Relating to Marriage

Eph. 5:21-33

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You're listening to RUF at KSU Podcast. Go ahead and open up to Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to be looking at verses 21 through 33. And this semester we're doing something a little bit different. Normally in large groups, we go through a book of the Bible. But we're doing something a little different. We are looking at what the Bible has to say about relationships. And we think the Bible has a lot to say about relationships. A relationship with God, yes, but also our relationship with other people. We all live in a world of relationships, and I think we could all admit we need help navigating relationships. And so, as people who want to be faithful followers of Jesus, we want to be informed by his word and what it has to say about how we navigate life's many relationships. So we started out, we looked at our relationship with God, our relationship with sin, we looked at our relationship with friends. Last two weeks we looked at dating. And tonight we're going to be looking at our relationship to marriage. And kind of the main thing I want you to take away from the whole series, I'll say this every week, is that you were created by God to love and to be loved in relationship with God and with others. That you were created by God to love and to be loved in relationship with God and with others. Alright, but let's hear now from the word of the Lord, starting in Ephesians 5, verse 21. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 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 with 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Alright, so you know that old uh you know playground rhyme. Uh first comes love, then comes marriage. So what do you think we're talking about next week? Something like that. We'll get to it. If you don't know what that means, uh, you'll find out next week. Come back next week. All right, but tonight we're talking about marriage. Talking about marriage. We want the marriage to come first before the babies, ideally. Um, and I was thinking about marriage. I was remembering a wedding I was at years ago uh with my netwife Kelsey. I was a friend of hers, and we were at a table with a family, and they had a number of kids, and the youngest child, you know, he was he was watching the couple do their like first dance, and then he turned to his mom and he's like, you know, mom, I don't think I'm gonna get married. She was like, Oh, why? He's like, I think I love myself too much. It's like, man, that kid nailed it on the head. Like, that's that's the problem, right? Like, uh that I think that speaks so much to often how we come to this conversation of marriage. Uh, that the reality is it's a strange thing. It's a heavy thing. Two people committing their lives to one another, even if you don't have a biblical view of marriage, I think you understand that it's quite the commitment. And the whole idea that, you know, like you would have to give up some of yourself to be married to someone was clear even to the seven-year-old. As we're thinking about marriage, you know, it both inspires us with like grand operatic feelings of love and beauty, yearning and longing. You know, you think of Romeo and Juliet, Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, uh, Shrek and Fiona, Flynn and Rapunzel. Like we could go on and on of these great examples of romance and love that you know end in a happy ending of marriage. But also, I think there are some of you in this room, maybe your experience of marriage in your family is the opposite. Maybe you've seen your parents' marriage fall apart. And so when you think of marriage, actually, it's a lot of pain. It's a lot of worry. Will that be mean? It's a lot of fear. So we see we come in this mixed bag with marriage, right? Hopefulness, yearning, uh, you know, huge view of love and beauty, yet at the same time, worry, pain, fear. There's plenty we could say about marriage. And look, tonight is not meant to be like a premarital counseling course. Uh, if you are dating someone serious and you're thinking about getting married and you want to see me for premarital counseling, I'm happy to do that. But the goal tonight is I want to give you a framework for thinking about marriage biblically. We're trying to get a biblical perspective on marriage. And so I'm gonna give you a brief definition here of marriage, and then we're gonna kind of dissect that. So marriage is a covenant union of two souls becoming one in deep intimacy for the glory of God. A covenant union of two souls becoming one in deep intimacy for the glory of God. So we're gonna pick that apart with three points. My first point is why marriage is great. Yay. Second point, why marriage is terrible. Alright, third point, why marriage is beautiful. Yay! We'll end on a happy note. Alright, so let's think about why marriage is great. Well, the first thing I want you to see from this passage about marriage is that marriage, according to the Bible, is a covenant. I've already used that term probably once or twice in the setup here. But marriage, in a biblical understanding, is a covenant. What does that mean? Like, what is a covenant? How is that unique from how anyone else thinks about marriage? Well, modern society tends to see marriage as a contract. As a contract. So it's it's two people who are making an agreement. You know, we're we're signing a contract, it's like a business deal. What can you bring to the table? Okay, you've