What Proverbs Says about Marriage

Sunday Morning | June 22, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

Pastor continues his Proverbs sermon series with "What Proverbs Says about Marriage."

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship.  We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

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Well good morning. We're continuing in our study of the Book of Proverbs. And if you didn't get a handout, raise your hand. We'll get one to you here. As we look at the topic of marriage today, we're going through a number of different topics through the middle chapters, the middle sections of the Book of Proverbs, which address kind of a whole host of subjects. And so we're using this handout to help us track with the verses. And we want to know what does Proverbs say about marriage? We all need wisdom for life. The theme of this whole series is ancient wisdom for a modern life. How do we find the old wisdom that we need in this crazy modern world? And of course, we need wisdom in all areas of life. I remember when I was contemplating, Is Julie the right person for me to marry or not? I wasn't assuming she would say yes, but I was also trying to decide. Should I ask her or not? Is she the right person? This is a big decision, by the way. It's kind of awkward that she's not here today while I'm preaching about marriage. I'll be very gracious and not take too much license with that, because I know she can watch it later if she wants. But she's traveling with my son back from Colorado. They're on the road today. But when I was contemplating that, I thought, who can I gain wisdom from? Who are some people that would give me advice? One of them was my great grandma. She was a lady I greatly respected and admired, and I was visiting with her. And I just asked her, how do you know who's the right person to marry? And she said, well, I've always thought, don't marry the person you think you can live with, that you think you can just get by with, don't don't marry that person. Marry the person you feel like you can't live without. I thought, that's some good advice. That's some good wisdom. You don't want it to just be. Yeah, I think I can get along with them. No, that's not a good way to start. You know, a marriage, it needs to be like, yes, this is the person God has for me. And that takes wisdom. That takes time. What does the Book of Proverbs say about marriage? We want to find ancient wisdom for a modern age around a topic that's really important. Most people end up married at some point in their life. It's something like over 90% of people, 95% of people end up married at some point in their life. And we want to live a life and marriage that honors God. Now, this isn't going to be a comprehensive message on every aspect of marriage. I'm really focused in on what does Proverbs say about marriage? And I think there's four marks of a wise marriage. We'll see in the book of Proverbs, four marks of a wise marriage. And the first one is this letter C on your handout is that it is Christian. Now some of you are going, wait a second, Jesus isn’t in Proverbs. How are you saying that Proverbs it says it's Christian. Well, the phrase in Proverbs is God fearing. The fear of the Lord over and over again is central to life, is central to wisdom. And of course, as Christians, we know that that means we need to be Christ centered in all we do. And at the core of a marriage, Christ should be at the very center. In fact, this first jumped out to me when it was on our wedding day. This would have been September 18th, 1999, and I was in the habit at that time of reading one Proverb a day, one chapter of Proverbs, and this was the 18th. So I opened it up to Proverbs chapter 18, and I was reading through chapter 18 and it came across verse 22, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and gains favor from the Lord. I thought, how timely is that to read that verse on my wedding day? What a great encouragement. And of course, the verse assumes that if you find a favorable wife, she also fears the Lord, that at the core of your relationship is a love for God. In fact, Proverbs 31 verse 30 says, a woman who is to be praised. In fact, this is in your notes here is one who fears the Lord. She is the one to be praised. That's who you should be on the lookout for. If you want to know who to marry, be looking for a person. And by the way, most of these verses will be about the right woman to find because the authors of Proverbs were writing to young men mostly. But it works both ways. If you're looking for the right person to marry, look for someone who fears the Lord, who has at the center of their life, they are submitting their lives to Christ, first and foremost. They're pursuing him first and foremost. I remember the first time I heard some great emphasis on this. We were at a student conference in college. Every Christmas we would go to these conferences they'd put on for college students during the Christmas break, and one guy would often teach. There was a guy named Tommy Nelson. He's a pastor, Bible teacher in Dallas, Dallas area, really love his teaching, and he just knew how to speak to college students, to young guys in particular. He had played college football and was just a tough guy, straight talking. But he loved scripture and he knew how to teach scripture. And they would always have these sessions, these breakout sessions where they do a men's session separate and a women's session separate. And he would talk real direct to the guys. And I remember this time and I've shared this quote before, you'll hear it probably 100 more times from me over the course of the years. But he said, if you want to know who to marry, focus on pursuing Jesus. Run towards him as hard as you can. Let him be your greatest delight in life. And while you're running towards him as hard as you, as hard as you can, look to your right, look to your left and see is there anybody else running there beside you? That's the person you want to grab hands with and marry. That's the person you want to join hands with. That's the person you want to be moving forward in life with. In fact, I think a helpful verse here is in Hebrews. It's in your handout.

