How can I improve my marriage?

Introduction

If you would be turning in your Bible tonight to Genesis chapter 1. Just a moment we’re going to begin in that text. I read an online survey a few months ago that posed this question to married couples. They ask, is your marriage in a rut? If somebody asked you that question, how would you answer? Is your marriage in a rut? Well, 75% of the people who responded to this survey said, Yes, my marriage is in a rut. Same online survey asked people this question. Are you happily married? Now, where do you think that’s going based on the previous one? Well, 28% of the people said yes. That doesn’t sound very good, does it? However, I was interested to find that only 21% said no, which sort of left me wondering where everybody else was.

Forty-one percent in the survey said, Well, it depends on what day you ask me. Well, you can make what you will of those numbers. Someone may well be inclined to say that people who would even respond to a survey like this are probably unhappy in their marriage anyway, and so maybe that skews the numbers to the negative side, and that may be so. But ladies and gentlemen, with four out of ten first-time marriages ending in divorce, it does appear that America is not a country that is just overflowing with marital bliss. And Proverbs 5 and verse 18, by contrast. Solomon urged his son to rejoice in the wife of your youth. And in verse 19, he would say, be intoxicated always with her love. We start out that way, don’t we?

Can you remember back to those dating years when you first fell in love with each other? Back to the time when you both could spend hours and hours talking on the phone with each other and saying absolutely nothing. Remember that? And arranging your schedule so that if there were any way possible on the earth for the two of you to be in the same place at the same time, you would make it happen. And when you couldn’t make it happen, and for whatever reason you had to part company and go in different directions, how your heart would ache and you would miss each other. Do you remember that? What happens to us? Someone says, come on, David, we grow up. That’s what happens to us. And I certainly think there’s a sense in which that is true.

I think marriage love needs to grow and mature and become something more than childless infatuation. And I think when it does, that is a good thing. But may I also suggest that I think there is something that happens to us over the years that isn’t so good. We get caught up in the business of daily living. Maybe it starts with us getting focused on our career and making our way in our chosen profession and being successful with that. And that requires an investment of our time and energy. And so we think about that during those early years of marriage. And then maybe after that we buy that first house. Do you remember your first place? It was a dump, and you thought it was a mansion, right?

I mean, it may not have looked very pretty, but it was your place. Just the two of you. And you were going to take it and make it into your dream home. And so there was time and energy invested into that. And then you know what’s coming next, don’t you? And you have kids. And all the time we begin to invest in them, changing diapers, Josh. I said that for Jana. Going to the backyard and playing ball and playing in the sandbox and then their little league ball games and piano recitals and then all the stuff that goes on when they get into school. But do you know what happens along the way is we get caught up in all this business of daily living? The relationship that is at the core of it all.

That relationship gets neglected. We stop working on our marriage because we are working on so many other things. Does that happen to you? In fact, I think sometimes we just assume the marriage. We’re going to be together. It’s going to be alright. I don’t have to be concerned with that. I need to give my attention to all these other things. Sometimes folks will come by when they’re struggling in their marriage. And they’ll talk to us about that. And when they do, one of the first things I always try to ask, right at the very start, I’ll try to ask the couple, when is the last time the two of you have been on a date together? Just the two of them. And I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, without exception.

Every time someone’s struggling in their marriage, and you ask them that question, guess what they say? They say, I can’t remember the last time we’ve spent any time with each other like that. I think it’s a symptom of the problem. There is a danger in all of that. We can neglect our marriage for a while, but folks, it’s sort of like neglecting the warning signs that you’ve got termites in your house. You don’t have to pay attention today, but there’s a crisis coming. In time it catches up with us. And I think that happens with our marriages. Even marriages that don’t end in a crisis of divorce, still often leaving their wake too deeply disappointed and unsatisfied people, far from what Solomon talked about in Proverbs 5 in verse 18 and 19, where he said, be intoxicated always with her love.