got this, this is what I can bring to the table. All right, here's our terms. You know, we sign on the dotted line, and you know, if you break a contract, there's some kind of penalty, but it's not like the end of the world. You can break a contract and, you know, move on with your life. Uh, like, it's okay to do that. You can go separate ways. But the Bible's understanding of covenant is not uh like loyalty to an agreement, but it's loyalty to a person. It's deep loyalty to a person. And I think loyalty is key there. Because, yes, in a covenant, there are rules, there are regulations, and all that, there are expectations on the people. But at the end of the day, if you break the covenant, right, it has a much more profound impact on the people who are in the covenant. That a marriage covenant is meant to be a public promise to exclusively love the other person until death. This is why marriage is fundamentally different from dating. Right? Marriage is not just the next level of dating. It's not we date, we move in, then we get married because that's just what people do. No, it's completely separate. If you were here the last two weeks and heard us talk about dating, right, dating has no true commitment to it. You're not truly exclusive because there's nothing actually binding you to one another. Whereas in marriage, we are saying we are formally entering into this bound covenant commitment together. And that means something. Now, some of you maybe have the question that, you know, maybe you're uncomfortable to ask or maybe you're not, but like I think it's a common question nowadays in modern society, like, why get married at all? Like, this isn't the ancient times, you know, where like one father in the community had to go to another and be like, your daughter, my son, we'll trade three cows and it will strengthen the alliance with France. You know, like it's not like that anymore. So, like, why do we need marriage? You know, is this just like some outdated thing? Can't I just love the person I love? Do I need a piece of paper to prove that I love someone and that I'm committed to them? We tend to cringe at that. But the reality is that when we're saying, hey, like, why can't I just love someone? I don't need a piece of paper to prove that I love them. What we're really saying is, I love them right now. And I'm betting on my future based on how I feel in this moment. And I don't want anything to actually keep me in that commitment long term. Do you hear the problem in that? Essentially, like, we change our feelings all the time. You know, someone asked me the other day, like, uh, what's a food that you used to like but don't anymore? And I was like, I used to love sweet potatoes, y'all. Like, I was obsessed. When I was dating my now wife, I remember telling her on the phone, like, I'll eat sweet potatoes anyway. You know, like baked, chopped up and roasted, fried, smashed, doesn't matter. Love sweet potatoes. And now, y'all, sadly, I'm kind of sick of them. I've had too many, my skin turned orange, it got weird. I just, yeah. I can't do sweet potatoes like I used to. And maybe if I was, you know, married to them, then I would, you know, okay. But you see the point I'm trying to make. Contracts, in a modern sense, can be broken. Uh, even our feelings of love can change, but because both parties can walk away at any time. We like this modern understanding of contracts with love, or just basing it on how we feel, because we think it's safer to have a way out. We think it's safer to have a way out. Why get married at all? What if things go bad? I'd rather have an escape route than be stuck in something that maybe I'm unhappy with. Well, that sounds appealing to us, that sounds wise, but I really like how one of my favorite writers, Pray India, puts this, on our struggle today with commitment. This is kind of a long quote, but it's a banger, so hang in there. She says this. I think young people today are desperate for deeper connection. I sense it everywhere, this feeling that everything is so empty now. A feeling that we are all clawing for something, anything that is permanent, anything that isn't commodified and cheap, something that lasts. Our entire lives are just collections of things that can crumble at any moment. We keep our options open, we play it cool, our long-term relationships fall apart the second someone loses feelings. Even if we do get deeper commitment, it's all a big joke now. Marriage vows are funny, the ceremony is a perfect moment for a prank, divorce is a celebration. And for some reason, we think the answer is to keep encouraging young people to be more detached. Be more free, travel more, hook up more, enjoy those situationships, be careful not to invest too much in anyone or anything, because that's how you get hurt. But isn't that the problem? We're looking for something we can place our feet on that won't fall away. We are looking for something more in this life where people have so few loyalties to each other, where everything is subject to constant change. I mean, it feels as if relationships are even losing the basic requirement to be faithful now. The absolute bare minimum. No, I don't want to treat marriage like an employment contract, but I do want to be bound more. I want to be bound to people, I want to be bound to places, I want to be bound to right or wrong. Maybe you resonate with that. That sense that it's so much of life has no hold over us. It seems like nothing really lasts. You know, sometimes maybe in your own