The Gospel in Marriage Pt 2 (Marriage as a Mission) - 317

Marriage will put your “Christ-like character” on full display, usually over the small stuff: the tone you used, the words you can’t take back, the resentment you keep replaying. We’re convinced those imperfect moments are not proof that your marriage is failing. They’re often the very place God is doing redemption and sanctification, turning two broken people into a living picture of the gospel.

We continue our Marriage as a Mission series, focusing on marriage as a living parable of redemption. We walk through what redemption really means biblically, including the idea of being “bought back” through Christ’s sacrifice, and why Ephesians 5 frames husband and wife as a visible testimony of Christ and the church. From there, we get practical: how forgiveness works when it costs something, why grace is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, and how restoration can be gentle without being naive. We also talk about hard realities like repeated sin, the story of Hosea and Gomer, and the difference between mercy and enabling.

Then we break down four pillars of a gospel-centered marriage you can actually practice this week: love as a committed choice, sacrifice as daily service, submission as mutual humility, and grace as the atmosphere where healing and growth happen. If you’re tired, discouraged, or thinking you’ve missed the mark, we want you to hear this clearly: no marriage is beyond God’s restoring grace.

Subscribe, share this with a couple who needs hope, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What’s one area where you want redemption to show up in your marriage next?

Transcript

Marriage As Sanctification

Daniel Moore 0:08

Let's be honest, marriage has a funny way of putting your Christ-like character on full display. Usually right after someone leaves dishes in the sink again or says something they swear quote unquote didn't come out wrong in their head. It's in those everyday imperfect moments that we realize marriage isn't just about love songs and date nights. It's more like a front row seat to your own sanctification. And if we're really honest, sometimes that sanctification feels less like a gentle transformation and more like God saying, Alright, let's work on that attitude, starting now. But here's the beautiful twist. What feels like frustration, tension, or even failure in marriage is actually the perfect stage for something much bigger. Redemption. Not the kind of redemption you read about once and move on from, but the kind that shows up again and again when you choose forgiveness over holding a grudge, humility over being right, and grace over I told you so. Marriage becomes a living, breathing picture of the gospel, where broken people don't just coexist, but actually pursue restoration, just like Christ pursued us. So in this week's episode, we're jumping into what it really means for marriage to reflect redemption. Not just in the big dramatic moments, but in the small, everyday choices that either build walls or build something beautiful. We're talking about forgiveness that costs something, love that doesn't quit, and a covenant that refuses to give up even when things get messy. Because at the end of the day, your marriage isn't just about the two of you, it's a powerful living testimony that God is still in the business of redeeming what's broken. Welcome to Marriage Life and More. This is a podcast about marriage, Bible, and book studies, and we interview people that have inspiring stories. I'm Daniel Moore, your host. And over next to me is my beautiful co-host, my wife Michelle. Hey, hey. Thank you for joining us this week. If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website at marriagelifeandmore.com. Our platforms are there, YouTube and Rumble links. We're also on the Christian podcasting app Edifi. We're also on your Alexa and Google Smart Devices. You can also visit us on social on Facebook, Instagram, and X at CTGAP Online. If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe. Feel free to leave a comment on our platforms, give us a thumbs up or five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we'd be thankful to you for doing that. Well, this week we are going to be coming back with a new episode, the continuation of our marriage is a mission series. And we've been talking about the gospel in marriage. A couple weeks ago, we were talking about Christ and the church as a model. And I do want to welcome back my beautiful wife over here. She's feeling better.

Michelle Moore 2:52

Thank you. She's I feel much better.

Daniel Moore 2:54

She's got half of a voice.

Michelle Moore 2:56

Yes. Actually, almost all the way back. Thank the Lord.

Book Signing And Series Context

Daniel Moore 3:00

So we're going to do our best to get through uh an episode here and see if we can get this knocked out. And then maybe the next time you're here, she'll be even better. Who knows? That's all right.

Michelle Moore 3:10

That's all right.

