The Mission of Marriage

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 25, 2013

Genesis 1:26

The Mission of Marriage

This is the fourth and final sermon based on

Tim Keller's book The Meaning of Marriage.

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to speak once of marriage. We've given away the secret of marriage and discussed its essence. But what is it all for? What did Jesus design marriage to do?

II.

To find the answer, let's go back to the beginning. In the beginning God created the world in six 24-hour days. On Day Six, He said, “Let Us make man in Our own image.” Who is the Us? To Whom is He talking?

The Us is the Trinity, our Three-in-One God—the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit. They reveal Their desire to make a holy man.

Through the inspired pen of Moses, we get an insight into how we were designed. The Persons of the Trinity love and honor each Other in a perfect relationship. They always speak of the Others as the most important and precious. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that, among other things, being created in God's image means that we were designed for relationships, where each person loves and honors the other. (Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, page 111)

Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. . . . Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.” . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said:

This one, at last, is bone of my bone

and flesh of my flesh;

this one will be called “woman,”

for she was taken from man.

(Genesis 2:7,18,21-23)

“At last!” said Adam. He's no longer alone. You might point out that Adam wasn't alone because God was there. But it is God who pointed out that Adam was alone in the first place. From His own words, God reveals to us that He designed man to need relationships with other human beings. The poet John Donne wrote (Meditation XVII):

No man is an island,

Entire of itself

God did not design us to be alone.

III.

We need relationships. You have many of them. And some of them are friendships. There are some friends who are friends because they have common interests. Other friendships are based on common beliefs. Perhaps the best relationships, especially marriages, are the ones that share the same interests and the same confession of Christ.

In marriage you get to be your spouse's dearest companion and friend. And this means that you are transparent with each other. You are honest with each other by honestly confessing your sins and also lovingly confronting the sins of your spouse.

Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so you also won’t be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

The other part of friendship is constancy. Married friends stick together when parents or children die, when the money is gone or going, when one of you has Alzheimer's.

Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

This is the mission of marriage. God designed marriage to put you into an intimate relationship where you get to see and support your beloved at their worst and at their best. When you see their sin, call them to repent and thank God. When you see their best, rejoice with them and thank God.

On the cross, Jesus was forsaken by God Himself and rejected by all mankind. But so what? At the request of His Father, He gave Himself for us despite us. He put the desire of His Father and our good ahead of Himself.

And this is the secret of marriage: holy Jesus and His bloody cross where He gave up everything for you. This perfect supreme consideration of others ahead of Himself is given to you through the Gospel Sacraments and gives your marriage power. Your promises to Christ and to your spouse to be faithful help you daily in the mission of marriage: to be Christ to your spouse. As Gospel fruit, you consider your spouse as the most important thing and you act and speak accordingly.

Dearly beloved, let us pray.

Eternal Christ, source of Love, help us to fulfill the promises we have made or will make to reflect Your steadfast love in our love for each other. Give us kindness and patience, affection and understanding, happiness and contentment. Use our promises to You and above all, Your promises in the Sacraments to support us in difficult days, that our love for each other may continue to grow for the rest of our lives.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Essence of Marriage

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 18, 2013

Matthew 19:4-9

The Essence of Marriage

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Please turn to page 141 in your hymnal. . . . On the bottom of the page, read the marriage vows.

Adam, will you take Eve to be your wife? Will you be guided by the counsel and direction God has given in His Word and love your wife as Christ loved the Church? Will you be faithful to her, cherish her, support her, and help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?

To whom is Adam answering? Not to Eve, but to the pastor. And to whom is Adam making his promise? Not to the pastor, but to Christ Jesus.

Many couples write their own marriage vows. Many of them say something along the lines of “I love you, and I love being with you.” These homemade vows made between human beings declare love that already exists. Vows made to God make promises about the future.

II.

When you first fall in love, you think you love the person, but you don't really. You can't really know who the person is right away. That takes years. You can love your idea of the person—and you'll always find out that you didn't really know them. When you date and marry someone, you're dating and marrying a stranger.

