How to Develop a Marriage That Please God
Jerry A Collins
P Why are so few
marriages, godly marriages?
P How can a wife impact
her husband in a godly way?
P What is the key that
turns a marriage into an opportunity to become godly?
As you drive past the billboard you read the message: ‘Loved the ceremony;Now invite me to the
marriage’ God
I want to encourage you to keep doing that. The way to do that is to
influence one another by developing a godly marriage. What does that mean?
Godliness is developed though the process of intentionally impacting
the life of someone in the direction of Christlikeness. Godly friendships are
developed this way. Godly people are too. So are godly marriages!
(1) It is Intentional. It is not simply someone learning about
Christ. It is not accidental. It’s intentional. Someone must intend to do it.
Jesus mission was to produce disciples. He says so in John 17:4-8. It is the
more mature who initiate with the less mature.
(2) It is Impacting. It does not happen because a student is excited
about or impressed by a teacher. It happens by bringing about a change in
virtues, values, beliefs and life-style. Jesus thinned the crowds every chance
he could. It is not just about impacting people so they will follow you. It has
to do with impact that really changes people as they are impacted by your life.
(3) It is Personal. It is not covering material with someone. It is
not being part of a group or class studying material. It is one person dealing
with another person personally. You can be impressed with people at a
distance but you can only impact the close up. Marriage brings us real
close. Jesus did this even within a crowd of people. A woman touched him and he
knew it but disciples had no idea who it could have been. Jesus walking thru a
crowded street spots Zacheaus points him out in
middle of a crowd.
(4) It is Christlike. It is not just
becoming a mentor in someone’s life. The modeling
must be moving another person in the direction of Christlikeness
so that they are motivated to make godly decisions in their lives. Jesus
ministry with the disciples motivated them to pursue what he was pursuing (the
will of His Father). To value what He valued (the
So what does it mean to develop godliness in my marriage?
(1) BEING TOGETHER
Godliness is incarnational meaning it is
done in-the-flesh. If you ask mature couples, Does or how does your
husband or wife impact your life spiritually?, most
may say, He or she doesn’t or I don’t know. Yet they are very
much like each other in their values, ethics, morals, convictions, and
priorities, especially if they have been married for many years. The people
we will most likely influence and be influenced by are those we spend most of
our time with. Sure, it is quality time that counts, but the price for that
is quantity time. Any photographer knows that the secret to taking top-quality
pictures is to take a lot of pictures. Quality only comes out of quantity. If
your spouse spends more time with his or her boss, friends, or the kids than
with you, making a godly impact from you is less likely. It requires being
there. Doing things together. It is done when you
sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when
you rise up Duet 6:6-7. This is especially true for marriage!
The first and only time God said ‘it is not good’ about His creation
was ‘for the man to be alone’. Except for those very rare exceptions a
mature man will become a husband. Males were not designed to reflect the image
of God, carry out the purposes of God or become mature in God without a wife.
So God has placed the man in a high-risk situation. God is a risk-taker.
Maturity for a man can only go so far for a man until he takes on the
responsibility of becoming a husband. The relationship is established by a
commitment to being together and that togetherness is permanent. This being
together requires that a husband become a student of his wife (1 PT 3:7). The
idea is that a husband is to be always learning, Good husbands are not
ignorant. That is one reason why becoming a husband is
the next step of growth after becoming a man. Becoming a husband is the most
stretching thing a man can do. So becoming a student of your wife means
knowing: what makes for good relationships, what specific things make your wife
happy, grumpy, hurt, sad, insecure, and how your relationships with your
parents effects your wife.
(2) BECOMING SPIRITUALLY REPRODUCIBLE
Making a godly impact has nothing to do with insisting that our spouse
be productive. Some productivity is necessary for marriage but it does not
bring about godliness about. Bringing home a pay check, making sure the house
is clean, getting supper ready on time and paying the bills are all essential
aspects of married life but these only have to do with productivity not reproductivity. Insisting your spouse do these jobs or
complaining when they do not has nothing to do with
godliness.
Godliness in marriage
results in multiplying the spiritual qualities of Christ’s life in each other.
The reproduction of spiritual qualities is not something added to a good
marriage. They are what makes a marriage good from
God’s point of view. Biblically good marriages are spiritually reproductive
(Acts
The man was ‘formed’ the
woman was ‘fashioned’. The man was created for God’s sake,
the woman was created for the man’s sake (1 Cor
11:9). The man was created from the dust, the woman
was created from the man. The man is to bring glory to God. So is the woman, of
course, but the way she does it is by being ‘the glory of man’ (1 Cor 11:7). The word ‘glory; seems to be used in the Bible
as multiplying the character or reputation of someone. Here the idea is that a
husband is to handle his life in such a way that he reveals the character of
God. In a sense, he is to advertise God’s reputation by his own. What the wife
does is to multiply the reputation of God, His righteousness, goodness,
justice, by magnifying, advertising to all creation those aspects in her
husband. So within the context of the marriage relationship, God has designed
it such that spiritual reality and truth is reproduced through the marriage
relationship top advertise the character of God before the watching world. The
husband therefore must be someone his wife can advertise to the world and have
the result of being an enhancement of the reputation of God among His creation.