Redemption As The Marriage Design

Everyday Support That Reflects Christ

Daniel Moore 3:10

See how this goes. But it's been an uphill battle, that's for sure. But I also want to remind you, uh, mentioned last week that coming up on May 9th, I'm going to be doing a book signing at Somewhere in Time Bookstore in Web City, Missouri. So if you are local to this area and you haven't bought one of the books yet that we have available, and you want to like to like to get one, I'm going to have books there and you get to meet me and uh talk to me or whatever while I'm there. So you can put that on your calendar. That's coming up in Webb City, Missouri on May 9th at the Somewhere in Time bookstore there in that town. So be looking forward to that and looking forward to maybe meeting some of you guys and maybe listen to the podcast. Well, this week we're going to go ahead and continue our series on marriage as a mission, talking about the gospel in marriage. And this week, it's marriage as a living parable of redemption. At its core, redemption is the story of love pursuing the unworthy, rescuing the broken, and restoring the undeserving. It is the heartbeat of the gospel itself. This is exactly what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. And it is exactly what marriage is designed to reflect. The relationship between husband and wife is not merely about companionship, romance, or shared life goals. It's meant to be a daily visible testimony of Christ's redeeming love for his bride, the church. Paul makes this unmistakably clear in Ephesians 5, 25 through 27, where he says, Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water of the Word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. This is redemption in motion. Christ's love is not passive or sentimental, it is active, sacrificial, and purposeful. He gave himself up willingly, not because we were deserving, but because his love is steadfast and gracious. His redemption does more than pardon sin. It transforms hearts. He washes, sanctifies, and restores. In a gospel-shaped marriage, both husband and wife are called to reflect that same self-giving, restorative love toward one another. And as we get started this week, as we look at the scripture that we've read here, and we're looking at what it means for Christ to have that redeeming uh relationship with us. Now, if you look at the word redeemed as it's mentioned in the Bible with what Christ did on Calvary, and that's another word for bought back, basically. So whenever Christ died and he took on our sins and he gave us this capability of having salvation in our life and giving us an eternity with him in heaven, in essence, that's that life of sin that was put upon us because of what Adam and Eve did in the garden, when the Satan uh came up and you know, he got Eve to take the fruit and do the things that they weren't supposed to do, sin entered the world. And in order for us to have this relationship with Christ for eternity, Christ had to buy us back. And that's how he did that was by by dying on that cross. And and I know, you know, with us when we look at it this way, um, I think that when you look at our relationship as a husband and wife, if we look at it in that same aspect, I think that gives our marriages a much more deeper meaning than what we would look at in another way. Because if you are going through a situation, well, let's take your your last couple weeks here. Well, I guess it's been about a month, hasn't it?

Michelle Moore 7:23

I've been fighting it for a month.

Daniel Moore 7:24

She's been fighting this for about a month because if you if you remember, this started back before we even went to see our granddaughter.

Michelle Moore 7:31

And you started getting that sickness then, and then it kind of got a little better, but then well, I went to the doctor and I got medication and antibiotics and a shot, a couple shots, and feedback sick.

Daniel Moore 7:46

Exactly. And it it's been rough, but one thing that I tried to make it a priority during this time was you mean enough to me to for me, I you know, I did whatever you needed help with. You know, anything that you needed during that time, uh, I tried to be there to help with that and take as much load as I could off of you. And, you know, Christ does that for us. Yeah. And whenever we get into these situations where we're just having a rough life at the moment, you know, we've got maybe some setbacks have hit us or we've had some bad things happen. Um, you know, things just aren't going quite the way that we would like for them to, and it's just causing a lot of turmoil in our marriage and our relationships. We always know that we have Christ that we can lean on because he is that redemption within us. And, you know, when I look at our marriage that way, um, it really makes me understand how important you are in this whole equation. And I think it probably makes you feel important.

Michelle Moore 8:50

It does.

Daniel Moore 8:51

Uh, you know, the this last month or so is I've tried to do what I could to help take and alleviate that uh extra work and stuff off of you so you could get better because you're having a rough time at work too, right now. Super busy. Yeah, it's super busy, and you couldn't really stop.

Michelle Moore 9:08

No.

Daniel Moore 9:08

I I would prefer you to sit on the key.

Michelle Moore 9:11

My body needed it. It truly needed it, but it was not uh an option.