So the promises that you make should be promises to love that stranger, instead of simply proclaiming love for a beautiful idea on a beautiful day in a beautiful place.

III.

Many reject vows and marriage altogether. Many dismiss marriage as restrictive and harmful. Limiting love to a particular type of romantic feeling, they say,

Why do we need a piece of paper in order to love one another? I don't need a piece of paper to love you! (Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, page 77)

This kind of “love” is measured by how emotionally desirous someone is for someone else's affection in the moment. Modern people think of love in such subjective terms that if there is any duty involved, it is considered bad.

For example, Pastor Keller notes that the modern of view of intimacy assumes that each partner is in the mood. It also assumes that sex is always for your own benefit; if you don't feel like it, it would be dishonest to yourself.

So love is often reduced to sex, and when the bedroom fails to entice, then the love is gone.

IV.

The essence of marriage is not romantic passion, but the promise of future faithfulness. Marriage is a promise.

When marriage is a promise to Christ to be faithful to your spouse, to cherish her, to support her, and to help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live, then you have the foundation for a healthy marriage and . . . romantic love.

Here's the thing. The modern world demands that romantic love is something that must completely unforced. It must happened spontaneously. But Pastor Keller points out that intense desire for someone else simply can't last. Then we will need to find a new person to awaken the joy of romantic desire in us. Therefore, the argument goes, lifelong marriage is the enemy of romantic love.

But in truth, the only way for you to be truly free is to link your feelings to a promise. You promise to love your spouse, day in and day out, maintaining your promised love for them when it is not thrilling to do so. You are considering them as most important.

And acts of love lead to feelings of love. Author C. S. Lewis put it well.

[T]hough natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. . . . The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. . . . [W]henever we do good to another [person], just because it is a [person], made (like us) by God, and desiring [their] own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love [them] a little more, or, at least, to dislike [them] less. . . . The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1996, pages 116-117)

V.

So when St. Paul says, “Husbands ought to love their wives,” he isn't saying that they have to feel a certain romantic feeling toward their wives. He is saying that they ought to serve them with consideration and with deeds. In every marriage there are dry spells when there isn't much goodwill to go around. But instead of feeling entitled to bail out of the marriage through sinful divorce or by selfish isolation, do acts of love. Despite your lack of feelings or even hostile feelings, love your enemy.

We always think of “loving your enemy” as though it is limited to the bully at school or the enemy soldier in war. Broaden your definition to include your spouse and you will find out what true love is. When you wait to feel a certain way about your spouse before you act, you seldon do. But when you act in love toward them despite your feelings, affection frequently grows over time. This is true of parents' love for their children; it's true for spouses as well, just like you promised.

This pattern is throughly Christian. He lived and died for His enemies and by acting made you His friend. Go and do likewise: husbands, love your wives.

No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. This is what I command you: Love one another. (John 15:13-17) . . .

. . . and be faithful to her, cherish her, support her, and help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Power for Marriage

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

August 11, 2013

Romans 15:1-2

The Power for Marriage

In the name of Jesus.

Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves. Each one of us must please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. (Romans 15:1-2)

I.

St. Paul tells you to think of others first. This is especially true of your spouse. But you don't. All too often when it would benefit you to be kind to your spouse, you aren't.

Remember that wonderful description of that good wife from Proverbs? That wonderful wife can be rather depressing. Who can measure up to that wise woman who sacrifices for others? Who truly pleases his wife for her good and builds her up?

Since the answer is clearly no one, you must ask yourself why not, and especially, why not me?

II.

A pastor once recounted a story about he and his wife and three sons were visiting friends in New England. He was hoping that at some point during the trip, his wife would read his mind and suggest that he should pop over to the nearby seminary bookstore. But she never did and he didn't bring it up. Pretty soon he was imagining that she did know how badly he wanted to go to the bookstore, but she was refusing to let him go!

