The Difference Jesus Makes in Marriage

And today I want to show you how the preeminence of Jesus transforms everything, specifically about marriage. In Colossians 3:18–19. But here’s how I want to start, with some data and with a disclaimer. So first the data. Every survey, statistic, amount of research you could look at makes clear that marriage is under attack from all sides in our culture. And I’m not even talking about the way our country has defied God and the way we have presumed to redefine marriage according to our ideas. So yes, that. And then on top of that, I’m talking about the number of married couples in our country today being lower than essentially any other point in our history. So this is in part due to divorce.

So about half of marriages in the United States today end in divorce. That gives us the third-highest divorce rate among every country in the world behind only Russia and Belarus. But then on top of that, people just aren’t getting married. So this graph from Bowling Green State University illustrates marriage rates continually declining. So this is 1965 here declining all the way to this is like 2021. The difference is stark, hitting historic lows.

And then this graph illustrates the number of 40 year olds in the United States who have never married skyrocketing. So this is about 1980. Ever since then has been shooting straight up people who don’t marry. And then finally this graph shows how people are waiting longer to be married. The blue line is men, the red or pink line is women. And basically around this is around 1960, the low is around women getting married around 20, 21 and men getting married around 23. And then now it is shot up to almost 30 and 28.

I could go on and on and on, including the number of people who are co-habitating instead of marrying, the continually decreasing number of people who think marriage is helpful for society, and the continually increasing number of people who think marriage is basically becoming obsolete today in part because it doesn’t seem that appealing. I think it was comedian Chris Rock who said, “Do you want to be single and lonely or married and bored?” So those are your choices. So that’s the data.

Now, this is the disclaimer. In light of all that data, I fully realize that this gathering today with thousands of people in different locations and online, that every one of us has unique and different experiences when it comes to marriage. So it’s likely that the minority of people in this gathering are actually married. And for some of you, you’re happily married, others of you are unhappily married, and some of you are somewhere in between.

The majority of people in this gathering are likely unmarried. Either you’re divorced or you’ve never been married for a number of reasons, or maybe your spouse has gone on to be with the Lord. And some of you have a desire to be married, others of you don’t have that desire. Some of you, maybe many, have been hurt deeply in marriage. And we haven’t even talked about the marriages or the lack thereof that have shaped your life and family when it comes to your mom and your dad and marriage or divorce in your family.

So all of this means, one, that this message is applicable to everybody today because all of our lives are affected by marriage or lack thereof in some way. So don’t tune out. For example, if you’re not married or maybe you’re a teenager and marriage is just not on your radar right now because marriage or lack of marriage affects all of us now and in the future. And then two. So [inaudible 00:05:16] my disclaimer, all this means there is no way I can speak today in a way that applies God’s word to every single person’s specific life circumstances. This is yet another reason why we need the Holy Spirit and prayer and the help of wise loving brothers and sisters in Christ in our lives to help us apply God’s word to our lives.

So I’m about to show you an awesome, beautiful, completely counter-cultural, supernatural picture of marriage in the Bible. And whether you’re married or not, this is a word we all need to hear and to heed to process… So I’m going to give you a couple of takeaways for all of us at the end to process first and foremost with God in prayer and then in community with other brothers and sisters in Christ. So we’re only going to look at two verses. We knew when we were talking about going through this series when we got to these verses, we wanted to camp out on this critical topic of marriage and just soak in every single word that God says in Colossians about it. So without further ado, Colossians 3:18–19, this is the word of God.

Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. And that’s it. Paul, who’s writing this, takes two short, terse sentences to set down a counter-cultural marriage bomb and then he just moves on. So we’re going to pause today and let these words detonate in our minds and our hearts and totally transform our perspective on marriage in a way that just I know is already happening is going to go totally against the grain of this world and the way this world has wired us to think.

So let’s listen to God. Let’s ask the question, what is God saying here? Not what’s the world saying, not even what I’m saying, what is God saying here? And you check everything I’m saying based on what I show you in God’s word here. So soaking it in. We got two groups of people that God is obviously speaking to here too, wives and husbands, and he gives them both a positive command, wives submit, and husbands love. And then he adds a negative command for the husbands, don’t be harsh.

