill our God-given assignment.
Marriage helps us to fulfillGod's assignment for our lives.
When God put Adam and Eve inthe garden.
He gave them an assignment.
We call it the creation mandate.
(03:43):
We call it the creation mandate.
And he told them be fruitfuland multiply, fill the earth and
subdue it.
Now, adam could not fill theearth without Eve and Eve could
not fill the earth without Adam.
That was an assignment that Godgave both of them, but they
(04:08):
needed each other in order to dothat, and I believe that
marriage is.
One of the purposes of marriageis that it gives us a partner.
It gives us someone to do lifewith.
It says in Ecclesiastes 4, itsays two are better than one,
because if one falls, the othercan help them up.
So it's better for us to go tohave a partner, it's better for
(04:29):
us to have someone to walk with,for we're designed that way and
God gives us assignments asindividuals and as couples.
When we're married, we stillhave individual assignments, but
God also, I believe God alsogives us an assignment as a
couple, for example.
I'll use my life as an example,because it's the only example I
(04:53):
know intimately.
I have assignments that I feellike the Lord, things that the
Lord has asked me to do, and sodoes my husband.
My husband is a high schoolprincipal and he is deep in that
world.
He's working on his PhD rightnow in administration and you
know I don't know a whole lotabout that world, except for
some of the things he's allowedto tell me, and you know some of
(05:16):
the things.
I know he's a very busy man buthe enjoys his job and he does
it really well.
I think he's a great principal.
He loves those children and Isee God's hand on his life to do
that.
There's an anointing on him, astrength on him to do that well
and I support him in that.
(05:36):
I pray for him, I encourage him, I listen However I can.
I support him in that.
But that's not my assignment.
And the same thing with me.
There are things that God hasasked of me that my husband
that's not what he's called todo.
I run a coffee shop.
It's something I do for mychurch, it's something I feel
like the Lord has asked of me,and so that's my world and he
(06:02):
listens and if I need him tohelp with an event, he'll come
in and help with an event.
But he doesn't carry the weightof that but he does encourage
me in it and that's our twoseparate assignments but we
encourage each other in that Nowwe also pastor a church
together, and that is somethingthat I believe God's called us
(06:25):
to do together, and I surewouldn't want to do it without
him, and I don't think he wouldwant to do it without me either.
We pray for people, we teachpeople, we encourage people.
We pray for God's plan.
About a little over a year ago,our church moved.
We moved from a country churchto a city, the city where we run
(06:49):
our coffee shop.
And that's hard work, you know.
We're trying to do somethingnew, we're paving a new road
into a new place, and it's noteasy work.
But God's given us each otherand other people.
We're not doing it alone.
We have a whole group of peoplewho God has given this heart
(07:10):
and this vision to.
But this is an area where Ibelieve God's called us together
, and I think God does that.
I think you know, as a couple,we need each other to encourage
each other in our individualassignments and to do the things
that God's called us to dotogether.
Raising our kids was somethingthat God called us to do
together.
(07:30):
They're not just my children,they're not just his children.
You know that's an assignmentGod's given us together.
Now we may have different rolesin that, but our heart is to do
it well and to do it together,and so one of the purposes of
(07:51):
marriage marriage helps us tofulfill God's assignment for our
lives.
Number two, another purposethat marriage serves is that
marriage provides a secure placeto bring children into the
world.
The first podcast on this seriesof marriage I talked about how
marriage is the firstinstitution that God ordained In
(08:13):
the beginning.
He created Adam, he created Eve, he brought them together.
That was the first family andthat was the first institution
that he created and he blessedit.
He told them to be fruitful andmultiply.
Marriage is God-ordained andgood things happen in strong
(08:33):
marriages.
Good things happen there instrong families and strong homes
.
And see every society is.
Every strong society is builtaround strong families, and see
strong families make for strongchurches and strong communities
and strong countries.
So marriage creates a frameworkto bring children in to the
(08:58):
world and get, so that they cangrow and mature and be the
people that God created them tobe.
My father was a farmer and someplants.
He would go out into the fieldand he would sow those plants in
the elements and they wouldgrow.
But there are other plants thathe could not do that.
(09:21):
They wouldn't live.
They wouldn't survive if youjust went straight from seed
into the ground.
Some plants he had to start inthe greenhouse.