(3) INVITE PERSONAL DISCOVERY OF TRUTH
A godly impact with your mate is not getting them to change into what
you want them to be but giving them a model by which they can discover
what God wants them to be. Peter tells wives that their husbands may be
(not that they necessarily will be) won without a word as they observe your
chaste and respectful behavior (1 PT 3:1-4). Next, Peter turns to husbands
and says, you husbands, likewise, live with your wives in an understanding
way...and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life ( 1 PT 3:7). In both cases Peter recommends not telling
your mate what to do but to live in such a way as to provide a context for
them to discover godliness through your living model of faith. It is
personally discovering more about Godliness as a result of your relationship
with me.
Jesus often presented things in such a way that people had to look
beyond the obvious and make the effort to discover what He meant.(1) After throwing money changers out, when
challenged about it said destroy this temple and in three days I will raise
it up (Jn 2:19). How would anybody have
understood He was talking about His own resurrection? He had only just begun
His ministry. (2) He required Nicodemus to discover what it meant to be born
again. (3) The woman at the well had to discover what living water was.
(4) The disciples had to discover what eating my flesh and drinking my blood
meant. You would have to hang around awhile if you wanted to discover
what He meant. Well, we get to hang around a long while in marriage to
one another and our marriage should become a laboratory for the personal
discovery of godliness with one another. Creating a context which encourages
discovering truth. It requires a faith and focus that leads to
self-discovery. Are you making Spiritual truth appealing to each other?
(4) MAKING YOUR CASE
Making a godly impact is not based on mysticism, emotions or blind
faith. Notice that Peter says husbands live with your wives in an
understanding way. (1 PT 3:7). He
did not say ‘in an emotional way’. Twice Peter tells wives to be submissive
to their husbands. He did not say do this after you first ‘after you feel
good about them’. Emotions are a
large part of
getting married but they are not the substance of godliness in marriage.
Romantic love is a legitimate factor for initiating marriage. Jacob fell head-over-heels in love with Rachel. She was beautiful
and dominated the rest of his life. Willing to work 14 years
in all to have her. He favored the children he had with her and after
she died he never married anyone else to replace her. Even the Song of Solomon
teaches us about the legitimacy of romance as a motive for getting married. It
must be traded in on real love after marriage--giving instead of getting
must govern our relationship. Emotions come, go and change. Marriages based on
them are doomed to fail. Things like understanding and respect must replace
it for a godly marriage. That only comes about through a godly impact. This
requires reasoning, persuading and giving of evidence about spiritual realities
being learned so the marriage can mature and ripen. You become someone worth
emulating. It is about changing ourselves into someone who models a Christlikeness which my mate can discover.
(5) MAKE EACH OTHER SECOND TO GOD
The Bible tells me to love my wife (Eph
1. Maintain my personal and spiritual integrity. If you lose this then
you lose your voice. It may even be repairable but the damage done may not.
2. Develop marital intimacy. You took vows to your mate that you never
took to your job, your children or yourself!
3. Fulfill my parental responsibility. This must not be passed on to
any institution including the church.
4. Establish my professional competency.
You cannot reverse the process and expect to have a godly impact in
your marriage.
Now love is doing the best good for
someone, which always results in giving, which cannot be reciprocated. You
can only receive it you can do nothing to give it back. God’s love for us in
Christ is the standard. This love must be first initiated with God. This is how
Jesus commanded me to relate to my Father in heaven. Then flowing out of this I can love my neighbor, my enemy and my wife. There are
three possible targets for our love.
1. Loving ourselves. If we serve ourselves selfishly we will be
miserable. People who are trying to love, give to
themselves at the expense of others. These people usually sabotage
relationships only resulting in more misery for themselves and others.
2. Loving others. If we serve others we will be happy but
disappointed. The advantage of serving others is that it gets our focus off
ourselves. The problem with serving others is if you stop and evaluate the
effect of your work it will be disappointing. Most people are selfish and take
what you give to them and squander it. Serving, loving, giving to others will
be ultimately disappointing if you stop to evaluate your service long term.
3. Loving God. The only way to be happy and not disappointed us
first and foremost to serve God. Since God says love, we will find as we do
that as part of our love for God we will reap the benefit of joy and peace.