But before we get to these commands, we need to soak in these words right in the middle, as is fitting in the Lord, because they are the key to the whole passage. So this word fitting carries the idea of what’s appropriate or what aligns with or what makes sense for someone who is in the Lord. And what the Bible is saying is that everything about marriage changes for people who are in the Lord, who are in Christ and Christ is in them. Remember this verse we studied a few weeks ago, Colossians 1:27? “To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

This is what we talked about, how we’re in Christ, Christ is in us. If you were here that Sunday, we use Tupperware. And if you missed it, here’s what the Tupperware meant. So this is you with a smiley face. It’s you. And the Bible talks about how as a follower of Jesus, God puts his Spirit in you, Christ in you. And then Colossians 1:27 we just looked at, describes how you are in Christ, and then Colossians 3 talks about how Christ is in God. And so remember we talked about, this is not like a picture of the Trinity, it’s not a theological statement I’m trying to make, it’s just Tupperware that is intended to give you a picture of your identity, who you are as a follower of Jesus. You have Jesus in you, you’re in Jesus, in God. This is secure foundation for who you are. So that’s the picture we talked about a few weeks ago in Colossians 1.

Then I started thinking as I’m meditating on this text, what happens when you have somebody else who’s in the same state you’re in and you get together? That’s power couple right there. This is two people, Christ and them, and in Christ and in God. That changes everything about when those people get together, get married, then you got these two people over here. So these two people, they don’t have the same solid face, but anyway. They don’t have Jesus in them, they’re not in Christ. They get together. This marriage looks very different from this marriage. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. It’s just Tupperware. I thought of this last night and this morning, so I hope this is communicating in some way. So I was at Target this morning, but anyway.

This is a picture of how Jesus… Let me show it to you, let me show it to you in God’s word, how Jesus transforms everything about marriage. So as is fitting in the Lord, as I was studying this last couple of weeks, this text, there was one Bible commentary that used a variety of words that start with P to describe the difference Jesus makes in marriage. And so I’m just going to make that my own. Think about this. If you’re in the Lord, you have marriage, you’re in the Lord, that means, one, there is a new presence in marriage. You have Jesus at the center of your life, which means that now Jesus at the center of your marriage, you’re not in this thing alone. You’re not in this thing alone. It would not be fitting then to compartmentalize your relationship with your wife or husband over here and your relationship with Jesus over here. That would make no sense. That’s not fitting. What fits together is Jesus in you, Jesus in them. Together.

So Jesus is present in you and in your marriage. You’re not in your marriage alone, you have Jesus in you. And then you have a new power for a marriage. So if Jesus is in you, that means you have everything in you that you need to love your husband or love your wife well, to care for them, to forgive them, to bear with them, to build them up. You have supernatural power in you for challenges that marriage inevitably brings. Marriage is hard. Don’t amen that too loud if you’re sitting next to your spouse, but we’ll just quietly agree. Yes, it’s hard. It’s not easy. Nobody says marriage is easy. But remember Colossians 1:29? Right after Paul talks about having Christ in him, he says, “For this, I toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” So marriage involves toil and struggle and work. And the beauty is you have power in you, Christ, in you to do this work. It’s all his energy powerfully working within you.

You have power in you not just to work for marriage, but to thrive in marriage because you’re in the Lord. Power. And then you have a new purpose in marriage. With Jesus in you, your marriage is not just about fulfilling your desires or dreams or accomplishing your plans or achieving your ambitions. Look at Colossians 3:17, which we looked at last week. “Whatever you do in word or deed, in everything, do everything whatever,” it includes marriage, “In the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him.” You have a purpose to exalt the name of Jesus in your marriage. The theme verse that Heather and I chose for our marriage 25 plus years ago from the beginning, read at our wedding, we’ve come back to it over and over and over again, is Psalm 34:3, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Let’s do this together.”