So he would plant the seed insoil in the greenhouse and that
seed would sprout and it wouldcreate a small plant and as that
plant matured and grew and gotstronger, he would transplant
(09:45):
that plant outside and then itwould survive.
But see, it needed that littlein-between time so that it could
survive and thrive outside ofthe greenhouse.
And our homes are kind of likethat.
Our families, the family thatwe create, is like a greenhouse.
We create a place wherechildren can get their needs met
(10:08):
, where they can learn about God, where they can get strong in
their faith, and we don't justthrow them out into the world,
we transplant them when they'reready, when the time is right.
Marriage provides a good placefor children to grow, to get
stronger, so that they can goout into the world and do well.
Another purpose of marriage isthat marriage is the way that
(10:32):
God chooses to meet ouremotional and relational needs.
Last week I talked about how weall have needs.
You know we are body, soul andspirit.
My body has needs.
If I don't get the needs of mybody met, my body will not
function properly and eventuallydie.
(10:54):
No, my spirit has needs, andthose are needs that only God
can supply.
But I also have other needs.
I have a soul.
My soul is made up of my mind,my will and my emotions.
See, we're created in the imageof God and, like God, we have
(11:14):
an amazing capacity to love andto be loved and to care for
people and to know people on adeep level, to commune with
people on a deep level, and so,because of that, we have
emotional and social needs.
(11:35):
We need love.
We may not think we do, but weneed love.
We were designed, we werecreated for love, to receive
love and to give love.
We have a need for intimacy, wehave a need for connection.
We have a need for communityand security, friendship and
(11:57):
companionship, and there aresome needs that God uses
marriage to meet, and part ofour obedience to God in marriage
is meeting our spouse's needs.
It's not about taking from ourspouse what we need.
It's about giving them whatthey need and receiving from
(12:21):
them what we need.
It's a love relationship.
It's not a take-take, it's agive-give, and in that kind of
relationship our needs get met.
One of the biggest complaints inmarriage is unmet needs, and so
when you're not getting yourneeds met, when your spouse
(12:45):
isn't getting their needs met,then you're not happy in
marriage.
You feel like something's wrong, something's off.
You know everything else can begoing fine, but when there are
unmet needs, when you're notrelating to each other the right
way, when there's no intimacy,when there's no closeness, when
there's no trust, you're nothappy in marriage.
(13:07):
I heard it put this way onetime and I thought this was a
good way to put it Without love,without intimacy, without
closeness, then marriage is justbusiness.
Without that connection, thatheart connection where we're
meeting each other's emotionalneeds and physical needs, it's
(13:31):
just business.
It's just who's going to pickup the kids, who's going to pay
the bills, who's going to cooksupper, where are we going on
vacation it's just business.
A big part of our satisfactionin marriage depends on if our
needs are getting met, and thesame is true for our spouse.
(13:52):
So God designed marriage as away for us to get our emotional
and our relational needs met.
Another purpose for marriage isthat marriage helps us to be
transformed into the image ofChrist.
One of God's purposes for ourlife is that we become more and
(14:18):
more like Jesus.
We were originally created inthe image of God.
Sin marred that image, but inChrist we are being renewed
again.
In Christ we are born again andwe are being transformed into
the image of Christ.
Now we become like the one webehold, and it's the things that
(14:39):
we go through in life that weare making choices.
Are we going to look like Jesus?
Are we going to act like Jesus?
Are we going to think likeJesus?
Are we going to do the thingsthat are pleasing to the Father,
like Jesus did?
And marriage is full of thoseopportunities.
See, in marriage, in the contextof marriage, of living with
(15:00):
your sinful nature, living withsomebody else with a sinful
nature, having to decide am Igoing to give in to my sinful
nature or am I going to chooseto obey God?
Am I going to be transformedinto the image of Christ?
And marriage gives us so manyopportunities to choose Christ
(15:21):
or not.
But God uses marriage totransform us into the image of
Christ.
If we let him us into the imageof Christ, if we let him.
Marriage is really hard onselfish people, and I say that
(15:42):
as a selfish person.
I'm not pointing my finger atyou.
We are all, at our core,selfish without Jesus.
And so in marriage, god givesus opportunities to choose to
serve and to love someone elseand, even when they have bad
days, even when we're having baddays, to choose to be more and
(16:04):
more like Jesus.