Daniel Moore 9:15

Yeah, and so whenever it comes down to that, uh, that's when we need someone to be there. And so we can lean on Christ as Christians when we need, you know, stuff in life and we're going through things. Christ is there, God is there for us to lean on, and then in our marriages, we're there to lean on each other.

Michelle Moore 9:34

Right.

Daniel Moore 9:34

And so that that just opens up this picture of redemption and what this really means. And I like how, you know, it's mentioned here, it's not just a one-time event, right? This is an ongoing love. This is an active verb, basically, just like loving you and you loving me. That's an ongoing thing that happens moment by moment by moment. And as a matter of fact, the longer that goes, the more it should grow. Right. Because that's just how that that works. And so over a lifetime, you know, we're not just justified that once, as I had put in here, but it's actually sanctified over a lifetime. Uh, this continues on into eternity. And so, you know, if uh if you look at Colossians chapter 3, verse 13, it reminds us that bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. So marriage becomes one of the clearest places where this ongoing redemption is lived out. When offenses come and we know that they're going to, spouses are given repeated opportunities to forgive, not because forgiveness is easy, because we know it's not easy. Right. It's always hard to forgive, and it's not deserved really, but it's because Christ has already forgiven us. And so again, this comes back to the cross when we start looking at this. So, as a little example here, are you up to reading that?

Mercy Without Excusing Sin

Michelle Moore 11:02

Yeah, I can read it. Go ahead and imagine a husband who wounds his wife with careless or harsh words spoken in anger, criticism, or neglect. Left unchecked, those words could easily harden into bitterness, emotional distance, and relational isolation. But when the wife, though genuinely hurt, chooses to address the offense with humility and extends forgiveness grounded in Christ's grace, the marriage begins to reflect the cross. Her forgiveness does not deny the pain, it redeems it. It mirrors the mercy God has shown us, grace given freely, even at a personal cost. And redemption flows both ways. A gospel-shaped marriage does not just forgive wrongdoing, it also restores the repentant. When a spouse seeks forgiveness and is met not with shame, punishment, or prolonged resentment, but with gentleness and a desire for healing, redemption is on display. Galatians 6 1 says, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Daniel Moore 12:14

And I I like there where you were reading about when that forgiveness is extended to the person, then you know, it doesn't again, we don't ever want to uh to make it sound like we're allowing allowing somebody just walk over us because that's not what it's all about. Um we're not giving get out of jail free cards. Right. That's not what this is about. But it it redeems it. And so, like if I did something towards you and you needed to actually give, you know, me the forgiveness and and I was repentant and you offered that forgiveness back to me, then what that does at that point is that redemption flows both ways, and then I feel more I feel built back up into our marriage again because I know that you love me enough that you're going to forgive me. Right. And move past that. And the same goes, you know, the other direction. And so uh, whenever a spouse, when when we have a spouse that does us wrong, and when we go to seek forgiveness for that because we're truly repentant about it in our heart, um, that's where that spouse has to make a choice that had the wrongdoing done to them. They've got to decide am I going to shame, punish, or prolong that resentment by being mean, or am I going to be Christ-like in my nature and recognize my spouse is truly repentant and then go ahead and reflect what the cross done for us. We didn't deserve none of that. Right. But Christ gave it to us anyway, and that goes right into our marriages. You know, when we do our spouses wrong, we're mean, we do whatever it may be that causes the conflict. We probably really don't deserve to be forgiven for that because we shouldn't have done it in the first place. That was very mean of us. But because of what Christ has done, that allows us, we put we give that forgiveness as well.

Michelle Moore 14:08

Right.

Daniel Moore 14:09

And that redemption. Go ahead and continue reading there.

Michelle Moore 14:12

Restoration, not rejection. Gentleness, not gloating. That is the fruit of redemptive love. Redeeming love is not blind to sin, but it refuses to define a person by their worst moment. It chooses to see the other through the lens of God's grace and redemptive purpose. When Jesus spoke to the woman caught in adultery, he said, Neither do I condemn you, go and from now on and sin no more. And you can find that in John 8 11. He did not excuse her sin, but neither did he discard her. He offered mercy alongside transformation. Marriage provides countless moments to extend that same kind of grace. Scripture gives us an even more vivid picture through the story of Hosea and Gomer, a prophet commanded by God to pursue his unfaithful wife. Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man, and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel. This is a covenant love at its rawest, unyielding, persistent, and costly. Marriage offers couples the opportunity to mirror that kind of redemptive love, especially in seasons when love feels hardest. Not love based on performance, but love rooted in the covenant of faithfulness.