Hebrews 10: 6:08

24, spur one another on toward love and good deeds. You want to be aligned with someone who is pushing you forward towards Christ. But what often happens is this verse

in 2 Corinthians 6: 6:23

14, do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. And of course, most of us probably aren't farmers. And if you are, you probably drive a tractor, not farm animals. And the way it would have been done in the past is you would have used an oxen or a horse to do your plowing. And if you use two together, you want to make sure they're equally yoked, meaning you don't put an ox with a puppy for instance, because they're not going to help. They're going to, in fact, slow them down. Drag them down. You don't want to be yoked with someone who is holding you back spiritually. And look, by the way, I know we all have our seasons. We all have. And in fact, if you're in a good marriage, you have your seasons where the other person is helping you along and there's other seasons where you're helping them along. We all have our strong seasons, we all have our weak seasons. But in general, you want to be attached to someone where you are spurring one another on. This, this imagery is so powerful because and I looked it up on the internet. So it's true. I've never done any plowing. But you know, if one ox can tow 5,000 pounds, well, you would think two could do 10,000 pounds together, but it's really closer to 15 when you yoke them together. Together? They're stronger together than the separate equal sum of their parts. The beautiful picture of that for marriage is if we are both pursuing Christ together, it's not just that we make each other stronger, we're even stronger to be able to pour out into the lives of others around us. Yet so many relationships, they're just a black hole in a vacuum where they are not only taking life from one another, but from others around them. The Christian marriage is called to be the opposite of that, to be life giving to so many around us. I also remember Tommy Nelson talking to us, and he was talking to the guys in particular, and he said, part of the reason this is important. What happens when you marry someone and you guys are at odds? And by the way, it does happen. You have a totally different perspective on how to do things. You seem to be at an impasse. What are you going to do? And he looked at the guys in this room and he said, what are you going to do? Are you going to make her do what you want? Is that what you're going to do? Like, that's not a Christian marriage. That's not the approach to take. He said. The only hope we have is that she is pursuing Christ and submitting her life to Christ to the fullest, and that you are pursuing Christ and submitting your life to the Christ at the fullest. And then together, God will direct you together as you submit to him. And that becomes a beautiful thing. And I recognize, as I'm saying, all this, by the way, that and I don't have anybody in particular in mind, but I know in crowd this large, even in church, there are some who are in marriages where you are pursuing Christ and the other person isn't. And maybe you started out both as unbelievers and one of you found Christ along the way. Or maybe you thought you married a Christian. I've heard those stories. Yeah, I went to church till we got married, but I don't plan on going any more. I've heard those stories too. I'm sorry that you're in that situation. Keep praying. God can move. Don't give up hope. Yet the ideal picture is that at the core of our relationship, at the core of a marriage is is Christ not my happiness? Christ, more than anything else, God fearing. That's the first one. Christian, God fearing, marks of a wise marriage. Now the second one here is the letter S. A wise marriage should also be a shelter, a refuge, a haven, a place for you to come and find spiritual, emotional rest, support, encouragement, comfort. Chapter 12 verse four says, an excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Not like a trophy crown, but a place of honor, someone that others admire, someone who is a delight. I love that word shelter. There's a writer, Francis Schaeffer, who's had a big influence on Julie and myself. In fact, we named our youngest son after him. We named him Schaeffer after Francis Schaeffer because his writings had been so influential in our lives, and his ministry was called L' abri. It was headquartered in Switzerland, and it was in the Swiss Alps. And L' abri is the French word for shelter. And it was strategically placed there because this was post-World War Two Europe, post-Christian Europe, and they viewed their ministry primarily as a place of shelter and rest, where you could focus on knowing what does God say? What does God's Word say in this crazy, chaotic word world that is denying the truth of Christ? How do we find rest? How do we find shelter? How do we find truth? That's what we want our home to be, a place where that's true, as well as a shelter from all the madness of daily life. We saw this excellent wife as a crown for her husband. Part of this is we need to show each other grace and kindness.