This is where we realize, okay, very different from the world. World says marriage is for self-gratification. No, the Bible says marriage is for God glorification. And the beauty is it’s in glorifying God together that you’re most satisfied together. Win-win. And this is the purpose of marriage, to exalt Jesus. And how do we do that? By helping each other become like Jesus. This is so important. This is where Christian marriage realizes there is no perfectly compatible person for us on the planet. So stop looking for the perfectly compatible person. Again, don’t amen too loud if you’re sitting next to your spouse, but the reality is there’s not a perfectly compatible person out there just waiting for you. Instead, there are just a bunch of sinful options to choose from.

We don’t think about this. How many wives lean over to their husbands on their honeymoon and whisper softly in their ears, “I’m a really big sinner and you have me for life”? It doesn’t get the romance going, but it’s true biblically. I hate to break it to you, but according to the Bible, so marriage is the uniting. Think Romans 3. “Nobody righteous, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongue practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace, they do not know.” No wedding song has been built on that particular text. Let’s pause at this wedding while we reflect on the depravity of this man and woman.

I’m joking, but here’s why this is so important. You don’t get a finished product when you enter into marriage. You get a person in need of sanctification. And if Christ is in you and Christ is in them, then your purpose in each other’s lives is to do what? Complete each other, fulfill each other’s desires? No, your purpose is to help each other become like Jesus because he is the one in whom completion is truly found. He is the only one who can fulfill our every desires. So marriage has a purpose to point us each other to Jesus. I love Tim and Kathy Keller’s book, The Meaning of Marriage. So helpful.

I would highly recommend it for singles and married. But at one point they just talk about this idea and the takeaway is, and when I think about my marriage to my wife, my goal is whenever the Lord brings one, both of us home, that I will be able to present my wife as an offering of the Lord, just looking more like Jesus as a result of my influence in her life as her husband. This is the purpose of marriage, to help your wife, your husband, become more like Jesus. It’s fitting for those who are in the Lord.

Then the last P here is you have a new pattern for marriage, and this is where I want to take you very briefly to Ephesians 5. So if you have a Bible and you want to turn there, it’s just two books to the left. Ephesians 5 is essentially the longer form version of what we’re reading in Colossians 3. So Ephesians 5, the same author, Paul, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit basically elaborates on what Colossians 3 is saying, and he gives context for these commands to submit and love, context that is so extremely important. So I’m just going to read it and then make one big picture comment on it.

So starting in Ephesians 5:22, so, “Wives submit.” There it is, same words as Colossians 3. “To your husbands, your own husbands as the Lord.” Is this fitting in the Lord? Sounds very similar. But then he elaborates, “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 everything to their husbands.” That’s interesting. So they’re starting to get the idea that there’s a similarity here between a husband and a wife and the church and Jesus. Now we keep going. “Husbands love your wives,” same words as Colossians 3. He elaborates, “As Christ loved the church.” Christ, church, “Gave him 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, husbands love their wives as their own bodies, he loves this wife, loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church,” because we’re members of his body. Then listen to this, this is so big. Verse 31, “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, I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church. “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Do you see what’s happening here? Paul is quoting in verse 31 from Genesis 2:24, second book in the Bible from the very beginning to say that when God created male and female, man and woman, and brought them together in marriage, he was designing marriage the way he did for a reason.

Think about it, wasn’t just haphazard. God didn’t have to create a male and female. He didn’t have to create this distinction in gender. And he didn’t have to form us to fit together in a one flesh union called marriage, it would lead to babies. He didn’t have to do that, but he did that for a reason. And this passage is saying, “From the very beginning of time, God designed a man and a woman to come together in marriage.” Why? To be a picture of Jesus and his love for the church, his people. And this is how we know that this language about submission, and leading, loving is not just cultural to the first century. “Oh, that must be the way they did things 2000 years ago. We’ve clearly progressed beyond that today.” No, God designed it this way from the beginning of time, to persist throughout time for a purpose.