life, like your parents' marriage didn't last. And what you want is not actually less commitment, but more. You want more people in your life that will be committed to you in love. More people who are willing to go the distance with you. Modern culture tells us that depending on people is for the weak. It's not sinful to be married, to want to be married, y'all. It's not foolish that you want to be married. It's not weakness that you want to be married. You were made for relationships. You were made for people. Dare I even take it a step farther and say, you were made to potentially get married. Like that's how God designed us. You were made for loving relationships, you were made for covenant commitments. I've said it before. Adam was in the Garden of Eden before sin, and God said it's not good for him to be alone. So even before sin was in the world, there was a need for relationships. Alright, so why is seeing marriage as a covenant so great then? Well, let's think about marriage vows. If you've been to a wedding, I'm about to do a wedding this weekend, marriage vows, not like the silly new ones, but like the traditional ones that you often hear, they're not actually about current feelings. If they are, they're not actually vows. That's more like a status update instead of a vow. The whole point of a vow is to talk about the future. So think about those traditional vows. I promise to love you in sickness and in health, for richer and for poor, till death do us part. That's not saying right now on the wedding day. That's saying in 10 years, when you lose your job, I'm promising that I will still love you and stick it out with you. That in 20 years, when you get diagnosed with cancer, I'm not gonna walk away because it's hard. That's the kind of thing we are promising and vowing to one another in a marriage. As you can see, that's no small thing. I love how Tim Keller says this, and y'all are gonna be honest. I'm gonna quote Tim Keller like three times tonight, so hang in there. But he says, look, wedding vows are setting a date in the future that regardless of how I feel, I will be faithful to you. You're setting a date in the future for love and faithfulness to one another. It's not a present declaration of feelings, but a future promise of actions of love. In the Bible, the word love is a verb, right? So when Jesus says, or you know, when Paul's writing here and saying, like, husbands love your wives, the word love there is the same word Jesus uses when he says, love your enemies. Alright, normally when we think husbands love your wives, we're like, oh, like feel affection for them. Okay, but what about when it comes to your enemies? Are you just supposed to feel affection for them? No, that'd be weird. When he's saying love your enemies, he's saying, you probably don't feel affection at all, but I want you to choose the action of love toward your enemy. So in the same way, we can't base a marriage just on our feelings. It has to be about practicing living out love, even when we don't feel it. That's part of what we're committing to. Why is a covenant so great? Well, look, covenant commitment between one man and one woman, it does include obligations. We see Paul getting at that here. I'm sure everyone's ears perked up when we got to the word submit and stuff like that, especially the ladies wondering what I'm gonna say. Don't worry, we're just gonna skip it. Uh, just kidding. Uh no, a covenant commitment in the Bible always has expectations on people. Alright? So, like in a covenant with God, God, we have expectations of God's faithfulness, God has expectations on us, in the same way a covenant between a husband and a wife has expectations. Now, really helpful to read this in context. I started with verse 21 on purpose. Because when Paul is writing Ephesians, he's writing it as a letter to the church that would all be read out at once. We tend to chop it up and only read certain sections, but it flows very naturally. Paul is talking about the church and he says, look, in the church of Jesus, you have to practice submitting one to another out of reverence for Christ. And before we even get to the submit part, recognize that Paul sees that Christ is key in all of it. He's assuming that there is Jesus at work in these people. And if Jesus is not at work in them, then there's gonna be no chance of real submission, anyways, real mutual love and respect lasting. So he's saying, look, if you're gonna do any submitting, do it out of reverence for Christ. That's huge. Paul isn't saying, all right, wives submit to your husbands because men are just better. No, he never says that. He says, do it out of your love for Christ. And the husbands, too. He says, look, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. The example here is always Jesus. He's the reason for it, and not because of any patriarchal understanding of men being superior or women being weaker in any way. But also we want to recognize that what Paul is calling us to is a voluntary submission. He's not saying, husbands, go make sure your wives submit to you. No, he's writing to the women here. He's speaking to them. Wives, submit to your husband. This is on you to figure out in your faith. It's not your husband's job to force it or bully it onto you. Paul is writing to them. He doesn't want people forcing one another. And you gotta understand that this is like in a culture of arranged marriages, where the reality is that people were often married in a very contractual way for economic benefit, and