Look at 11: 11:47

16 here in your notes, a kindhearted woman gains honor. Our home needs to be a place where even in all the madness of the world, we're going to find rest. We're going to find shelter. We're going to find a haven in the midst of the madness. Now, the contrast in Proverbs is with homes that are not like that. There's a couple of verses here that really highlight this in chapter 21. Chapter 21 nine. It is better to live in the corner of the house top than in a house shared with a quarrelsome spouse, wife, husband, spouse.

21: 12:25

19-- it's better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. These are some pretty powerful imagery, and I really like how Tim Keller explained this. I put the quote here in your notes for what this is driving at. He says these images evoke a situation where we are exposed to the elements outside, on the rooftop, out in the desert, far from home. A spouse is to be a crown who builds up but nagging tears down. A marriage is supposed to be a haven of rest and shelter from the world, but the attacks of nagging makes you feel you have no roof over your head, no walls around you, no real home, no shelter from life's storms. Marriage is meant to be, the home is meant to be a place where you get refuge from the nagging, the chaos, the intensity of the world. But often times what happens is over time, we leak into these patterns. And for some, nagging is the way to control. You're not doing what I want. I need to get you to do what I want so I will nag. Well, in fact, the reaction to that often is anger, which is also a control mechanism. And you end up in this crazy cycle. Stop nagging me. I'm going to blow up in anger. I'm going to nag you more to get what I want, because you're not doing what I want. What do we do with that? How do we deal with that? That's not the place where we want to be. It's not a happy place to be. That's a tough place to be. It's not a place of shelter. Part of the challenge is there's not a real clear line. When does something go from. I'm bringing it up in a helpful way to when it becomes nagging. Where's the line on that? It's not real clear. It takes wisdom to know. Now, some of us, the challenge with that is some of us don't want to hear any feedback or criticism or any reminder at all, ever. I might fall into that camp at times. Julie came to me recently with some advice. Put it that way, here's something I think that you're doing wrong. It could be done in a different way. And of course, my reaction communicated disagreement with her position. I'm not sure why she took it that way, but she did. So what did she do? She came back later with evidence there was an unfair fight. Look, I'm showing you. Here's where you're doing it wrong. And by the way, she's coming to help. Her desire is to help. Thankfully, I eventually listened, but some of us sometimes don't. I don't want to hear anything you say to me that feels like an attack. I'm defensive always. That's not. That's not helpful. She wasn't nagging. But then sometimes it becomes to. I've said it for years and I'm going to keep saying it. And that turns to anger in the other person. Anger becomes a control mechanism, nagging becomes a control mechanism. And you end up in this just crazy back and forth. Nothing's moving forward. What do you do when you find yourself in that position? I think two things you need to do in that moment. The first is if you are the person nagging, you just need to pause and ask why, but on your own. Get away with the Lord. What am I attempting to accomplish here? Why am I continuing to bring this up over and over again when it's clear it's not moving the conversation forward? And just ask the Lord, am I attempting to control? Am I not willing to accept that maybe they have another way of doing it, and I'm demanding it be my way or no other way? It has to be done my way in my timing and no other way. Sometimes we get that way. So first start with that. Then once again, you're in a place where you feel like you've heard from the Lord. Go to your spouse, go to them and say, look, I want to apologize. I realize I have been nagging you. I don't want to be about that. I don't want our relationship to be about that. Will you forgive me? And then leave it there. Okay. Remember, forgiveness. The way this works is you don't then say, now, don't you have something you'd like to say to me? That's not the next step. I'm sorry. Now, I hope, though, that will happen eventually. And it may not happen right away. It may take a long time for this to happen. It may never happen. But I hope the next step would be, well, you know, that did make me angry. And I'm sorry I was seeking to control you through my anger to get you off my back, to change your behavior. I thought anger would work. I didn't know what else to do either. If you can get to that place, then the two of you can say, can we talk about a plan together? How we can go a different direction with this? I don't want to be stuck in this cycle of nagging and anger. I want our house to be a place of shelter and refuge. That's what we all want. And by the way, if it's not that. Over time, you start looking other places for that and other people. This is why it's so powerful and so important to have your home a shelter. I get it, there are challenges. There are trials. There's things that come up. We have seasons where it's harder than others, but in general we want to be moving towards a shelter. That's the second mark of a wise marriage. Now look here at the third one, letter P-- a partnership. Marriage should be a partnership of cooperation. Chapter one verses eight and nine, you see that both the father and the mother are working together to give instruction of wisdom to the son. This is reaffirmed in chapter ten as well. Hear your father's instruction, forsake not your mother's teaching. They're working together to raise their child. And the even though the book is primarily written to men. And of course, this would have been mostly a more patriarchal culture. Even here it's recognizing marriage is meant to be done together. Parenting is meant to be done together. This is not a solo operation. In fact, there's this really powerful word used of the wife in chapter two, verse 16 and 17. And this is describing a situation where someone had moved away from who they were supposed to be. It says the forbidden woman forsakes the companion of her youth. And that word companion is probably the strongest word that can be used for a friend. It really speaks to this depth of friendship unlike any other. We use companion kind of casually, but it is really speaking to the deepest kind of friendship you have. And she had abandoned in that. And of course, men do as well. And the point being, marriage should be a partnership. We should view one another. God created us equal in value before him. It's not that men are inherently more valuable or that women are inherently more valuable. We're equal in value before him, but he created us differently. So that part of the craziness is we're forced to try to figure out how to work together, how to serve one another, how to love one another, how to treat one another, the way we would treat a good friend like we talked about last week, where we're an encourager, that we give wise counsel to one another, that we sharpen one another all the marks of a true friendship should be present in marriage as well. And so we want to view one another as partners where we're serving Christ together. We're raising children together, where we're working through life together. And then the fourth mark of a wise marriage. Here is the letter C, and that's the word commitment, a wise marriage should have a depth of commitment, a deep depth of commitment. Look here in chapter five verses 15 and 18. Drink from your own cistern. This is the father saying to his son, don't go find your physically intimate satisfaction from some other woman. Go to your own wife. Value her. It says, rejoice in the wife of your youth, the person you chose when you were young. Continue to value them. Stay committed to them.