Where is that? What do we do about that? I want to suggest for your consideration tonight that one of the keys to building a long-lasting, healthy marriage, satisfying marriage, is to learn to see our marriage from God’s perspective. To see marriage as he sees it, which is why I invited you to Genesis. I said chapter one. I really wanted you in chapter two, so skip over a chapter with me. I think those of us who participate in this covenant must bear in mind that all of this originated with God. In Genesis chapter 2 and verse 18, you will notice that it is God who said, it is not good for men to be alone. And in verse 21, it was God who caused the deep sleep to fall upon the man, and it was God who took the rib and closed up the flesh at that place.

Verse 22, it was God who fashioned that ribbon to a woman, and it was God who brought her to the man, and it was God who at the very beginning joined together the first man and the first woman. Marriage was not the invention of culture. It’s not that somewhere along in our development we decided that this would be a good arrangement. It was at the very beginning that the God of heaven said, This is what works, this is what’s good. He brought together the first man and first woman. And I tell you why that’s important. It is important because it tells us where we need to go and where we need to look to find the help to make our marriage what it ought to be.

And it is not on Amazon.com. And it’s not in the marriage section at the local bookstore. Listen, there’s some good books that have been written about the marriage relationship. I’m not trying to down all of them. They’re just not as good as this book. And it seems to me that a lot of people today are looking at the will and the advice and the counsel of a psychologist before going to the counsel of the creator and the originator. And that’s a much better source. Wouldn’t you agree? And so if we want to be successful in our marriage and make it all that it is supposed to be, what we need to do is to start looking at it again through God’s eyes and understand what it is that He thinks marriage ought to be.

1. God Sees Marriage as an Enduring Relationship

And I think once we get a handle on that, we’ll be better equipped to make our marriages what they ought to be. And so I want to talk to you a little while for a bit for a little while tonight about that. How does God see marriage? There are three things I want you to notice with me in the lesson tonight. Let’s begin with this number one. Appreciate that God sees marriage as an enduring relationship. I might add, much in contrast to the way many in our culture see marriage today. You know, for several years, the idea of issuing couples renewable marriage licenses has bounced around on the fringes of our culture. Some people believe that we ought to make marriage licenses like driver’s licenses. You know, they don’t give you one for a lifetime, do they?

You get a driver’s license, and maybe it’s good for two years or five years, but at the end of that period, what do you have to do? You’ve got to go and renew it. And some have said, you know, we ought to make marriage licenses that way. Rather than making them last for a lifetime, we ought to make them renewable. Maybe we’ll give them for two year periods. And then at the end of the two year period, when your license comes up for renewal, you can decide, well, we’ll go down and renew it again, or maybe they could set up a website so we can just go online and do it. Or maybe we’ll decide we’ve had enough of this and it hadn’t worked out so well, and we’ll just decide not to renew.

Some have argued that it’s a whole lot cheaper than getting a divorce. In fact, I’m convinced that some guy who’s been through an expensive divorce probably originated this idea. And others have, others have reasoned that it’s just more realistic in light of what happens in the culture. With so many people getting divorced, wouldn’t it just be easier to give them a renewal period so if they get there, they don’t have to go through a messy divorce. They can just not renew and move on. You know what fundamentally underlies that? It is the idea that we ought to stop seeing marriage as permanent and endure. And the problem with that idea is it just is fundamentally opposed to what God had in mind. He demands so much more.

And the truth is, you and I promised a whole lot more than that. Do you remember your wedding vows? That stuff you said at the ceremony, it took a year to plan for and 20 minutes to execute. You remember what you said to each other on that day? Did it sound something like this? I promise to take this one to become my lawful wedded companion, to love, honor, and cherish in sicknesses and health and adversity, as in prosperity and forsaking all others to become the kind of spouse God wants me to be. Did you say this part at the end? Until death do us part. Did you say that? What does that mean? Ladies and gentlemen, those are more than just traditional words that we recite at a wedding ceremony.