there'd be very little love, very little respect. It's very common in the Roman Empire in this time for couples to cheat on each other widely. So what Paul is actually calling them to is radical monogamy. He's saying, like, actually love the person you formerly married. Don't just marry them in name and then go pursue other people. Be faithful to the one that you've committed to. But look, I want to wrap that part up by saying the reality is sometimes when we talk about submission, especially the ladies, we say, like, you know, like, do it out of love for Jesus, and then it'll be okay. The truth is, submitting to anyone is hard. I don't like submitting to people. And I'm not gonna pretend that submission is easy. But it is our call in Christ. Right? Don't hear this as ladies, you know, try to understand your role in uh marriage and stuff like that from this cultural perspective, but understand it as something that should flow naturally out of love for Jesus. And uh, in God's providence, my mom actually came to town recently, and I was talking to her about this. My mom loves Jesus, she's in her 70s now. She was married to my dad for 45 years, you know, before he passed away. So I asked her, like, what do you think about this whole submission language? You know, help me as a woman, as a wiser person. And her perspective was really fascinating because my mom, if you ever meet her, she's loves Jesus, wonderful lady, also very headstrong. Like my mom grew up in the projects, no joke. She did not have a good example of like a marriage to grow up with uh in the household. Uh, she lived in California in the 70s during like the height of like women's liberation movement. So, like, she was not swimming in any waters that sounded anything like this. And she's like, you know, probably my biggest regret when I look back on 45 years of marriage is I wish I had actually been like learned to submit more quickly to your father. Because really, submission is just trust. I wish I had learned to trust him quicker. And I was so headstrong, and I always wanted to prove and get my way that it often harmed our relationship, and it took decades of working that out through our marriage, by God's grace. She's like, I wish I had learned that lesson quicker. So take that little piece of nugget wisdom there from uh an older woman in the faith who has walked that road before. Alright, but husbands, look, uh the reality is Paul writes to you, gentlemen, Paul writes to you even longer than he does to women. Um, like spends way more time talking about your role here to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Uh, and that's not, you know, Christ didn't just sit around on a couch like getting fed grapes watching football at the time. No. What did Jesus do for the church? Uh he died for it. He gave his life, he poured himself out continually for his church. That men, that's what you're called to in marriage. To love your wife in such a way. Uh, and sometimes we we put so much emphasis on a cultural understanding of like, you know, men need to be spiritual leaders in their home. Let me give you a really simple definition of what it means, guys, to be a spiritual leader in your home. To be a spiritual leader is to be the chief repenter. To be the chief repenter. You want to be a spiritual leader, then be humble enough and secure enough in your faith in Jesus that you can own when you've sinned. When you can own when you've hurt someone. You know, Martin Luther famously said the whole of Christian life is one of repentance. So we should be quick to repent and quick to set an example of repentance. And ladies, if you are looking for a godly man, you're not looking for a guy who has it all figured out perfectly who. Knows the Bible like the back of his hand, you're looking for a man who, through the Spirit of God, can be quick to repent. That's ultimately what you're submitting to. A guy who can own his wrongs and turn to Christ and find the grace of Christ in that moment. A marriage is a covenant, and that's a good thing. And I've gone on a little long, so let me move on. A marriage is amazing because ultimately, when you've committed to someone in this way, then ultimately you are finally safe. You're finally free to be yourself. When it's not a contract, when it's not something you can walk out on at any moment, then actually you have the safety to grow in all the ways that Jesus wants you to. I love the way one author put it. He said, When I got married to my wife, I had no idea what I was getting into. How could I know how much she would change over the next 25 years? How could I know how much I would change? My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were married, and each of those five has been me. He's saying, look, the reality is the reason why a covenant in marriage is so important is because you are not going to be the same person on your wedding day that you will be in 10, 20, 30, 50 years. You need that hard commitment of love that it won't be broken just by feeling because of that reality. And when you have that, you have the freedom then to grow and change and you know develop in all the ways that God wants to. When you're dating or living together, a relationship is ultimately all about marketing and promotion. What can I do to make sure this person doesn't walk out on me? How can I prove my worth so this person will stick around? Real love says, I may not like you right now or feel super attracted to you, but I'm not going anywhere because I'm committed