And the last purpose ofmarriage that I want to mention
today, one of the purposes ofmarriage is to be a reflection
of Christ and the church.
Marriage was the firstinstitution that God ordained,
but in the New Testament we seethat Jesus establishes another
(16:27):
institution, and thatinstitution is the church.
And the church is made up ofbelievers, those who believe in
Jesus Christ and who have beenborn again by his spirit, who
have chosen him.
They choose to believe and theychoose to follow and obey and
serve him.
And in the Bible, the church iscalled his bride.
(16:48):
And in Ephesians, paul talksabout a mystery.
And let's read that.
I'm going to read out of theNIV, ephesians 5, starting in
verse 21.
Submit to one another, out ofreverence for Christ, wives.
Submit yourselves to your ownhusbands as you do to the Lord,
(17:09):
for the husband is the head ofthe wife, as Christ is the head
of the church, his body, ofwhich he is the Savior.
Now, as the church submits toChrist, so also wives should
submit to their husbands ineverything.
Husbands, love your wives.
Just as Christ loved the churchand gave himself up for her to
(17:30):
make her holy, cleansing her bythe washing with water through
the word, and to present her tohimself as a radiant church
without any stain or wrinkle orany blemish, but holy and
blameless, in the same wayhusbands ought to love their
wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loveshimself.
(17:50):
After all, no one ever hatedtheir own body.
But they feed and care fortheir body just as Christ does
the church, for we are membersof his body.
For this reason, a man willleave his father and mother and
will be united to his wife, andthe two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery, butI am talking about Christ and
(18:14):
the church.
However, each one of you alsomust love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife mustrespect her husband.
So Paul is talking about amystery here, and he refers back
to the very beginning inGenesis, where it says for this
reason, a man will leave hisfather and mother and be united
(18:36):
with his wife and the two shallbecome one flesh.
And he's saying this is amystery, but this relates to
Christ and the church.
The church is a sacredinstitution and the relationship
between a husband and a wifereflects the relationship
(18:58):
between the church and Christ.
And we can learn a lot aboutmarriage by looking at the
church and Christ.
Both of them are sacrificialrelationships.
Jesus sacrificed everything inorder to redeem his church and
(19:20):
so we too, as married couples,are to sacrifice for each other.
Both work together better whenthere's an attitude of
servanthood.
You know, jesus said thegreatest among you is the
servant and he said.
And in Mark he said I came notto be served but to serve and to
(19:46):
give my life as a ransom formany.
That's the attitude that makesstrong and healthy and happy
marriages.
When both have that servantheart and their goal is to love
each other, to serve each other,to sacrifice when needed for
each other, that is a happymarriage.
(20:06):
That is a strong foundation formarriage.
It reflects the way he gavehimself for his church and the
way he serves.
Remember him washing the feet.
Remember that the night that hewas going to be arrested, the
day before his crucifixion hebent over dirty, nasty feet and
(20:30):
he washed them with love, andthat is a servant's heart.
And so he said, even as he bentover, he told his disciples I'm
doing this as an example foryou that as I have served you,
as I have loved you, as I havewashed your feet, that you would
do for others and in marriage.
(20:51):
Marriage gives us wonderfulopportunities to serve in love
and to reflect the way Christloves the church and the way the
church is to respect Christ.
Both relationships therelationship between a man and a
woman in marriage and therelationship between Jesus and
(21:14):
his church they're covenantrelationships.
Both of them require a lifetimecommitment.
This is for keeps.
We say till death do us part.
And so one of the purposes ofmarriage is that it would
reflect Christ and the church,that the love relationship
between a man and woman and holymatrimony and covenant love,
(21:36):
committing themselves to eachother, and how the church is to
honor and love and serve him.
And so those are the fivepurposes of marriage.
And I want to end by saying thatmarriage is hard work.
I know that it is.
It's often messy, it's morecomplicated than we want it to
be, and a happy.
(21:58):
Marriage is not a passivemarriage.
You know, if we're going toenjoy our marriage, we're going
to have to put work into it,we're going to have to be
intentional about it.
But marriage is good.
It's work, but it's good.
I like this excerpt from GaryThomas' book.
Gary Thomas wrote a book calledSacred Marriage and in that he
(22:19):
wrote this quote what if Goddesigned marriage to make you
holy instead of happy?