God designed husbands to love their wives, lay down their lives to love and serve and lead them so that the world would see a picture of how Jesus loves and lays down his life to love and serve his church. And God designed wives to respect their husbands and to submit to their loving leadership so that the world would see in this picture in marriage how the church gladly submits to the loving leadership of Jesus. Marriage is a portrait of the gospel painted on the canvas of human history where wives give a picture of the church to the world and husbands give a picture of Jesus to the world. This is awesome. According to God’s design from the start.

So now when we come back to Colossians 3 and you’re in the Lord, you have an entirely new… Here it was. You have an entirely new pattern for your marriage. A marriage that is fitting in the Lord is committed to showing the gospel to the world. That’s why we’re together in marriage, we want to show the gospel to the world. So now with that understanding of this phrase, now we’re ready to soak in these commands and to see God’s goodness in them. So let’s do this. Let’s clear this out and think about these words now, instead of balking at them, resisting them, justifying why we would not want to obey what is clear in God’s word, because of how far we think we’ve progressed in the world.

Let this soak in, so wives submit. Let’s think about this word submit because that’s a word and a concept that causes all kinds of thoughts, emotions, reactions in us. So let’s make sure we’re seeing this word the way God intends us to see this word, the way God uses this word all throughout the Bible. So the same word, I’m just going to put some examples up here, the same word is used in 1 Corinthians 15:28 to describe how Jesus in his humanity as God the Son is submissive to God the Father. “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him that God may be all and all.” That phrase, subjected to, is the same word that’s used in Colossians 3:8 to describe how wives submit. So it’s a picture of Jesus in his humanity submitting to God, the Father.

Then back in Ephesians 5, which we read just a minute ago, remember verse 24, it talks about how we as the church, we submit to Christ. So we submit to Jesus. And then just a few verses before that, in verse 21, the Bible talks about how we submit to each other. “In the body of Christ out of reverence for Christ, we submit to one another.” 1 Peter 5 talks about those who are younger in Christ being subject, same word, submissive to elders. Romans 13 talks about how we are submissive to governing authorities that God has put in place for our good. And one more, Luke 2:51 talking about Jesus going down with his parents, he came to Nazareth, and was submissive to them. So Jesus was submissive to his parents.

So this is a common word that we see throughout Scripture that is a really good thing and really brings glory to God. Don’t miss this, submission does not imply inferiority. Jesus in his humanity, God the Son, was not inferior to God the Father. Children are not inferior to parents. We’re not inferior to governing authorities. We’re not inferior to each other submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So we often think of submission as being less than when it’s clearly not according to God. And submission does not mean absolute servitude to whatever somebody in the world may say to do. That kind of authority belongs to God alone.

So here’s how based on Colossians 3:18, all these other passages we’re seeing in the Bible, including Ephesians 5, here’s how I would define this picture of submission that God outlines for wives, and every word here matters. “With equal dignity from the Lord and ultimate submission to the Lord, a wife willingly and joyfully works to affirm and follow the loving leadership of her husband.” Now you check me on this, is this what God’s word is saying? With equal dignity, value worth, no sense of inferiority at all that comes from God himself, with ultimate submission to Jesus himself, a wife should never do anything in marriage that is not fitting in the Lord.

So with equal dignity from the Lord, ultimate submission to the Lord, a wife willingly. So that’s inherent in this word, this is voluntary. It’s not forced. Willingly and joyfully. So I include this word here to go all the way back to Genesis 3 when part of the curse of sin and the fall was a desire to resist God’s design in marriage. Jesus reverses that curse. Christ is now in a wife in such a way that she desires to work, to affirm, and follow the loving leadership of her husband.

And two things I want to point out here. One, we’re about to get to this command, the husband’s right here. I just want to point out though, they go together. This goes with loving leadership of a husband, talking about submission to loving leadership. And then I phrase it this way, works to affirm and follow, because if a husband is not providing loving leadership, say a husband is leading his wife into sin or disobedience to God, or is leading her in a way that does not help her become more like Jesus, then it is absolutely right for a wife to say, “I want to affirm and follow your leadership, I’m committed to doing that as much as I can, but my ultimate submission is to the Lord and I cannot, I will not follow you if you’re leading me away from him. Your responsibility is to lead me to him.” This is Acts 5:29, “We’ve been given this command to obey our governing authorities. But if our governing authorities are leading us to disobey God, we say with Peter and the other apostles, we must obey God rather than men.”