to you. That's why it's great that marriage is a covenant. Alright, but let's talk about why marriage is terrible. Woohoo! A little more excitement, y'all. Come on. Alright, Paul says, look, marriage is meant to be sanctifying to us. Marriage is meant to sanctify us. What does that word mean? Sanctification is the process where God grows us in our godliness, in our holiness, where we turn more away from sin and more to Christ likeness. Ultimately, what marriage does is it makes us look in the mirror. Marriage is not seeing someone else and looking at their problems and trying to fix them. No, marriage often reveals your problems even more so. And if you've even dated someone for longer than like five minutes, you've probably experienced this in some form or fashion. Right? Like that actually your own issues come out more quickly and their issues come out more quickly when you spend a lot of time together. That only increases in marriage, y'all. So this is why we say don't rush into it lightly. It's a serious commitment, and you are committing to something that ultimately is going to be painful. Sanctification is not a pleasant process. Growing in godliness is facing our sin. You're going to be binding yourself to a sinner that needs to be changed, just like you two are desperately in need to be changed. You're embracing some type of suffering in marriage. And look, not just that, but the cultural message about marriage is like, hey, if it feels like that at all, then you shouldn't do it. You know, universities generally think of marriage as hell. They're like, please don't do it. You know, if you're a woman, it's like triple hell because they're like, look, you're it's preventing you from getting your career and getting that bag. Like, that's what you're meant for. And if you get married, it's gonna hold you back, and you might have to change things, you might have to compromise. Think about the movie La La Land. I know it's a big favorite in this room. Great movie, cute, fun, love the music, all that. But if you really think about it, at the end of the story, they decide I don't love you enough to stay with you. I actually love my career more than you. I would rather be an actress than commit to you. I'd rather be a musician than commit to you. That's a brutal message, y'all. But it's honest, like they're saying, look, I I love something more than my willingness to be committed to you. Marriage is an inconvenient destroyer of you. And if you have children in marriage, it's even worse. Right? And look, the reality is we've been trained since like first grade to look out for ourselves, number one. But Jesus doesn't want that in a marriage. He wants it to be sanctified. He wants you to grow in this deeper intimacy, and that's only going to happen by facing our sins together. That often means we're scared of it, we're worried about it. There's a really famous New York Times article that was literally titled Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person. It was like the most read New York Times article ever. The guy's not a Christian who wrote it, but he had some really great insights. He said, It's one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it, and yet we do it all the same. We marry the wrong person. Partly it's because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don't know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on an early dinner date would be and how are you crazy? So if you're going on a date anytime soon, feel free to whip that one out. How are you crazy? Look, when you're covenanting yourself to another selfish sinner, it's not gonna be all puppy dogs and sprinkles. The reality is marriage cannot fix you. It will not make you happy in all the ways you hope it will. We want marriage to be this personal journey of self-satisfaction. Think of the famous line from Jerry McGuire, you complete me. No human can do that. It's a lie. No human can truly complete you. The message of our culture is often if you're single and you're alone and you're depressed, if you just find your soulmate, then you will be happy. But look, that is a recipe for experiencing the worst parts of marriage. People are waiting longer to get married and getting divorced quickly because that perfect person doesn't exist. If it's difficult, then we must not be compatible, is what people often think. But because of our sin, we are always going to have incompatibilities. Often we think in our own heads, or maybe even say it out loud, when I get married, you know, uh, I won't struggle anymore. When I get married, uh I won't be depressed anymore because I'll have someone who's my own. When I get married, I'll never feel lonely again because my spouse will value me. When I get married, uh, I won't struggle with porn anymore because I'll have regular sex. When I get married, I'll finally have someone to take care of me. We put so much pressure on it, expecting the other person to be perfect, expecting the marriage itself to fix us. Ultimately, if marriage is just about two people falling in love, there's nothing else to it, then it's gonna be a terrible experience. It reminds me of an old country phrase, it's like two ticks and no dog. Anyone ever, any South Georgia people here? Two ticks and no dog? Alright, Ben, Ben, you get that one, right? For those of you who don't, uh, a tick is a blood-sucking insect, and so it needs something to like get life source out of. But if there's no dog and just two ticks, then they just feed on each other and kill each