Viral #2: Jesus Died to Save Marriages

The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The Bible also says that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). However, the good news we find in the Bible is that “`while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
Those of us who have been involved in church for any length of time are familiar with these truths. We understand that Jesus died to save us from our sin and give us the hope of heaven. But this is applied to the individual. No one gets to heaven riding on the coattails of another.
So what has this got to do with marriage? Everything. For Jesus also died to save our marriages.
Marriage was instituted by God way back in Genesis 2. And in light of the fact that Paul exhorts husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25-33), we see that God wants our marriages to mirror the relationship Christ has with the Church.
So think about the relationship each of us, as Christians, ought to have with Jesus. That relationship in which He is loving us, we are loving Him, we serve Him, He blesses us, we experience more of His love, and we continue to love Him more and more. This is the kind of relationship God wants us to have in our marriages.
The problem is that without Christ, we are all broken, selfish, sinful people. And what happens when two broken, selfish, sinful people come together in a marriage? Their brokenness comes through, they both behave selfishly, and they sin against each other. This is not the recipe for the dynamic, healthy, happy marriages that God wants us to have.
The solution to this problem—the key to having a successful marriage—is having Jesus at the center of your lives as individuals, and at the center of your marriage. Because it is only through having a dynamic relationship with Him that any of us can overcome our brokenness, selfishness, and sinfulness.
A week ago, we learned that Jesus prayed for His believers, that “they may be one” (John 17:11, 21, 23). This oneness Jesus prayed for should be evident in our marriages to an even greater extent than within the more general company of the Church. Dynamic, happy, healthy marriages are very important to God. This is why we can say that Jesus died to save our marriages, as well as to save us individually from our sin.
As we learned on Sunday, our marriages can go through seasons, just as individuals go through seasons of life. Of course, we describe these seasons in a similar way to how we describe the seasons and weather patterns of the calendar year. During the Spring, you’re planting things, and they’re beginning to grow. Within the animal world, lambs, calves, foals, and kittens are being born. There’s a fresh sense of life and excitement in the air. In Summer, the sky is clear, and the sun is warm. It is the time for barbecues, picnics, parties, fun, and games. Everybody loves Summer. Fall has an ominous feel to it. the days are shorter, darker, and cooler. The skies are gray. The heavy rains come. In Winter, it’s cold and icy. Many animals hibernate. Others scrounge around in the woods, looking for what little food they can find. Winter has a dead feeling to it.
From Gary Chapman’s book dealing with the four seasons of a marriage, Pastor John gave us some examples of how to apply these analogies to our marriage relationships. The one thing I would re-emphasize is this: Our calendar year has twelve months. Naturally, each of the four seasons is about three months long, and we cannot change that. In December, January, and February, when we’re complaining about how cold and dead everything is, we’re also aware that it’s just going to be that way for a while. We can’t do anything about the weather.
Within a marriage, however, while you may not be able to do anything about the fact that your marriage will enter those winter seasons, you can do something about how long it lasts. In fact, I will go even further and say you need to do something about it. From personal experience, I can tell you that if you don’t do anything to pull your marriage out of the season of winter, everything in your marriage may die. You could end up divorced.
How do you do this? First, as Pastor John said, learn your spouse’s love language and begin to “speak” that language. Second, I would say begin to act as if it were already Spring. Hasten Spring by planting those seeds of love, kindness, gentleness, etc. (see Gal. 5:22-23) that you want to be growing and flourishing when Summer comes back around. I think if you do, you’ll see Summer coming much sooner than you expected.


QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND APPLICATION

1. Read Ephesians 6:25-33. What do these verses say about how Christ loved the Church? What did He do for her, and for what purpose? How does this apply to how husbands should love their wives? How does it apply to how wives should respond to their husbands?


2. How can I apply the truths of the gospel, namely the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sin, to my marriage?


3. What is my spouse’s love language? Do I know his/her love language? Does he/she know my love language? How good are we at speaking one another’s love languages?


4. What season is my marriage in right now? How can my spouse and I prolong the Summer and/or shorten the winter? If we are in a Fall season, how can we best prepare for the Winter in order to hasten its passing?


5. As an individual, single or married, what season of life am I in? Answer the same things from Question #4.