Look also at Psalms 86: 21:13

11. Unite my heart to fear your name. We want to be people that aren't divided in our hearts, that we don't have divided allegiances in our romantic relationships. We want to be united in that focused on our spouse, that one person. There should be no question about our complete, utter allegiance to them, undivided, united in heart. Part of the reason we want to do this is that God has declared how committed to us he is. The two verses that are listed here,

Hebrews 13: 21:50

5 he says, I will never leave you or forsake you.

Matthew 28: 21:57

20, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. God says to us, I'm not going anywhere. I'm there with you. When you're unfaithful, I'm faithful. I'm there with you. That's the model for us. That's why we will be committed in the call of the wise marriage is a depth of committed, undivided heart. This is partly why when I officiate a wedding, I don't really allow couples to write their own vows. Because usually the vows are about present love. And we know you feel very squishy inside about this other person. That's great. We know they complete you. We know, we know they're the perfect love, the perfect person for you. We know that's why we're here. We want to hear that. By the way. It's okay to say it. We love that. It's an encouragement to all of us. Everybody loves going to a wedding and hearing that and seeing young love and seeing the excitement. But a wedding is not about just declaring present love. In fact, there's a great quote here in your notes from Tim Keller-- a wedding is not so much in a claim of present love as a promise of future love. It's so easy to say, I love you on your wedding day. That's the easiest day of your life to say I love you. You're the prettiest you'll ever be. You've got a whole party and all your friends are there. That's easy love. But what about the day a few years down the road where the diaper on your baby just came open on the kitchen floor and you're pregnant wife's over throwing up on the brand new carpet and the car wouldn't start. And you're late for work. And that's an easy scenario, by the way. And you know what I'm talking about. Your vows say in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. I'm promising you that when these hard times come, when the day is not like today, I'll still be there. And I get it. I know vows have been broken. And sin is in the world I know. But yet this is the call for us to strive for. So whatever relationship you're in, this is the burden to be moving towards a depth of commitment that God shows to us in a Christ centered way. And you can't control what the other person will do. But this is our burden. Vows are declaring future love because God declares his love and commitment to us. Now there's a deception I want to highlight and point out in chapter 31, verse 30, and we're going to spend a lot of time in chapter 31 as our last message in Proverbs, because it's a pretty amazing section about The Excellent Wife. It's got a fascinating structure to it as well. But chapter 31, verse 30 highlights a deception we need to be aware of. We already looked at this verse at the beginning. A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. But before that it says, charm is deceitful, beauty is vain. And I think there's two deceptions to look out for in that verse. One is beauty, physical beauty. And by the way, I hope you are physically attracted to your spouse, your future spouse. But Proverbs doesn't put a ton of emphasis on that. In fact, Proverbs seems to highlight the reality that that is often a deception. We can be easily deceived by someone because of their beauty. In fact, there's a verse here