other. Like, there's no source of life for them. That ultimately in a marriage, you can't just have two people trying to feed off of each other's love because their love is always going to be imperfect and run out. You need some other source of life and love there. Alright, so then, like, two takeaways, two application points there. First is, we need to recognize that there's nothing wrong with singleness, then. There's nothing wrong with singleness. The Bible doesn't see singleness as a sin. It doesn't see singleness as an inherently bad thing. The Bible actually describes singleness as a gift in 1 Corinthians. And the perfect human ever, the one sinless one ever, Jesus, was single his whole life. He never got married. And I'm like, okay, that was Jesus. Come on. But the point is, he was fully man as well as fully God. Your intimacy needs will not be solely fixed in your marriage. Don't put that kind of pressure on it. I love how one of my friends put it. He said, look, as a Christian, marriage is optional, but being involved in the body of Christ, the church, is not. This is why we emphasize being involved in church so much here. Because look, you need, you are made for relationships, you are made for community, you are made for love. But you can't seek to just get that out of one person. God has given us multiple means to do it. He's given us the body of Christ. So embrace that gift. This is why people who often come to RUF just looking to like find people to date, don't tend to stick around long. Because they're actually missing out on like the gift of the body of Christ here. The gift of actual fellowship and friendship in this community. And look, if you meet someone here, that's great. We're happy for you. I'm not trying to knock that. But the point is, if that's all you're hoping to get out of hanging out in a campus ministry or something, you're gonna be solely sorely disappointed. Alright, the second takeaway though is stop looking for your soulmate, stop looking for the one, and instead just start looking for someone. Okay? Like the whole idea of, well, I'll just know when I meet them. I'll just know, like, it'll be like the stars will align, the sun will come out from behind the clouds, and there he'll be, you know, six foot two, lots of money, you know, like handsome, holding a Bible. I'll just know. Y'all, it doesn't happen that way. It never happens that way. How do you know when someone's your soulmate? How do you, what does that even mean to really know? Look, the reality is, I got this from a friend, but it's such a good line. Uh, I didn't really know who my soulmate was until my wedding day when my wife said I do. I didn't know she was my soulmate until my wedding day when she said I do. Why? Because at any point before that, we could have walked away from it. At any point before that, she has the freedom to say, I don't want to do this. But when she committed to me, when she committed her life to me, and I committed my life to her, in richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, that's when I knew this is my soulmate. So quit waiting for the sun to strike someone just perfectly. And instead, be willing to maybe go out on a date with someone and just see if the Lord wants more for you than just friendship. Alright. Let's move on to the last point here. No, wait, sorry, I have a story. My bad. Uh, great example of this. Alright, so a friend of mine, uh, he was dating someone pretty serious when he was in college. Uh and like so serious to the point where they were looking at rings. Like they were talking about it. But he was he was having some qualms about it, he was having some doubts, he wasn't sure. But they had been dating for a long time. It was getting serious. You know, he did really like, like, they were close friends, you don't want to just like break someone's heart really nilly like that. Uh, but it was so serious that they were actually like going on a trip with her parents, like to the beach where they had to like fly together. It was a big trip. But he kept feeling worse and worse about this relationship. So the first day of the trip, he actually breaks up with her and flies home. And he's on the flight and he's thinking about his life and his choices, uh, and he's like, What am I doing? You know, like what am I what do I really want in a potential spouse? What am I really looking for? And he's like, Well, the two things I know I want, I want a woman who loves Jesus, and I want someone who's gonna be like my best friend. This other girl, she was great in a lot of ways, but like she didn't, she wasn't really all that into her faith, and I just didn't really feel like actually we were clicking like best friends. But then he had this flash of inspiration. He's like, But there is this girl from school that I do know from the campus ministry I go to, and she does really love Jesus, and we kind of hang out all the time and we kind of talk all the time. She's kind of like actually one of my best friends. I think I want to marry someone like that. So the plane lands, he gets in his car, and he drives to her house, and he rings the doorbell, and she happens to answer the door, and he immediately gets down on one knee and says, Would you marry me? And y'all she said yes. And they've been married for like 30 years and have four kids. The point I'm trying to make is look, like the whole question of who is my soulmate, who's the perfect person, they've got to check all the boxes in the list just right, you're probably never