Daniel Moore 15:48

And as we look back here on something that you just read, I that really stuck out to me is when we was when you was reading there about uh Jesus and the woman caught that was caught in adultery, you know, he didn't excuse her sin, but neither did he discard her.

Michelle Moore 16:04

Right.

Daniel Moore 16:05

And that just kind of reminds me, you know, of of the times that we see couples that just are very hateful when their spouse does something because they expect them to be perfect and put on this pedestal or whatever, and they get very hateful with them when stuff comes up, and you know, in essence, they might kind of discard them for a while and you know, push them away and like you're gonna pay for this one way or the other. You know, it's like you're gonna remember what you did to me and you're gonna regret you ever done it, you know. And when we look at it with that kind of an attitude, that is not Christ-like in nature.

Michelle Moore 16:43

You're exactly right.

Daniel Moore 16:44

And you know, there's I there's times that you and I've probably been borderline um with you know treating each other that way um before because and it's easy to do when you have a repetitive situation where it seems like a spouse continually is doing things that they shouldn't be. And but again, we have to look at it from cr in Christ's eyes.

Michelle Moore 17:08

I I think that's where a lot of times I know that we went wrong.

Daniel Moore 17:12

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 17:12

We just we were not centered around Christ at all.

Daniel Moore 17:15

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 17:16

And I mean, it was just said the words that we just need to say, and it was like it was definitely we didn't stop and think, okay, you know, my relationship with Christ means more, and my love for my husband means more than the words gonna be spoken. I think you know that that was a huge issue for us. So what you just said is just exactly right.

Daniel Moore 17:37

And then and then keeping abuse out of the picture, as long as there's no abuse and that kind of thing, because we understand there's a certain point where there's a line, you gotta draw a line somewhere. But if you do have, and looking at at Hosea and Gomer is a good example, uh you know, she was a prostitute, so she was repetitively sleeping with other men while God was instructing Hosea to love her. And today, if you see somebody that repetitively sins against their spouse like that, the other spouse a lot of time loses their mercy and their grace really quick.

Michelle Moore 18:12

It'd be very difficult.

Daniel Moore 18:13

It's hard not to.

Michelle Moore 18:14

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 18:15

And but you but you know, looking at it in in Christ's eyes, we do the same thing to him and we repetitively sin.

Michelle Moore 18:22

Yes.

Daniel Moore 18:22

And it might have been what you was getting ready to say.

Michelle Moore 18:24

Yeah, actually it was. Yeah. You just you said it right on my I mean, I didn't even get a chance. I was getting ready to. Yeah. But yes, you said that exactly. That's because that's what we do.

Sanctification Takes Time

Daniel Moore 18:34

Yeah, and so it's and it's hard. I'm not saying it's easy if your spouse continually does things against you that sin and against your marital covenant. That's very difficult road to walk, and I don't wish that on anybody. But at the same time, we do have the power through Christ to get past that and continually pray for our spouse in our marriage, that God will restore that. And so if we do that, then redemption will unfold over time. Because you know, sanctification is a process, it's not an instant transformation. You can't get sanctification in a microwave packet and push it for 30 seconds and it's there. Just as Christ is preparing his church to be presented in splendor, husbands and wives walk together through growth and failure, joy and sorrow, strength and weakness. 2 Corinthians 3 18 tells us that we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That transformation often happens quietly over years of faithfulness, forgiveness, and perseverance. When a husband and wife remain committed even when emotions fade or circumstances strain the relationship, that endurance itself becomes redemptive. It declares to the world that their love is not sustained by fleeting feelings, but by a covenant anchored in God's unchanging faithfulness. And this is exactly why when they say love is a feeling, that's that's a lie. That's not correct. Love is not a feeling. Because if we lived on our feelings when we go through our marriages, would if you and I were both uh being married by our feelings, do you think we'd still be married to this day?

Michelle Moore 20:14

No.

