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Today we kick off our series on “Fireproof” looking at the creation of marriage by God designed to withstand the fire.  But today, I want to look at marriage as God created it and look at his plan for building a solid marriage.  I want to examine several passages that reveal the teachings of scripture and look at what marriage is in the mind of God.

Jack & Judy Balswick in their book The Familydescribe the four theological basis for a marriage. I’ve adapted them here.  They are Christians first and psychologists second and I believe that their teachings will help us to build strong marriages.  God created marriages to be solid.  We must have the four legs of a solid marriage in order to keep our homes strong.

Covenant – “To love and be loved”

1. We see the command to love in Ephesians5:25, “husbands love your wives.”  Are husbands the only ones to love?  No!  In Titus 2:4 Paul encourages older women to teach younger women to “love their husbands.”  Love is a mutual foundation for a marriage!
2. Love is beyond feelings.  I love the quote in the movie where they say, “You can’t follow your heart, you must lead your heart.”  It is so true!  Jeremiahs 17:9 tells us that “the heart is devious above all else.”
3. This love that’s foundational is a love of choice, a committed love, a covenantal love.  In the Old Testament the word for this love was chesed God’s covenantal love – in the New Testament it is agape or unconditional love.  A love that chooses to love for love’s sake.

Grace – “To forgive and be forgiven”

1. Forgiveness is necessary in a marriage because none of us will love perfectly.  We will all require grace (“to be forgiven”) and we must all extend grace (“to forgive”) if our marriages are to work.
2. Christ didn’t die for the church because it was lovable, he died to make it lovable.  We too must die daily in our marriages through sacrifice great and small.  Forgiveness hurts, because it means our rights were violated.  We see this truth in Ephesians 5:25-28.
   1. A note must be taken here on abuse.  Abuse is an immediate time-out, the word is appropriate because the behavior is so childish.
   2. Sometimes the most loving thing is to get help and get away.  So that a time of healing and counseling can occur for the abuser.  But even in abuse and infidelity God’s grace can become our grace and can bring restoration.
3. Grace transforms us as we see the cost of forgiveness and make changes to prevent hurt in the future.

Empowerment – “To serve and be served”

1. Empowerment takes different forms and its motto is to “serve and be served.” Erwin McManus says, “Don’t marry anyone where the joy is not in the serving.”  It is so true!
2. I think what Paul is doing here is reminding us of our mutual obligations and reminding each gender of what is normally the hardest for them to do.  For women, the issue of respect (Ephesians 5:33) seems problematic to Paul.  For men, the issue of loving, caring and nurturing are problematic.  Paul is exhorting us to remain faithful in the difficult task of empowerment.
3. The truth is that in the marital relationship we empower each other as together we fulfill the role of priest.  If according to Ephesians 5 the man represents God to the woman, then 1 Peter 3:7 makes it clear that the woman represent the man before God.  When we understand this and work together to fulfill this very spiritual function then we find our purpose and are empowered to be who God created us to be.
4. What is it with the gender differentiation?  Truthfully God made us different and I don’t fully understand it all.  I agree with C. S. Lewis who wrote, “It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes.” (from C. S. Lewis’ – “Priestesses in the Church?”)

Intimate – “To know and be known”

1. When we think of intimacy we think first of sex.  We’ll spend an entire week talking about that, but sex isn’t the only thing intimacy includes.  Genesis 2:18-25.  Here we see true intimacy and true partnership.
2. It’s in this context of knowing that I think the statements of submission, loving and lordship make sense.  A secular philosopher writes about marriage around the same time as Paul and his language is so close.  I think that Plutarch helps us to understand what intimacy and submission mean, he says this, “Control ought to be exercised by the man over the woman, not as the owner has control over a piece of property, but, as the soul colonists the body, by entering into her feelings and being knit to her through goodwill. As, therefore, it is possible to exercise care over the body without being a slave to its pleasures and desires, so it is possible to govern a wife, and at the same time to delight and gratify her.”  (Available by clicking here in its entirety.)
3. Intimacy is a crucial part in our marriages.  I think we can think of these four legs also as four points like on a compass.  As we travel from one to another we become more deeply connected and as we come to deeper places of intimacy our love and commitment grows.

Incarnational – “To disciple and  be discipled”

1. If all of these things come together and we love with a covenantal love – forgive with divine grace – empower within our God given roles with his Spirit – know each other truly and intimately then our marriages become incarnational.  That is they reveal God to the world!
2. The legs have to be anchored to the table in order to stand and they must be anchored to the right table. I believe that reason God gave us marriage was to teach us about his love.  So when marriages fail it lies to the world by saying, “True love does not exist.”
3. I think the reason we have so many problems with our marriages is because we forget that God gave them to us as object lessons of his love.  If we remember that than forgiveness and submission and empowerment and intimacy come to us naturally!
4. My prayer every night is that God’s love would so fill me and show to my wife and children that Jenny and the kids would learn something about God by the way that I love!  It’s a tall order only accomplishable by God’s grace.

This week’s challenge is to go home and one night as a couple talk about the four legs.  Ask each other questions like, “When do I make you feel loved?” “Do I forgive easily?” “Do I empower you – help you be the best person that you can be?” “Do I know you – am I the closest person to you?”  Set about a task of praying for these qualities in you and your spouse.-
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