They are a statement of the fundamental principle that comes to us from God about marriage being an enduring relationship. God intended for it to last a lifetime. And that concept is found again and again in his word. Let’s look at some passages together. We’ll begin in Romans chapter 7. In Romans 7 and in verse 2, Paul would write, for the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

He would say a same, a similar thing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7 in verse 39, where he says, A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom to whomever she wishes only in the Lord. What’s the idea in both passages? That we when we come together in marriage, God binds us to one another for how long? Well, what do we say in our vows? Until death do us part. Those aren’t traditional words. They’re expressions of the will of God for this relationship, that it would last a lifetime. It’s what Jesus taught us in Matthew 19 and verse 3. When some of the Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him, the text says, and asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?

Isn’t it interesting? That throughout human history, men have wrestled with this. Verse 4 says, and he answered and said, Have you not read, and by the way, that’s always the answer, is to go back and look at what God said about it. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And by the way, it’s interesting that he’s going back to the beginning, to what God’s will has been all along. Made them male and female, verse 5 and said, For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

That’s God’s will. That two people would enter this covenant and stay with each other for a lifetime. And listen, God gets really unpleasant when people don’t honor his will about that. Israel had a problem with that back in Malachi’s day. Turn back to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 2. And evidently there were people at this time who were frivolously divorcing their wives and marrying others, and I think probably marrying idolatrous women to add insult to injury. God has something to say about that. In Malachi 2 and verse 16, he said, For I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel. And him who covers his garment with wrong, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously.

God says, I hate it. It’s treachery when you do not honor this commitment that you make. See the point. Over and over in God’s word, from the very beginning, the plan has been that one man and one woman would come together in marriage and be married for a lifetime. We didn’t go into this with the intent of giving it a try and seeing how it works out. It was never intended to be an experiment, was it? It was a covenant. And you know we all knew that going in, didn’t we? Everyone goes in optimistically when they stand before God on those days and they make those promises on their wedding day. They’re not just words. They’re the expression of the will of God. They’re promises to Him and to our spouse to build a relationship that will endure.

And may I suggest that periodically, we need to rehearse that ideal with each other. Sometimes I just need to look Heidi in the eye and say to my wife. My plan is for two of us to be married for the rest of our lives. And I need her to say that to me. It’s nice to do that at some quiet, romantic moment when we’re together. But you know, it’s even more important for me to say that to her when she’s made me so mad I can hardly see straight. I know we’re the only married couple that goes through that. But when you get angry with your spouse and you’re in the throes of some conflict, and maybe it’s not one of those that lasts for an hour or two, but maybe a day or three.

That at that moment you need to look into your spouse’s eyes and say, listen, I know we’re going through a rough patch here, and I know we’ve had a hard time. I just want you to understand that we’re going to get this fixed because I promised until death do us part. And I tend to stick with that no matter what problems come up along the way. We need to say that to each other. And we do not ever need to say the other thing. You know what that is. Don’t even put divorce on the table as an option. Don’t even mention it. Husbands, even if you’re just doing it to try to tweak your wife in the middle of a conflict. Don’t say it, don’t do it, don’t even bring it up.

2. A Relationship That Requires an Investment of Labor

Don’t ever discuss it as an option at your place. God intended for marriage to be a relationship that endured, and that’s what we need to make ours. And so let me encourage you, sometime in the next day or two, if you’re married, to find a quiet moment with your spouse when you can look into their eyes. And would you renew that promise with them again, that promise you made on your wedding day. That we’re going to be together all the way to the end. Couples need to do that periodically. We need to see marriage like God saw it, as a relationship that was designed to endure. But there’s something else I want you to notice with me tonight, and that is this. We need to see our marriage as an investment of labor or a relationship that requires an investment of labor.

You know who made me think about that? Now, you’re not going to believe this when I tell you this. I got this idea from Donald Trump. Because you see, several years ago, Donald Trump had divorced one of his many wives, and of course, the media really got interested in that because they’re always interested in really important stuff. And so