Daniel Moore 20:14

No, because because there's a lot of times that you don't feel like loving me, and there's times that I didn't feel like loving you. We cannot look at it as a feeling because it's not. Love is a mindset, love is a covenant, love is a decision that you make, and you're going to make that choice regardless of what you go through because of the covenant relationship that we have in marriage that Christ has ordained. And so it's not going to be sustained by just fleeting feelings. There's got to be more to it. There's got to be more meat to that. You know, consider a couple walking through infertility, their prayers feel unanswered, grief settles in, and the emotional weight strains their relationship. Yet instead of turning against each other, they choose to hold one another close, to cry together, pray together, and remind each other of God's promises. Well, every day they resist blame and lean into Christ together, they testify to a deeper love, a love that redeems brokenness with hope and suffering with purpose. You know, in the end, marriage is not primarily about two people finding happiness, though joy is certainly a gift along the way. But at its highest purpose, marriage exists to display the gospel. It makes the redemptive love of Christ visible in ordinary, everyday life. You know, when husbands and wives pursue reconciliation the way that God pursued us, just like you mentioned earlier, uh, when you were when you was going to say, you know, that we sin against God all the time. Uh when when husbands and wives choose grace over revenge, when they choose patience over pride, when spouses choose humility over entitlement, then they they proclaim to a watching world that God is still in the business of redeeming broken things. And that's a mission worth giving your whole life to. That's the best way to build that foundation of your marriage. You and I would not be anywhere we're at right now if we did not put those things into practice in our marriage because things are gonna happen. Yeah.

Michelle Moore 22:13

Took us a while.

Daniel Moore 22:14

It did. Took us quite a while.

Michelle Moore 22:16

But I'm so thankful that, you know, we do put them in practice.

Daniel Moore 22:19

But you know, even now, if you know, we get along really well. We have very little conflict in our marriage at all. But it's not because the opportunity's not there.

Michelle Moore 22:28

Right.

Daniel Moore 22:29

We have plenty of opportunity for all of that stuff, believe me.

Michelle Moore 22:32

Oh, yes, we do.

Four Pillars Love To Grace

Daniel Moore 22:34

But we have made a choice that we aren't going there anymore. And that is self-control. You can have self-control in your marriage, and it'll help you have a happy marriage. It really will. But both of you got to be in that same mind frame and understand where we stand in Christ. As we continue here, we're going to talk about love, sacrifice, submission, and grace. You know, modeling the gospel in marriage means intentionally reflecting Christ's love, sacrifice, submission, and grace within the everyday rhythms of the relationship. These are not abstract theological ideas, they are lived realities meant to shape how husbands and wives speak, serve, forgive, and lead one another. Each of these components mirrors the relationship between Christ and his church and provides practical ways for couples to live out their faith daily, often in quiet, unseen moments. So the first one is love, and you want to share that with us?

Michelle Moore 23:42

Love is foundational to marriage, just as it is central to the gospel itself. Scripture tells us plainly in Ephesians 5 25, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. This sets the standard for marital love, not a love driven by convenience, emotion, or self-interest, but a love that gives, serves, and lays itself down for the good of the other. Biblical love is not merely a feeling, it is a committed choice to seek another's highest good. In 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, Paul describes love as patient and kind and not arrogant or rude. It's not assisting on its own way or not easily angered. This kind of love bears with weaknesses, forgives failures, and rejoices in truth. When spouses embody these qualities, they reflect the unconditional covenantal love Christ has shown us, a love that remains faithful even when it costs something. Jesus Himself modeled his this love when he said, As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13, 34. In marriage, this means choosing compassion over criticism, patience over irritation, and faithfulness over fleeting feelings.