Which leads to a whole host of caveats that could be helpful here. One, this does not mean that a wife never makes a decision in marriage or that a wife gets sidelined in marriage in any way. It does not mean that a husband is smarter than his wife or more gifted than his wife. Many wives are far smarter and far more gifted than their husbands. I can personally testify to this reality. A wise husband will realize that and lean into the strengths of his wife. And this passage does not mean that a wife’s contributions and marriage should be suppressed or stifled in any way. Those contributions should be supported and stewarded to the full.

Again, think the picture, the pattern of marriage here is for a wife to portray the church’s submission to Jesus, his loving leadership. Jesus never stifles or suppresses his children. He doesn’t minimize their gifts or their contributions. He empowers us to thrive with all the grace God’s entrusted to us according to his word, which then leads to this command to the husbands, which was far more counter-cultural and radical in the first century. As the Holy Spirit says through Paul, “Husbands love your wives. Do not be harsh with them. Positively love your wives.” And the word he uses here for love is not eros that we would associate with erotic love, which we rightly associate with marriage, or even philos, the love of a friend, that we would also rightly associate with marriage. Instead, this word is agape.

This selfless, unconditional, loyal, committed, servant-hearted, live for somebody else’s good kind of love that comes from the well of Jesus in the heart of a husband. Husbands, the same love that led Jesus to die on a cross for our sins is the same love that leads you to wake up every morning and die to yourself to live for the good of your wife. That’s what God is saying. In all the ways that God describes this love, we could go so many different places, I’ll reference just two passages. Just let it soak in. First the love, chapter 1 Corinthians 13. This is how God commands husbands to treat their wives. Love, this is agape here.

And God just said, “Husbands, do this with your wives. So husbands, be patient with your wife. Do not be impatient with your wife. Kindness, never be harsh with your wife.” We’ll talk about that more in a minute. “Do not be envious, boastful, proud, or arrogant. Your wife should look at you and see humility all over your life and your relationship with her. Do not be rude to your wife. Never talk down to her or about her. Never shame her. Do not insist on getting your own way. Do not be easily irritated by your wife. Do not let resentment well up in you towards your wife.” This is God speaking, not me. This is God saying, “Husbands, do not rejoice when she’s wrong and you’re right. You rejoice over her good. Bear with her. Believe in her. Hope for her. And endure whatever comes your way with her.” This is agape love and it is what God requires of you as a husband.

And the other place I would go in Scripture is the passage we looked at just last week right before this one where Paul writes these words. Surely they apply to the way husbands are to love their wives. “Put on them as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, have a compassionate heart for your wife. Again, be kind, humble, be meek with your wife, patient. Bear with the things in your wife that you might want to change, realizing she’s bearing with things in you and she might want to change. If one has a complaint against each other, forgiving each other. Forgive your wife when she does wrong,” I love this phrase, “As the Lord has forgiven you.”

That’s what’s fitting in the Lord. If you’re in the Lord, you have power in you to forgive her the way he forgives you. You have power in you to be kind to her the way he is kind toward you, to be patient with her the way he is patient toward you, to bear with her the way he bears with you. Everything he does with you, you have power to do with her. And above all these things, put on love and you’ll never guess what that word is in the New Testament here, agape. Husbands agape your wives and do not be harsh with them. Some translations say don’t be embittered toward them. Just picture any tendency toward or evidence of a bitter attitude or a condemning tone, god says, “Don’t do it. Do not lose your temper with your wife. Do not raise your voice at your wife. Just as Jesus is gentle with you, you be gentle with her.” This is God speaking to husbands right now.