11: 25:31

22-- like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion, a beautiful woman without fear of the Lord. The temptation is to think. This would be the right person for me because she is beautiful, even if she lacks a fear of the Lord. Even if she. If she lacks discretion, even if he lacks character. But that's a deception. That's a lie. And if your relationship is based only on physical beauty, it's going to struggle. Because beauty, always physical beauty always fades. It always, always fades. If your relationship is based solely on that, it's a deception. The other word. So physical attraction. The other word here he mentioned was charm is deceitful. I think sometimes you'll hear that used as chemistry. You know, I've met this person. I've never felt chemistry like this before. I've never felt a connection like this before in my life. Yeah, but you're already married to someone else. Yeah, I know, but there's this chemistry, this new thing. It's deceitful. It can easily lead us to think maybe someone else will make me happy. I'm facing challenges now. Maybe this other person will make me happy. But the call of the Christian is commitment. I know that the charm, I know that the beauty is a deceit. And I'm going to stay called and committed to the vows God has put before me. You know, Keller pointed out, Tim Keller pointed out something else about our age. The deception of our age is mind boggling. Our age has made sexual physical intimacy, simultaneously it's made it the most important thing about your life. The preeminent thing, the defining aspect of who you are, it's it's made it the most important thing. And yet at the same time, it's made it meaningless. Cheap, easy. Come and go. No big deal. Doesn't matter. How is that? They've made it ultimate and worthless at the exact same time. And so many of us are easily deceived into thinking. Yeah, my ultimate joy and fulfillment will be found somewhere else. Don't be deceived by this world. Stay focused on commitment. Julie and I used to teach at weekend marriage conferences with family life, and we’d end up in a hotel. There'd be sometimes up to a thousand people there coming to attend a weekend marriage conference to strengthen their marriage. And those are great conferences, by the way. If you've never been to one, you should check one out. They're usually in November here in Louisville. They're great, but you can go there all over the country if you want to get away and check one out. The most powerful part of that conference was the very end, because at the very end, we'd have everyone stand and turn to your spouse. And repeat your vows to one another. And let me tell you, I loved seeing that. And because there were two very different reactions to that now, actually there were three. Some felt like, you know what, we're not ready to do that. And we gave them a heads up. If you're not ready to do that. Some are in such crisis. We get that. Feel free not to do that. But for those who were ready, there was two very different reactions. One where the newlyweds have been married a month, you know, and they're there's no room for the Holy Spirit between them. They're right up next to one another. They're giggling, smiling, you know, the super close. In fact, we said we could just take out half our chairs if we know because they just share a chair for the conference. But then there were those who've been married ten years, 15 years, 20 years plus. And they weren't laughing. They were crying because they knew what love was. They'd been through some stuff together. They knew what it meant when I said, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, they knew what commitment meant. They'd been through some stuff and to watch them still say to one another, I love you, and I'm not going anywhere was so powerful. And we can say that because of what Christ did on our behalf, he died on our behalf. We can lay down our lives. He laid down his life. In fact, what we're going to do now is take communion together to remember that act on his behalf. And if you're one of the men, who are going to help distribute communion, go ahead and slip out now. Prepare those elements.