Daniel Moore 25:09

And you know love is really self-explanatory. It should be. If you truly love something, you know what that means typically. Um but uh again, as it was as we mentioned earlier, love's not just a feeling, it is a committed choice. It is a decision that you have to make. And we have plenty of opportunity as we read through the Bible to see how true love is supposed to be. Um, you know, Jesus modeled it everywhere, and he models it to us every day in every moment of our life right now. Uh so love is one of the first uh pillars, if you if you will, um, that we need to have in a marriage that reflects the gospel of Christ. The second one is sacrifice. At the heart of the gospel is sacrifice, Christ willingly giving himself for salvation. So marriage becomes one of the most tangible places where this sacrificial love is practiced daily. Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4 instructs us do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. This posture is essential in a Christ-centered marriage. Sacrifice in marriage may look ordinary on the surface, but it carries eternal weight. It might mean laying down personal preferences for the sake of unity, choosing to encourage your spouse when you're exhausted, or serving without expecting immediate return. Jesus described this posture when he said, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve in Mark 10 45. When spouses adopt this mindset, they mirror the servant-hearted love of Christ. So do you see sacrifice in our marriage?

Michelle Moore 26:52

Oh, absolutely. All the time between both of us.

Daniel Moore 26:56

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 26:56

I mean, there's not usually it it could be a daily thing. I mean, it could be a moment thing. I mean, it literally, I see it happen all the time from from the both of us.

Daniel Moore 27:06

Yeah. And I find it interesting that one of the scriptures here that I've pulled to represent this, the first thing it talks about is pride, selfish ambition, conceit. Those are a lot of the items that keeps us from being sacrificial. And I'm not to look at myself that I'm better than you, that I'm higher than you, or vice versa. Uh I need I should be try I treat you like a should be treating you like a queen, basically. I mean, that's just the the whole concept of what this marriage covenant truly means. And I'm gonna sacrifice whatever it takes to make sure that you're taken care of, make sure that you're happy, and you do the same thing for me.

Michelle Moore 27:47

I was gonna say, I think that should be on um the receiving and both giving. You know, um, it shouldn't be just one one person doing that in a marriage, you know, it should be on both.

Daniel Moore 27:58

Yeah. And if you can do that, then you'll have a really good marriage, a really good relationship. So go ahead and share the next one with us.

Michelle Moore 28:06

Yeah, it is submission. Submission when understood biblically is not about control or being inferior, but about willingly yielding out of love and reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5 21 sets the tone for the entire passage by saying, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This mutual submission calls both husband and wife to approach the relationship with humility and a servant's heart. Ephesians 5 22 through 24 then explains how wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. While husbands are called to lovingly lead through the self-sacrificial love, this does not diminish worth of value. Both husband and wife are equal image bearers of God. It's found in Genesis 1 27. Rather, it reflects God's intentional design and order within the marriage. Jesus himself provides the ultimate example of submission. In Luke 22, 42, he prayed, Not my will, but yours be done. His submission to the Father was an act of trust and obedience, not weakness. Likewise, godly submission and marriage honors Christ and fosters unity, safety, and mutual respect.

Daniel Moore 29:24

And we've got kind of a rolling theme going here pride. We got to pull that pride down and being a servant. Uh we just talked about that when we were talking about sacrifice, uh being a servant to each other. And so here again, as we get into submission, and I know the popular scripture is wives submit yourselves to your husband, and that is scripturally biblical to what it actually means, but in all in all reality, with all of this, we both submit ourselves to each other because this, like you said, was it's an equal playing field. And so whenever we have a relationship with Christ, we actually take on the likeness of a servant because that's why Jesus came, was to be, he came to serve, to be a servant. And so we take that on. And for us to do that, if I'm going to be a servant to you, then I'm gonna have to take my pride out of the equation. I'm gonna have to make sure that everything that I do is oriented and making sure that we have the best relationship possible that I can, you know, possibly bring to the table. And you do the same for me. Yeah. And so uh that that really takes uh puts a lot of um a different aspect, I guess, a different twist um into our relationship uh when we look at it that way. So we've talked about love, we've talked about sacrifice, we've talked about submission, and the fourth one is grace. And grace is the atmosphere in which gospel-centered marriages thrive. It reflects God's unarned favor toward us, his kindness extended despite our failures. Romans 5.8 reminds us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's something that we talked about earlier, where you know we continually can sin against Christ and not live the life we're supposed to, but he's still gonna love us anyway. That same grace is meant to overflow into our marriages. Colossians 3.13 instructs believers to bear with one another and forgive one another as the Lord has forgiven you. Grace in marriage means choosing mercy over judgment, forgiveness over resentment, and restoration over rejection. It acknowledges wrongdoing without weaponizing it and makes room for healing, growth, and reconciliation between each other. Grace does not excuse sin, but it creates a safe place for repentance and renewal. As James 213 tells us, mercy triumphs over judgment. When spouses consistently practice grace, they create a relationship rooted in the same mercy that God has shown them. And I think you probably might agree with me, grace is probably one of the hardest things in a relationship to to mirror to our spouse. And even if it's not hard, if if it's not a hard thing to mirror, it's sometimes something we don't want to mirror. You know, it's uh that it gets back into that thing where sometimes well you deserve this because you did that, you know. And we we have a tendency to want to say that instead of actually give that grace to our spouse and ask, you know, for the forgiveness and the reconciliation and for all that to take place. And so these are just some important things that we have to put into place if we're going to let our marriage reflect the gospel. For it to look like that relationship that we have with Christ, and we're gonna have to have that love. We're gonna have to have the sacrifice, the submission, and the grace. And, you know, those are four solid pillars. If you can put all of this into place and accomplish this, I'd say you're gonna have to have you probably have a pretty good marriage if you can make all that happen. It's lessons we've had to learn over the years.