What if your relationship isn'tas much about you and your
spouse as it is about you andGod?
And I love that quote because Ithink it helps us to have
perspective that, yes, it isbetween me and my husband, but
(22:40):
it's more than that, and myobedience in marriage has a lot
to do with my relationship withJesus, and I hope that these
thoughts have been helpful toyou.
I hope they've been encouragingto you as you grow closer to
your spouse, as you grow closerto the Lord.
Join me again next week as wefinish up this series and I hope
(23:01):
that you have a great week.
Don't forget to touch base withme.
I would love to hear from you.
You can click on the show notesand send me fan mail and just
tell me about yourself.
Tell me where you're from andtell me about your family.
I'd love to hear from you, andif there's anything that I've
shared that's been helpful, Iwould love to hear that.
Until next time, god bless.
Hello, welcome back to Grace From my Home.
I'm Audrey McCracken and I amhonored to join you again this
week.
I hope that you're doing well.
We are in the middle of aseries on marriage.
This is the third week and Ihope that you have enjoyed this.
If you missed the first two,you can go back to the show
(00:21):
notes and click on the first twoepisodes.
Go back to the show notes andclick on the first two episodes
Also, just so you know, I writea blog post with each of these
podcast episodes and sometimesyou can get more information.
If it's a subject that you'reinterested in, you can get more
information from the blog postbecause I put scripture
references.
I also will list some booksthat I recommend, some things
(00:44):
that I've read that I foundhelpful, especially during this
series on marriage.
I'll put the blog post in theshow notes so you can click on
that Also.
I've put together a freeresource for you.
It's called Seven PowerfulPrayers to Pray Over your
Husband, to pray over yourhusband and I just.
(01:10):
You will be amazed at how muchcan change in just one week.
Praying for your husband daily.
You know God answers ourprayers and it's amazing to me,
you know, if you pray, if youcommit to seven days of praying
for your husband, god will dosomething in him.
God will do something in yourmarriage, but God will also do
something in you.
I've seen it time and timeagain.
I've thought Lord, my husbandneeds prayer, he needs to change
.
And as I go to the Lord inprayer and I start to pray for
(01:33):
my husband, god will do a workin my heart and he'll show me
that there's areas I need tochange too.
And prayer opens up our heartsto the Lord where he can do a
work in us, and also in ourhusbands, of course.
But if that sounds likesomething that would be helpful
for you, just go to the shownotes and click on Seven
Powerful Prayers to Pray Overyour Husband.
(01:55):
And that is a free resource andI encourage you to take
advantage of it.
This week we're going to talkabout the purpose of marriage.
This week we're going to talkabout the purpose of marriage.
The first week we talked aboutthe first episode in this series
.
We talked about you.
The name of that episode wasyou Can have a Happy Marriage,
(02:15):
and we talked about the redeemedmarriage.
In the second episode, wetalked about the most important
thing you can do for yourmarriage.
And then today we're going totalk about the purpose of
marriage.
And to me it's helpful to talkabout the purpose of marriage
because if I know the purpose ofsomething, it kind of gives me
insight into how to treat thatthing.
If I know why something wascreated, if I know the purpose
(02:37):
of it, it gives me insight intohow it functions and kind of my
place in it.
And so I'm hoping today, as Ishare with you the purpose of
marriage, that it will give youan insight into where's my place
in marriage and why did God setit up this way.
And hopefully that will helpyou in your everyday life,
(03:00):
because I like to know, I feellike if I have an idea of how
and why something is set up,then I can treat it better.
And so today I'm going to sharewith you five purposes that I
see when I study marriage, thatI see in marriage.
There may be more, but theseare the five that I see when it
(03:23):
comes to marriage.
The first purpose of marriage isthat marriage helps us to
fulfill our God-given assignment.
Marriage helps us to fulfillGod's assignment for our lives.
When God put Adam and Eve inthe garden.
He gave them an assignment.
We call it the creation mandate.
(03:43):
We call it the creation mandate.
And he told them be fruitfuland multiply, fill the earth and
subdue it.
Now, adam could not fill theearth without Eve and Eve could
not fill the earth without Adam.
That was an assignment that Godgave both of them, but they
(04:08):
needed each other in order to dothat, and I believe that
marriage is.