And just like we define submission for wives earlier in this message, here’s a definition of love for husbands. Check it, this is coming straight from God’s word, “With equal dignity from the Lord,” so a husband does this without any sense of superiority. “And ultimate submission to the Lord similarly. And yet husband does this with a clear sense of accountability before God. Husbands are accountable to the Lord for the state of your marriage, the health of your marriage. So toward that end, a husband lays down his life.” Jesus is our example here. Look at the cross, it’s what a husband does. Not just our example, our empowerer, the one who laid down his life lives in us. So we do the same for our wives, showing the world what his love looks like in person as we serve, as we out-serve our wives selflessly and gently.

This is fitting for a husband in the Lord. When you put it all together, this picture, is it not an awesome, beautiful, completely counter-cultural, supernatural picture of marriage? And this picture of marriage, I promise, is not boring. It is awesome. So for this picture of marriage to be clear through the church and our culture today in a way that shines the light of God’s love in Jesus, the gospel, which leads then to two general applications. Now, remember the disclaimer I mentioned earlier. There are literally countless specific particular applications for so many complex situations, and I haven’t addressed so many questions like what do you do when your spouse is an unbeliever, doesn’t have Christ in them, or your spouse is not wanting to walk according to God’s word? And countless other questions that we don’t have time to dive into today, but I want to encourage you to dive into with other brothers and sisters in Christ with God’s word as your guide. Not this world as your guide, God’s word is your guide.

So this is not all, but here are at least two general applications that flow from this text that I hope will be helpful. So one for those who are single and the other for those of you who are married. So first to single brothers and sisters. Promote and pursue marriage that is fitting in the Lord. So one, promote this kind of marriage in every way you can in our culture and in the church. So for couples you know who are married, realize their marriages are under attack. So pray for their marriages, encourage them in their marriages, work to build up their marriages. You are glorifying Jesus by encouraging praying for building up marriages around you. Promote marriage that is fitting in the Lord and pursue it.

And this is where this application goes more particularly towards single brothers as those whom God has designed to have responsibility for leadership in a marriage, which means the initiative is more on you. And if the Lord, I want to be clear, and I’m not minimizing this in any way, if the Lord has called you to singleness in a 1 Corinthians 7 kind of way similar to the Apostle Paul, then by all means steward your singleness for the spread of the gospel in the world, singleness in the Lord, thrive in that way. But if that is not the case, then pursue a sister in Christ who is submitted to the Lord. And just so you know, brothers, there are tons of amazing sisters in this church family. They’re all over this church family.

If the Lord has not called you to sing on this in that way, then I want to encourage you to stop listening to the world and start listening to God’s word. Because this world is telling you to wait, this world is telling you to get a job, to get successful, to get a career, to get this and that worked out. And if a wife comes along, that’s great. God is telling you, “Get a wife and love her like he loves you, and show the world the gospel and the process.” And again, unless the Lord is calling you to stay single, resist. This is regardless. Resist the ever increasing trend and temptation in our day to prolong adolescence into your twenties and thirties.

For some, and I say this with seriousness, I hope pastoral gentleness. For some, it is time to stop playing video games and get a date. For many it’s time to get your eyes off of a screen and onto a sister in Jesus, to stop running after the things this world says to run after and start pursuing marriage. It’s a glorious good. It has been since the creation of the world. So don’t wait for her to ask you out, it’s your responsibility to lead out. If she rejects you, then make that as easy as possible for her. Humbly bow out and look elsewhere. And by all means, do not substitute cohabitation for marriage. This goes totally against God’s design. And do not succumb to sexual immorality. Defiling your sister in Christ or debasing women you don’t even know by gorging your flesh with images of them on a screen. Do not do it. Promote and pursue marriage that is fitting in the Lord.

And then husbands and wives, recommit today to cultivating a marriage that is fitting in the Lord. So if you are married, then today, no matter how healthy or unhealthy your marriage is, recommit today. Not just hearing God’s word, “I’m going to put it into practice. I’m going to work toward, attend, nurture, fight in a good way, bring others alongside me to help me work for a marriage that’s fitting in the Lord.” Wives, recommit to submitting to your husband’s loving leadership. At the same time, husbands recommit to loving your wives selflessly and gently. All of this, singles, husbands, wives, all this so that the gospel might be clear through his church and our culture. There’s a desperate need for this today.