Michelle Moore 33:10

You're right.

Daniel Moore 33:11

We've been successful in doing that. And so finally, a living testimony of the gospel. When love, sacrifice, submission, and grace are actively practiced in marriage, the relationship becomes more than a partnership. It becomes a living testimony of the gospel. Marriage then serves as a visible portrait of Christ's relationship with his people, pointing beyond itself to the beauty of God's redemptive design. So, in this way, a Christ-centered marriage glorifies God, strengthens the couple, and quietly draws others toward the hope and healing found in the gospel. So as we get close to wrapping up this episode here, is there anything that you want to add to this?

Michelle Moore 33:54

No, it was really good.

Marriage As A Living Testimony

Daniel Moore 33:55

Um, I think that there's just a lot of reminders here, probably, because I think that anybody that's been in a Christian relationship or Christian marriage, uh I'm sure that, you know, they've probably walked a lot of this, hopefully, and put it into practice. But then sometimes some of us forget too. And so I think this can be a good reminder of what our relationship should look like and how we should look uh as we endeavor to have our marriage being a reflection of Christ and who he is. Uh, like them, subscribe to them. Uh, we have a new episode every week that comes out on Thursday, and we know that you probably have a married couple in your life that could benefit from uh you know taking part in the series that we're in right now. Again, this is based on the first book that I wrote. And if you'd like to get a copy of that or the study guide that goes along with it, and you can kind of follow us along. We're only into chapter two of that book right at the moment. Uh, you can go to our website at marriage lifeandmore.com and purchase that, or you can purchase the book anywhere online that you can purchase books. So to bring this episode to a close, here's what we want to leave you with. Marriage was never meant to be just about compatibility, happiness, or survival. It was designed to tell a greater story. Your marriage is meant to point beyond itself to the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. When we view marriage through the lens of the gospel, everything changes. Love becomes more than emotion, and it becomes a choice rooted in covenant. Sacrifice becomes purposeful, submission becomes an act of trust and humility. Grace becomes the atmosphere where healing and growth can actually take place. And in all of it, Christ is not just our example, he is our strength.

Michelle Moore 36:03

The beauty of this is that God doesn't ask for perfection. He invites participation, he uses ordinary couples and perfect people in everyday moments to display extraordinary gospel. Whether it's forgiving a harsh word, choosing patience when you're exhausted, or staying faithful through a hard season. These moments matter. They preach the gospel louder than we often realize. So if you're listening today and thinking, we've missed the mark, take heart. Redemption is not just something Christ did once. It's something he is still doing. No marriage is beyond his restoring grace. As long as Christ is at the center, there's always hope, growth, and renewal.

Daniel Moore 36:46

So as you go from here, our encouragement is simple. Love like Christ loves, serve like Christ serves, forgive like Christ forgives, and trust God with the results. When you do, your marriage becomes more than a relationship, it becomes a testimony. God is still in the business of redeeming broken things, even and especially through marriage. Well, that's going to be all for this week, and we pray that your marriage is stronger and your walk with God is closer after this episode. This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries, and we pray that you have a blessed week.