One of the purposes of marriageis that it gives us a partner.
It gives us someone to do lifewith.
It says in Ecclesiastes 4, itsays two are better than one,
because if one falls, the othercan help them up.
So it's better for us to go tohave a partner, it's better for
(04:29):
us to have someone to walk with,for we're designed that way and
God gives us assignments asindividuals and as couples.
When we're married, we stillhave individual assignments, but
God also, I believe God alsogives us an assignment as a
couple, for example.
I'll use my life as an example,because it's the only example I
(04:53):
know intimately.
I have assignments that I feellike the Lord, things that the
Lord has asked me to do, and sodoes my husband.
My husband is a high schoolprincipal and he is deep in that
world.
He's working on his PhD rightnow in administration and you
know I don't know a whole lotabout that world, except for
some of the things he's allowedto tell me, and you know some of
(05:16):
the things.
I know he's a very busy man buthe enjoys his job and he does
it really well.
I think he's a great principal.
He loves those children and Isee God's hand on his life to do
that.
There's an anointing on him, astrength on him to do that well
and I support him in that.
(05:36):
I pray for him, I encourage him, I listen However I can.
I support him in that.
But that's not my assignment.
And the same thing with me.
There are things that God hasasked of me that my husband
that's not what he's called todo.
I run a coffee shop.
It's something I do for mychurch, it's something I feel
like the Lord has asked of me,and so that's my world and he
(06:02):
listens and if I need him tohelp with an event, he'll come
in and help with an event.
But he doesn't carry the weightof that but he does encourage
me in it and that's our twoseparate assignments but we
encourage each other in that Nowwe also pastor a church
together, and that is somethingthat I believe God's called us
(06:25):
to do together, and I surewouldn't want to do it without
him, and I don't think he wouldwant to do it without me either.
We pray for people, we teachpeople, we encourage people.
We pray for God's plan.
About a little over a year ago,our church moved.
We moved from a country churchto a city, the city where we run
(06:49):
our coffee shop.
And that's hard work, you know.
We're trying to do somethingnew, we're paving a new road
into a new place, and it's noteasy work.
But God's given us each otherand other people.
We're not doing it alone.
We have a whole group of peoplewho God has given this heart
(07:10):
and this vision to.
But this is an area where Ibelieve God's called us together
, and I think God does that.
I think you know, as a couple,we need each other to encourage
each other in our individualassignments and to do the things
that God's called us to dotogether.
Raising our kids was somethingthat God called us to do
together.
(07:30):
They're not just my children,they're not just his children.
You know that's an assignmentGod's given us together.
Now we may have different rolesin that, but our heart is to do
it well and to do it together,and so one of the purposes of
(07:51):
marriage marriage helps us tofulfill God's assignment for our
lives.
Number two, another purposethat marriage serves is that
marriage provides a secure placeto bring children into the
world.
The first podcast on this seriesof marriage I talked about how
marriage is the firstinstitution that God ordained In
(08:13):
the beginning.
He created Adam, he created Eve, he brought them together.
That was the first family andthat was the first institution
that he created and he blessedit.
He told them to be fruitful andmultiply.
Marriage is God-ordained andgood things happen in strong
(08:33):
marriages.
Good things happen there instrong families and strong homes
.
And see every society is.
Every strong society is builtaround strong families, and see
strong families make for strongchurches and strong communities
and strong countries.
So marriage creates a frameworkto bring children in to the
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world and get, so that they cangrow and mature and be the
people that God created them tobe.
My father was a farmer and someplants.
He would go out into the fieldand he would sow those plants in
the elements and they wouldgrow.
But there are other plants thathe could not do that.
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They wouldn't live.
They wouldn't survive if youjust went straight from seed
into the ground.
Some plants he had to start inthe greenhouse.
So he would plant the seed insoil in the greenhouse and that
seed would sprout and it wouldcreate a small plant and as that
plant matured and grew and gotstronger, he would transplant
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that plant outside and then itwould survive.
But see, it needed that littlein-between time so that it could
survive and thrive outside ofthe greenhouse.
And our homes are kind of likethat.
Our families, the family thatwe create, is like a greenhouse.
We create a place wherechildren can get their needs met
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, where they can learn about God, where they can get strong in
their faith, and we don't justthrow them out into the world,
we transplant them when they'reready, when the time is right.
