How To Get A Better Spouse

Have you ever dreamed of having the perfect spouse? By perfect I don’t mean having movie star good looks. That would be nice, but those looks don't last all that long. And there are other things much more important. I mean, to have a spouse who deeply cares for you, is devoted to you, who is really on your side, who really, really loves you. And I don’t think we want a doormat, somebody who will just always agree with you or give in to you. A perfect spouse ought to be a bit of a challenge to you, so that together you bring out the best in each other. Have you ever dreamed of having a perfect spouse? What would it be worth to you to have a spouse like that? How much money? How much effort on your part? How much work would you do to get a spouse like that?

I think it is God's will for everyone to be aiming for a perfect spouse. Our text for this morning is Paul's instructions to husbands for getting a perfect wife. But the same instructions apply for wives to get perfect husbands, and can be useful for parents to have perfect children and anyone to have perfect neighbors.

This morning we will continue looking at the instructions to husbands and wives given by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. Last week we looked at his advice for making decisions together. Many people think Paul was talking about men just running everything, and a lot of women cringe inside when they hear Paul's words and remember times when they were mistreated. But if you read and digest the whole passage you will see that Paul had something much more profound in mind than that. But that was last week’s sermon and if you weren’t here, I invite you to get a printed copy from the display in the narthex.

So how do you get a perfect spouse? I haven’t yet found a catalog that has them for sale. And if I ever did find a perfect potential spouse available on the market, they probably wouldn't put up with me. Paul tells us that the way to get a perfect spouse is to love the one you have.

Now hear the words of the Apostle Paul from Ephesians 5:25-33. The passage is printed in your bulletin so that you can have it open in front of you if you like.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind-- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.”

How are husbands supposed to get perfect wives? Four times Paul repeats it, husbands love your wives. And I think the same word goes to wives for their husbands.

And I think we'd better take a moment to talk about love here. What is love? In our movies and TV shows we often talk about love as sexual attraction. We might say we love someone when we mean that they arouse pleasant romantic feelings inside of us. Is marriage a matter of finding someone to sexually please you? That's an important part of it, but if we haven't learned to go beyond "what is pleasing to me" we aren't ready for marriage. Sometimes you hear someone talking about an ex-spouse in terms like, she just didn't meet my needs, or he just didn't make me happy. But a marriage focused on what I can get isn't going to last through the times of testing at all.

Sometimes people see marriage as a partnership. Once I was talking to one of the groomsmen before a wedding. He told me that out of his group of 6 friends, who had been married in recent years, three were already divorced. But he said that he and his wife were doing well. They had paid off their car payments. They had a good start on paying off their home. And their credit card balances weren't too bad. But is that the measure of a good marriage? An economic partnership? Marriage is an excellent economic unit. I hurt for people trying to make it as single parents. But marriage needs to be much more than an economic partnership.