How can a young man or woman in love, willing to give up anything to be
together, end up down the road in a broken marriage? That happens because someone,
somehow had love that was not accompanied by hate. That is, their love
was not second to a love for God. So they could ignore, spurn and break God’s
command for marriage. So in the long run Paul says it profited them nothing
(1 Cor 13:3). The cost of a godly impact with your
mate is not putting them before yourself but putting God before both of you.
(6) GIVE GODLINESS
God told the prophet Hosea to marry a harlot (Hosea 1:1). He obeyed
but after awhile she left him to pursue her lovers. He continued to give her
support but not her sin (Hoseas 2:5-6). When she
became destitute and was sold as a slave, he brought her back much like Christ
did for us on the cross. So we can conclude that:
1 Give one another a godly marriage
2 Do not support sin in mates life
3 Give to support repentance and renewal toward God’s commandments.
A great challenge for maturity in marriage is to learn how to become a
giver to your mate. When paybacks are omitted from our giving motive we are
free to enjoy giving by itself. Otherwise we are only
swapping.
A wife, for instance, is first of all a fellow believer. That
relationship takes precedence over all others. So she is primarily a child of
God. Husbands must see their wives as, first of all, a spiritual partner. She
is indwelled with the Spirit of God (1 PT 3:7).
She must receive what any other believer must receive. Our spouse is not
our personal property. He/she belongs to God. All we have done is added to our
responsibility before God when we got married. We are now responsible to God
for our role in this marriage. Husbands are responsible to God for husbanding.
Wives are responsible to God for their wifing.
Neither will stand before Christ to help evaluate the other at the judgment
seat. God never gave a spouse the responsibility to ensure that the other is
fulfilling their responsibility in the marriage. We are responsible, though, to
give godliness first of all by giving to them what we are responsible to give
to any believer and secondly by giving what we are biblically responsible to
give as a husband/wife.
How do we give godliness when we have a conflict in our marriage?
First, we must always see every conflict vertically not horizontally. Godly
people in the Bible saw the situation as a conflict between them and God not
between them and the other person. When David prayed in Psalm 51 he stated that
against Thee, thee only have I sinned to God. Well, what about Uriah? Apparently he went to heaven right on time. What about Bathsheba? He understood that he had
violated God’s standard when he participated in murder and adultery. While the
world sees conflict as between ourselves and someone
else, godly people see all conflicts as not with the other person at all but
between their own sin nature and the will of God. If I have a conflict with my
spouse, it is between me and God. Second, So I confess that to God by
agreeing with God that we fail to keep His expectations. This produces humility
in my life and encourages; Third, forgiveness which is accepting the
consequences for someone else’s sin against God. I can never forgive people of
their sin against God but I must always forgive them of the consequences I have
to live with as a result of that sin. Forgiveness is accepting those
consequences without pursuing justice, seek revenge, harbor bitterness, or
maintain hatred. Conflict should never prevent us giving godliness to one
another in our marriages.
(7) SEE YOUR MARRIAGE FROM OTHER SIDE OF THE GRAVE
God did not give us marriage as an opportunity for happiness but as a
laboratory for holiness. Jesus said Take up your cross daily and follow me
(MT
When I sin, I am disagreeing with God about what is in my own best
interest. We determine that God does not have our best interest in mind when He
gives us our current life situation such as a bad marriage. So our sin nature
says we need to violate His commands or His character or His expectations to
accomplish that which is in our best interests. It is an attempt to steer our
present and future situation by disobeying God. Sin gives us less control of
the future. The problem is God did have your best interests in mind when He
gave you your present life situation. That is the case whether it be wealth or poverty, health or sickness, a good spouse or a
bad one, obedient children or rebels. And it is the parameter of godliness that
gives us control of our future. Every time we sin as was the case with Adam and
Eve we have less control over our future. That may be more obvious with some
sins like drunkenness, substance abuse and foolish gambling. But it is just as
true with adultery, gossip, lying or seeking revenge. On the other hand,
righteousness increase our control of the future.
Givers have the most real authority in every situation. Truth sets you free.
Faithfulness to your spouse allows you to parent your children. Lack of debt
gives financial freedom. If you do not think about revenge, you will see the
situation more clearly.
So our sinning is the result of believing that we are better than God
at determining what is in our own best interest. Eve decided that a woman had a
right to choose what was in her own best interest. Adam decided the same thing.
God will always do what serves His own glory. But to participate in that is
what is in our best interest. Sin is to decide that is not so. It says that in
this particular area, in this specific temptation, I know what is in my own
best interest. And that is only living on this side of the grave. That
perspective will never produce endurance, faithfulness, self-control all fruit
of godliness in the life. That only comes from living for the other side of the
grave.