Marriage provides a good placefor children to grow, to get
stronger, so that they can goout into the world and do well.
Another purpose of marriage isthat marriage is the way that
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God chooses to meet ouremotional and relational needs.
Last week I talked about how weall have needs.
You know we are body, soul andspirit.
My body has needs.
If I don't get the needs of mybody met, my body will not
function properly and eventuallydie.
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No, my spirit has needs, andthose are needs that only God
can supply.
But I also have other needs.
I have a soul.
My soul is made up of my mind,my will and my emotions.
See, we're created in the imageof God and, like God, we have
(11:14):
an amazing capacity to love andto be loved and to care for
people and to know people on adeep level, to commune with
people on a deep level, and so,because of that, we have
emotional and social needs.
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We need love.
We may not think we do, but weneed love.
We were designed, we werecreated for love, to receive
love and to give love.
We have a need for intimacy, wehave a need for connection.
We have a need for communityand security, friendship and
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companionship, and there aresome needs that God uses
marriage to meet, and part ofour obedience to God in marriage
is meeting our spouse's needs.
It's not about taking from ourspouse what we need.
It's about giving them whatthey need and receiving from
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them what we need.
It's a love relationship.
It's not a take-take, it's agive-give, and in that kind of
relationship our needs get met.
One of the biggest complaints inmarriage is unmet needs, and so
when you're not getting yourneeds met, when your spouse
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isn't getting their needs met,then you're not happy in
marriage.
You feel like something's wrong, something's off.
You know everything else can begoing fine, but when there are
unmet needs, when you're notrelating to each other the right
way, when there's no intimacy,when there's no closeness, when
there's no trust, you're nothappy in marriage.
(13:07):
I heard it put this way onetime and I thought this was a
good way to put it Without love,without intimacy, without
closeness, then marriage is justbusiness.
Without that connection, thatheart connection where we're
meeting each other's emotionalneeds and physical needs, it's
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just business.
It's just who's going to pickup the kids, who's going to pay
the bills, who's going to cooksupper, where are we going on
vacation it's just business.
A big part of our satisfactionin marriage depends on if our
needs are getting met, and thesame is true for our spouse.
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So God designed marriage as away for us to get our emotional
and our relational needs met.
Another purpose for marriage isthat marriage helps us to be
transformed into the image ofChrist.
One of God's purposes for ourlife is that we become more and
(14:18):
more like Jesus.
We were originally created inthe image of God.
Sin marred that image, but inChrist we are being renewed
again.
In Christ we are born again andwe are being transformed into
the image of Christ.
Now we become like the one webehold, and it's the things that
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we go through in life that weare making choices.
Are we going to look like Jesus?
Are we going to act like Jesus?
Are we going to think likeJesus?
Are we going to do the thingsthat are pleasing to the Father,
like Jesus did?
And marriage is full of thoseopportunities.
See, in marriage, in the contextof marriage, of living with
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your sinful nature, living withsomebody else with a sinful
nature, having to decide am Igoing to give in to my sinful
nature or am I going to chooseto obey God?
Am I going to be transformedinto the image of Christ?
And marriage gives us so manyopportunities to choose Christ
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or not.
But God uses marriage totransform us into the image of
Christ.
If we let him us into the imageof Christ, if we let him.
Marriage is really hard onselfish people, and I say that
(15:42):
as a selfish person.
I'm not pointing my finger atyou.
We are all, at our core,selfish without Jesus.
And so in marriage, god givesus opportunities to choose to
serve and to love someone elseand, even when they have bad
days, even when we're having baddays, to choose to be more and
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more like Jesus.
And the last purpose ofmarriage that I want to mention
today, one of the purposes ofmarriage is to be a reflection
of Christ and the church.
Marriage was the firstinstitution that God ordained,
but in the New Testament we seethat Jesus establishes another
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institution, and thatinstitution is the church.
And the church is made up ofbelievers, those who believe in
Jesus Christ and who have beenborn again by his spirit, who
have chosen him.
They choose to believe and theychoose to follow and obey and
serve him.
And in the Bible, the church iscalled his bride.
(16:48):
And in Ephesians, paul talksabout a mystery.
And let's read that.
I'm going to read out of theNIV, ephesians 5, starting in
verse 21.