And to clarify, I’ve almost assumed, so for those of you who are visiting with us today the gospel, this is the good news, the greatest news in the world that though we are all sinners before God deserving of his judgment now and for all the eternity, God has come to us in the person of Jesus. Jesus lived a sinless life unlike any of us. And then even though he had no sin for which to die, he chose to die on a cross to pay the price for the sins of anyone who will trust in him. And three days later, he rose from the dead and victory over sin and the grave so that anyone who turns from themselves and their sin and trusts in Jesus will be forgiven of all their sin and restored to covenant relationship with God for all of eternity. Described as a marriage.

When you look at descriptions of heaven at the end of the Bible, it’s described as a wedding feast, as a uniting together with God, our Father, with Jesus. The whole picture of the church is the bride of Christ loved by him. We invite you, we encourage you, urge you, don’t live another day without Jesus in you and you in Jesus, and in relationship with God. And then when you are in relationship with God, if you have Jesus in you, then let Jesus in you transform everything about the way you think about marriage, everything about every facet of your life.

What does the passage say?

1) Read Colossians 3:18–19 aloud as a group. Before interpreting or applying the passage, share observations about it.

1. 1. In the context of today’s passage—
      1. How are the Person and purpose of Jesus Christ described? (Colossians 1:15–20, 2:1–3)
      2. What invitation and encouragement did the Apostle Paul offer to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae? (Colossians 2:6–8, 3:1–2, 12–14, 17)
      3. What provision has the LORD made to enable the believer’s confident acceptance of and surrender to this invitation? (Colossians 2:9-15, 3:3-4)
   2. In today’s passage—
      1. What is the Apostle Paul’s exhortation for wives? Based on the preceding Scriptural context, how is this possible, and why is it important?
      2. What is the Apostle Paul’s exhortation for husbands? Based on the preceding Scriptural context, how is this possible, and why is it important?

2) How would you explain or summarize today’s passage in your own words?

What does the passage mean?

1. Read and consider Ephesians 5:22–33. How does this passage further illuminate your understanding of today’s passage?
2. Read and consider 1 Corinthians 13. What – and Who – enables the love described in this passage to be authentically manifested in a person’s life?
3. What stands out to you most as you read and consider today’s passage as well as the companion passages in Ephesians 5:22–33 and 1 Corinthians 13?

How can we apply this passage to our lives?

1. Where does your image and understanding of marriage come from? How reliably do these sources reflect and reinforce the Biblical picture of marriage?
2. How might relational challenges that you have experienced (or are experiencing) actually be hints of underlying, essential challenges in your relationship with the Lord?
3. How might a believer reliably uncover the deeper concerns that underlie their relational challenges and faithfully overcome them so as to “…walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6–7)?
4. Reconsider the truth that the ultimate purpose of marriage is not self-gratification – it is God-glorification. How might this truth change your perspective on, expectations for, approach to, and/or experience in marriage?
5. Whether you are single or married, what are 2-3 steps God is calling you to take to exalt the glory of Jesus in marriage?

Colossians 3:18–19 (ESV)

Rules for Christian Households

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Sermon Recap

If you are in the LORD, that means you have —

• a new PRESENCE in marriage;
• a new POWER for marriage;
• a new PURPOSE for marriage; and
• a new PATTERN for marriage.

The kind of marriage that is fitting in the Lord is a marriage that is focused on helping each other live in the Lord. The picture of Biblical marriage is this:

• With equal dignity from the Lord and ultimate submission to the Lord, a wife willingly and joyfully works to affirm and follow the loving leadership of her husband.
• With equal dignity from the Lord and ultimate submission to the Lord, a husband lays down his life to serve his wife selflessly and gently.

At least two general applications flow from this text:

• Singles, promote and pursue marriage that is fitting in the Lord.
• Husbands and wives, recommit to cultivating a marriage that is fitting in the Lord.