gonna find someone where all those things are gonna line up just perfectly. But I bet God has brought someone, you know, God will bring someone into your life that is someone who is close, like a best friend, who does love Jesus, that you need to take seriously in that way. I'm not guaranteeing that they will say yes to you or anything like that, but that you need to seriously consider that. Alright, final point. Why marriage is beautiful. Paul wraps up here, he says, look, marriage is beautiful because it's a reenactment of the gospel. It's a picture of the gospel. Marriage itself is not just for two people to be in love, it's a reflection of Jesus' love for his church. That just as Jesus would give his life for his church, so also in marriage we practice giving our lives for one another. We leave everything else behind. We leave behind father and mother, we hold fast, we cling to one another, we become one flesh, just as Jesus becomes one with his people. And he's saying, look, actually, this mystery is profound. Like he's actually saying here, I'm not even actually talking about marriage so much. I'm really talking about Jesus and his love. That when you're a Christian and you're entering into marriage, you're actually entering into something bigger than yourself. That you get to demonstrate the covenantal love of God with your spouse as well as to be an example to other people. The relationship of a husband and wife is this reflection. And like, think about that. What made Jesus love his bride, the church? Was it she had the perfect body type? Was it that he had an abundance of feelings for her? That she had great career prospects? No. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While the church was in rebellion against their husband, their lover, Christ himself, Jesus gave his life for them. That this is why marriage is a picture of the gospel. Jesus didn't love us because we are lovely. No, he loved us to make us lovely. So what does this mean? What does this mean for us now? How does the gospel seen in marriage here affect you when you're single or when you're dating or when you just went through a breakup or wherever you're at tonight? Well, it means, look, God's covenantal love is the message that he wants you to hear throughout scripture. It means that God loves you covenantally even when you sleep through your alarm and skip church. That God loves you covenantally even when you're puking in a toilet because you drank too much at a party. That God loves you covenantally, even when you look at porn, when you have sex with your boyfriend or your girlfriend. That's true covenantal love. But look, we don't want to stop there. How does that love sink down deep into our heart and then change us and make us want to flee from that sin and flee to our Savior? Well, look, I've been married for seven years now to my wife, and um, the truth is I have said and done some really dumb stuff in my marriage. I've said and done some really hurtful stuff. Some things that my wife actually would have every right to not forgive me for, to straight up condemn me for. But on more than one occasion, my wife, with tears in her eyes, but with incredible amounts of mercy and love, has shown me mercy, has shown me forgiveness. And I know now in deeper ways than I ever knew on our wedding day that she loves me. Not because I'm perfect, not because I'm a perfect husband or a perfect godly leader or any of those things, but because she has the perfect love of Christ in her that enables her to show me mercy and grace. And in the same way I show her mercy and grace as well. That in marriage you can experience the gospel in new and deeper ways through one another. That Jesus wants you to have a bigger vision of marriage than just your own happiness. That marriage can grow you in deeper joy in Jesus. Do you know how like diamonds actually get their shape? This is a great picture of marriage here. Diamonds are like really sharp rocks. Maybe you've heard this illustration before. So the only thing that can cut a diamond is another diamond. So the way they do, they get diamonds to the right shape is they put them together in a tumbler, and the diamonds scrape against one another and cut each other. But when they come out, right, they've been smoothed into the shapes they want. That ultimately God uses marriage to put us together with someone else, to sanctify us. At times it's painful, the scraping, the smoothing down of sharp edges, but so that we come out more beautiful, more shiny, more glorifying to his name. Or to close with what Tim Keller says here, what then is marriage for? It is for helping each other to become our future glory selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us. The common horizon husband and wife look toward is the throne and the holy, spotless, blameless nature we will have. I can think of no more powerful common horizon than that. And that is why putting a Christian friendship in the heart of a marriage can lift it to a level that no other vision for marriage approaches. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the good news of Jesus. We thank you that you love us with a radical gospel love that doesn't seek us out only when we're perfect or lovely or obedient. No, you love us even when we are sinners. You love us so much that you want to change us from sin towards you, towards godliness, towards holiness. So, Lord, help us to have this view of covenant love. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Stay in and sing.