Submit to one another, out ofreverence for Christ, wives.
Submit yourselves to your ownhusbands as you do to the Lord,
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for the husband is the head ofthe wife, as Christ is the head
of the church, his body, ofwhich he is the Savior.
Now, as the church submits toChrist, so also wives should
submit to their husbands ineverything.
Husbands, love your wives.
Just as Christ loved the churchand gave himself up for her to
(17:30):
make her holy, cleansing her bythe washing with water through
the word, and to present her tohimself as a radiant church
without any stain or wrinkle orany blemish, but holy and
blameless, in the same wayhusbands ought to love their
wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loveshimself.
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After all, no one ever hatedtheir own body.
But they feed and care fortheir body just as Christ does
the church, for we are membersof his body.
For this reason, a man willleave his father and mother and
will be united to his wife, andthe two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery, butI am talking about Christ and
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the church.
However, each one of you alsomust love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife mustrespect her husband.
So Paul is talking about amystery here, and he refers back
to the very beginning inGenesis, where it says for this
reason, a man will leave hisfather and mother and be united
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with his wife and the two shallbecome one flesh.
And he's saying this is amystery, but this relates to
Christ and the church.
The church is a sacredinstitution and the relationship
between a husband and a wifereflects the relationship
(18:58):
between the church and Christ.
And we can learn a lot aboutmarriage by looking at the
church and Christ.
Both of them are sacrificialrelationships.
Jesus sacrificed everything inorder to redeem his church and
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so we too, as married couples,are to sacrifice for each other.
Both work together better whenthere's an attitude of
servanthood.
You know, jesus said thegreatest among you is the
servant and he said.
And in Mark he said I came notto be served but to serve and to
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give my life as a ransom formany.
That's the attitude that makesstrong and healthy and happy
marriages.
When both have that servantheart and their goal is to love
each other, to serve each other,to sacrifice when needed for
each other, that is a happymarriage.
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That is a strong foundation formarriage.
It reflects the way he gavehimself for his church and the
way he serves.
Remember him washing the feet.
Remember that the night that hewas going to be arrested, the
day before his crucifixion hebent over dirty, nasty feet and
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he washed them with love, andthat is a servant's heart.
And so he said, even as he bentover, he told his disciples I'm
doing this as an example foryou that as I have served you,
as I have loved you, as I havewashed your feet, that you would
do for others and in marriage.
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Marriage gives us wonderfulopportunities to serve in love
and to reflect the way Christloves the church and the way the
church is to respect Christ.
Both relationships therelationship between a man and a
woman in marriage and therelationship between Jesus and
(21:14):
his church they're covenantrelationships.
Both of them require a lifetimecommitment.
This is for keeps.
We say till death do us part.
And so one of the purposes ofmarriage is that it would
reflect Christ and the church,that the love relationship
between a man and woman and holymatrimony and covenant love,
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committing themselves to eachother, and how the church is to
honor and love and serve him.
And so those are the fivepurposes of marriage.
And I want to end by saying thatmarriage is hard work.
I know that it is.
It's often messy, it's morecomplicated than we want it to
be, and a happy.
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Marriage is not a passivemarriage.
You know, if we're going toenjoy our marriage, we're going
to have to put work into it,we're going to have to be
intentional about it.
But marriage is good.
It's work, but it's good.
I like this excerpt from GaryThomas' book.
Gary Thomas wrote a book calledSacred Marriage and in that he
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wrote this quote what if Goddesigned marriage to make you
holy instead of happy?
What if your relationship isn'tas much about you and your
spouse as it is about you andGod?
And I love that quote because Ithink it helps us to have
perspective that, yes, it isbetween me and my husband, but
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it's more than that, and myobedience in marriage has a lot
to do with my relationship withJesus, and I hope that these
thoughts have been helpful toyou.
I hope they've been encouragingto you as you grow closer to
your spouse, as you grow closerto the Lord.
Join me again next week as wefinish up this series and I hope
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that you have a great week.
Don't forget to touch base withme.
I would love to hear from you.
You can click on the show notesand send me fan mail and just
tell me about yourself.
Tell me where you're from andtell me about your family.
I'd love to hear from you, andif there's anything that I've
shared that's been helpful, Iwould love to hear that.
Until next time, god bless.
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