Matrix for a Magnificent Marriage

January 1, 2007
Michael Evans
  

Matrix for a Magnificent Marriage

Let’s be clear up front.  This is just a column…one fallen man’s attempt to communicate information in a way that makes people want to keep reading.

Thinking, writing, and preaching qualifies no one for anything, for there are ways of thinking that are absurd, methods of writing that are of little value, and ways of preaching which possess not so much as a whiff of the eternal.

While I do think, write, and on occasion, preach about marriage, my theological and philosophical understanding of marriage continues to outpace my practical and consistent application of the truths I know.   

Years ago when the beloved Howard Hendricks had just completed a sermon, an eager young man came up to him and called him a “great man.”

On the drive home, Hendricks turned to his wife and said, “A great man.  How many great men do you know?”   “One fewer than you think,” she answered.  

It is a sweet gift of God for a man to have a wife who sees through to the real person who is her husband…even if he doesn’t always see it this way.

One of the most important biblical realities we must acknowledge in our marriages is that fallen husbands and fallen wives are married to fallen wives and fallen husbands in a fallen world.

Soak it in.  Breathe it in.  Read it again.  It’s true.  Now move on.

Last week Karla heard some disturbing news on a local Christian radio station that recounted a survey from Women’s Day Magazine where 3,000 women were asked the question: “If you had it to do all over again would you marry the same man?”

Thirty-three percent said definitely not.  More than 50% said maybe/maybe not.   This means that only 17% max of the women surveyed said, “Yes!” I would marry the same man again.

Either the women surveyed have entirely unreasonable expectations of what a husband is (or should be) and does (or should do), or husbands as a tribe are in a bad way.  [I’m curious what the results would be if the question were reversed].

This survey demonstrates in a small but powerful way, that marriages without Christ at the core are filled with uncertainty.

If it’s true that 83% of wives in America are uncertain as to whether or not they would marry the same man again, or are certain that they would not (and I don’t believe it is), then countless marriages in America are weak, fragile, and teetering on a precipice.

This, I do believe… with no special exemption given to Christians who school their children at home.  

It’s not hard to mess things up.  That’s what sinners, even redeemed ones, do best.  What is difficult is to get it right.  Magnificent marriages are not forged overnight.  They are created or destroyed by the seemingly insignificant decisions we make every single day.

They hinge or they hurl based on word selection…or non-selection in communication, on purchases made or not made, on subtle actions, glances, grunts and groans.

Every husband and wife is unequivocally affected by the reality of the Fall of Man.  Sin messed up, and continues to mess up, everything. 

Despite their best intentions, husbands and wives will let one other down, frustrate one another, and in 3-D colorful graphics, display results of the Fall heretofore unknown.

The problem in large measure is love, self-love to be precise.  This is love that is misdirected and wrongly applied to ourselves.

In Matthew 22:39 Jesus commanded, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Many read these words quickly and see in them a command to love ourselves.

Self-love is embedded in the ethos of our nation and even permeates the air of much of the modern Church.

Jesus was not teaching by this command that in order to love others we have to first love ourselves rightly and esteem ourselves highly.

Simply supply the verb in the second part of the command and it should become evident to you.

“Love your neighbor as [you already] love yourself.”  Far from being commanded, self-love is assumed. 

We already wrongly love ourselves with an inordinate kind of love.  We are selfish to the core and cannot possibly comprehend the extent even of our own shortsighted and selfish hearts.

A few days ago the thought occurred to me that it is impossible to love ourselves biblically, but inevitable that we will love ourselves unbiblically.

Honorable and biblical self-love is an oxymoron of the highest order… but only if you agree with me that the Bible nowhere commands us to love ourselves.

In other words, the challenge then becomes one of loving others as we already love ourselves…to serve others and meet their needs as we inexorably move toward self-adulation.

This is a far cry from the three men in the following account.

 
Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given certain duties to their new wives.  

The first man had married a woman from Alabama and bragged that he had told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning. 

He said it took a couple days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and dishes.

The second man had married a woman from Florida. He bragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking.

On the first day he didn't see any results, but the next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.

The third man had married an Iowa girl. He boasted that he told her that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed and hot meals on the table for every meal.

He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he still didn't see anything, but by  the third day most of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out  of his left eye. Enough to fix himself a bite to eat, load the dishwasher, and telephone a landscaper.  You gotta love these Iowa women!

These men will not have magnificent marriages.  The matrix for a magnificent marriage lies in the truths of Ephesians Chapter 5.

After telling husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, to sanctify her, in order to present her to himself entirely pure, he then commands husbands in v. 28; “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Eph. 5:28)

In his outstanding and life changing book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, pastor and author John Piper writes about marriage (chapter 8) as a matrix for Christian hedonism.

In this chapter he says of this verse: “In other words, husbands should devote the same energy and time and creativity to making their wives happy that they devote naturally to making themselves happy. For he who loves his wife loves himself.  Since the wife is one flesh with her husband, the same applies to her love for him” (p. 178).

It is not evil or wrong or perverted to want to be happy.  The trouble is with us sinners who cannot seem to distinguish between the toxic wastes of self-centered living and the real deal.  Or, the difference between a “deal” between eight year old boys and an irrevocable vow.

How many times have you heard the hellish lie from the lips of a loved one: “God wants me to be happy…and so that’s why I left my spouse and children.”

Or, “Surely no one can expect me to care for my spouse who suffers from dementia, neurological disorder, fill-in-blank, and not expect to have my own basic needs fully met as well.”

In marriage the husband and wife become one flesh.  That’s what Genesis 2:31 teaches.

Therefore it stands to reason that what is good for my spouse is good for me as well.  And, what is bad for my spouse is also bad for me.

To devote ourselves to making our spouses happy and holy is to do our own selves a world of good as well.

If you are an unhappy hubby, you may well be an unholy hubby…toward your wife. 

God has created marriage for husbands and wives to be conduits of grace to one another, not class V whitewater rivers of hostility.

I suspect that there are many domineering (and therefore unhappy) men who frequently belittle their wives and assert themselves as Potentate.

The problem with self-appointed Monarchs is that they don’t tend to look much like Christ who served the Church and gave up His life for the Church.

The late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “If you want to test whether a man’s love to his wife is what it should be, do not listen to what he says, observe what he does, and what he is.  That is the test!”  

And so I’ll leave it at that for now.  Men, devote yourselves with a passion to the happiness of your wives.  Wives do the same for your husbands.   

In so, doing you will have found the exact same formula, the matrix, for a magnificent marriage that Christ created in His stunning relationship to the Church.