After a grumpy day feeling sorry for himself, the pastor finally told his wife that he really wanted to go to the bookstore. When she found out why he was acting grumpy, she was unhappy, too, and said,

“Yes, [you going to the bookstore] would have been inconvenient for me, but I would have loved to have given you that freedom. I never get a chance to give you gifts, and you're always helping with something. You denied me a chance to serve you!” (The Meaning of Marriage, page 55)

The pastor was taken aback and had to stop and think. He realized that he didn't want to be served. He didn't want to be in a position where he had to ask for something and receive it as a gift. He only wanted to serve his wife because that made him feel in control. Then he would have the high moral ground. But that kind of “selflessness” wasn't selfless at all—it was just manipulation, so that he could get his own way because he loved himself.

III.

Love of self prevents you from serving your spouse. Self wants to be happy. Instead of carefully considering what is best for the other people around you, especially your spouse, you expect them to carefully consider how to make you happy. If they make you happy, then perhaps you'll repay their kindness. But when they don't (and they mostly don't), you become impatient, irritable, snippy, rude, grumpy, and filled with self-pity, and thinking about all the ways in which your spouse has failed to make you happy.

But here's the problem, as you see it.

“If I put the happiness of my spouse ahead of my own needs—then what do I get out of it?” The answer is—happiness. That is what you get, but a happiness through serving others instead of using them, a happiness that won't be bad for you. It is the joy of giving joy, from loving another person in a costly way. (Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, page 58)

Serving others, especially your imperfect spouse, is a fruit of repentance. Consider again the secret of marriage.

IV.

The secret is Jesus and His relationship to the Others, His Father and His Spirit. God is three distinct Persons, yet one God. Within this Trinity, the Father honors and loves the Son and Spirit, the Son honors and loves the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit honors and loves the Father and the Son. So there is an “other-orientation” (Keller, page 59) within the very being of God Himself. In Jesus you see how true and lasting happiness comes from serving and honoring the Other. When the Son of God went to the cross, He was simply being Himself by honoring the will of His Father.

Before He died Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Father, the hour has come.

Glorify Your Son

so that the Son may glorify You,

for You gave Him authority over all flesh;

so He may give eternal life

to all You have given Him.

This is eternal life:

that they may know You, the only true God,

and the One You have sent—Jesus Christ.

I have glorified You on the earth

by completing the work You gave Me to do.

Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence

with that glory I had with You

before the world existed. (John 17:1-5)

On the cross, He cried out,

And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.” Saying this, He breathed His last. (Luke 23:46)

You have been made in God's image. And even though you are corrupted by sin, we still cannot escape that God designed you to be oriented to the happiness of others. By nature you love to love yourself, but this will only lead you, ultimately, into misery.

[Jesus] told a parable to those who were invited, when He noticed how they would choose the best places for themselves: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t recline at the best place, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place.

“But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:7-11)

V.

But you always think, “You first!” Your spouse should change first. They should apologize first. They should be humble first. And this is what your spouse is also thinking. How do you break this stalemate of personal exaltation?

It only takes one to begin healing. As a fruit of faith it begins when you decide that your selfishness is the thing that you are going to work on.

Why do you look at the speck in your [spouse's] eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3)

What will happen if you refuse to conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2) and instead carefully consider the needs of your spouse as greater than your own? Perhaps nothing. But perhaps something. Usually there is not much immediate response from the other side. But often, over time, your attitude and behavior will begin to soften your spouse. It may be easier for your spouse to admit their faults because you are no longer always talking about them yourself.

IV.

There are two ways of love. A poet once described them.

Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a heaven in hell's despair.

Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And build a hell in heaven's despite.

(From William Blake's “The Clod and the Pebble”)

It is possible to be “madly in love” with someone, but that is mostly an attraction to someone who can meet your needs and address the insecurities and doubts that you have about yourself. You love them because they get you. But if that is as far as it goes, your relationship will result in you demanding and controlling your so-called “beloved.”

