"Marriages and families are all about disappointment."
I confess, that's a quote from my recent sermon. I'll explain in a moment.
A few weeks ago, while preparing my sermon on marriages and families, I was lamenting the fact that there is so much dysfunction in most families. Although ordained by God, families are a very complex, complementarian relational structure that challenges even the most patient, the most tolerant, the most understanding of us human creatures.
Then, I began to reflect on what this world would look like if God had not ordained marriage and the family as the basic, organizational unit for humans living in this world and as the core, foundational unit for His plan of redemption. The picture was pretty bleak.
As I pondered a world without life's built-in support system and the built-in refuge that marriages and families provide, as difficult as they might be, I began to appreciate the clever strategy and benevolent grace revealed in God's establishment of the uneasy collection of disparate personalities we call the family.
In the sermon, I provided four bullet points for God's purpose in ordaining marriage and families:
1) Marriage between a man and a woman was ordained by God as a kind of object lesson, teaching us about His covenant relationship with his people - the church.
2) God ordained marriage and families as a compassionate gesture to help us navigate a challenging world.
3) God ordained marriage as the basis for procreation and to ensure the education, health, safety and welfare of children.
4) God ordained marriage and families as a means to bring glory to Himself.
While each point was explored with some detail in the sermon, for today's discussion I wanted to focus on bullet point number four--the opportunities for marriages and families to bring glory to God.
(If interested, the entire sermon can be found here: (6) The Spoken Word Christian Church Sunday Service! - YouTube--the sermon begins about the 20-minute mark.)
Uh Oh!
So, "marriages and families are all about disappointment" I said in my sermon. Allow me to explain.
From the beginning, a perfect and faithful God established covenant agreements with flawed, unfaithful people. Perfection on one side of the covenant, imperfection on the other side. Such an arrangement seems doomed to fail, which is why God established that nearly all of his covenants would be conditioned upon the faithfulness of his people
Now consider that in the covenant of marriage, we have flawed, fickle, unfaithful people on both sides of the covenant agreement. Yikes!
This is why we, as a society, have replaced the covenantal language "until death do us part" with contractual "escape clauses", like "no-fault divorce", "irreconcilable differences", and prenuptial agreements--all pointing to the sad fact that people often enter the marriage agreement assuming that it isn't forever. Marriage becomes a contract, not a covenant.
Families Need God
I believe that God intentionally purposed that all families would have some degree of conflict and dysfunction so that He would be a necessary part of their union. God wants us to rely on Him. A marriage needs God. Families need God. Children need God.
One mistake many people make when they first get married is thinking that this is the most important relationship in their lives. It is not.
Here's a hard truth. Your spouse will disappoint you. God will not. Your in-laws will disappoint you. God will not. Your kids will definitely disappoint you. God will not. Your marriage will disappoint. God will not. (By the way, kids make lousy gods--don't idolize your kids!)
There is a sense in which God calls on us to honor and to love and to submit to imperfection. The husband is to love an imperfect wife. The wife is to love an imperfect husband. This imperfect union only works when both partners love, honor, and submit to a perfect God.
Here is a wonderful quote from John Piper addressing this issue.
"The power and impulse to carry through the self-denial — the daily, monthly, yearly, decades-long dying that will be required in loving an imperfect wife and loving an imperfect husband to the glory of God — must come from a hope-giving, soul-sustaining, superior satisfaction in God."
"A husband and wife’s love for each other, will not glorify God until it flows from a heart that delights in God more than marriage. Marriage will be preserved for the glory of God, and shaped for the glory of God, and sweetened for the glory of God when the glory of God is more precious to us than marriage."
The only way that a marriage between two imperfect people can bring glory to God is with the understanding by both partners that the marriage itself is less important than God.
That’s why Jesus tells his disciples: "If anyone comes to me and doesn’t [love me more than] father and mother, wife, [husband], and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple. (Luk 14:26 NIV)
We need to remember that from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen (Rom 11:36 NIV). Marriage and families were designed to glorify God.
Final Thought
A God-reliant Christian family has an opportunity to model to others--with great effect--the reason for the hope that they have in Christ. A successful Christian marriage can be a powerful witness and thus, an opportunity to glorify God.
We can’t be afraid to put God first in our marriages and in our families because we love others the best--including our spouses and our children--when we love God the most.
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