The way to true love in marriage is to run to the ultimate Lover of your soul. He carefully considered the needs of all others, including you, to be greater than His own. Therefore, at the will of His Father, He sacrificed Himself for your happiness and truly built a heaven in hell's despair. Refreshed with His blood and promises, you have been set free to give yourself in loving service to your beloved.

We love—because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Secret of Marriage

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

August 4, 2013

Ephesians 5:25-26

The Secret of Marriage

In the name of Jesus.

I.

There have been many great marriages in the Bible. Adam and Eve. Abraham and Sarah. Moses and Zipporah. All these couples had strong marriages, but none of them had smooth sailing. Eve ate the fruit; Adam silently ate it, too (Genesis 3). Abraham pretended to not be married to Sarah when it was convenient (Genesis 12; 20); Sarah laughed at God (Genesis 18). Moses failed to circumcise their son, so Zipporah had to man up and do it herself (Exodus 4).

These are some of the great Christians of the Bible, but their marriages were far from perfect. I hope this is encouraging for you—these great heroes struggled in marriage just as you do. But they struggled within marriage, not outside of it.

This tells us that marriage can be mysterious and overwhelming. And that we need it, whether married or not.

This month I'll be talking about marriage. And this discussion is for all of us, whether you're married or not. Today I want to lay the foundation for everything else I'm going to talk about in the coming Sundays: the secret of marriage.

II.

What is the secret of marriage? There are lots of answers to this important question, many of them based on bad information and false assumptions.

In 2009 a young man announced online that he was never going to marry because he saw too many unhappy married people. A woman who agreed him replied, “Out of 10 married couples … 7 are miserable … I'm getting married next year because I love my fiance. However, if things change, I won't hesitate to divorce him.”

To many, both young and old, the secret to marriage is a consistent level of happiness and love. They want a spouse who is fun, intellectually stimulating, sexually attractive, and with many common interests. They also want their future spouse not to try and change them.

Due to this unrealistic view, that your future soul mate exists and that she will be perfect, many today are naturally scared of marriage and this leads to waiting a very long time to get married, not getting married at all, or getting married a lot. People are picky and expect way too much from marriage and from their future spouse. But it didn't always used to be this way.

III.

Think of cultures that still arrange marriages. As enlightened modern people, we are somewhat horrified that this still happens. We think, “Hasn't anyone told them that you should only marry because you are in love?” But our attitude is a relatively new one. The long-held view of marriage is that it was a lasting bond between a man and wife where children could thrive.

But this view has been gobbed up by the “enlightened” view that personal freedom and fulfillment are the most important things in life. Instead of finding freedom through self-denial, by giving up one's freedoms, marriage had been redefined as a means to finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and satisfaction. Now people marry for themselves.

New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope is quite honest about how the happy marriage is the “Me” marriage.

The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first? Not anymore. For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting … [who] help each of them attain valued goals.

Pastor Tim Keller of Manhattan sums it well: “Marriage used to be about us, but now it is about me” (page 29).

The truth is you never marry the right person. No two people are compatible. We always marry the wrong person. We'll speak more to this liberating truth later in the month. But for now “wrong person” means that in marriage you discover that you've married a stranger. You learn after the honeymoon that this person is different from the one you dated. And now you'll spend the rest of your life in close personal contact with this stranger. You'll see their flaws, their quirks, their sin. You'll see it all—and they'll see you in all your sinfulness, too.

IV.

Now there is Someone who knows the real you. He's seen your ugly heart and evil desires, and yet He still wants to know you. Indeed, He already has sacrificed everything to be the Bridegroom. He has sacrificed Himself for you and your spouse. And His name is Jesus.

Jesus is the secret of marriage. He is the foundation of your marriage, because He has washed you and your spouse clean through holy-worded water at the start of your life and with the drinking of His perfect blood week after week.

Your marriage is an expression of the great Marriage between Christ, the Bridegroom, and His holy Bride, the Church, of which you are part.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. (Ephesians 5:25-26)

Because He died and lives again, your marriages have hope, because you don't have to hope in yourself or in your spouse, but in your ever-faithful and loyal Savior Jesus.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen.