Finding Security and Significance
There are a lot of jokes and one-liners about marriage. It’s probably because as beautiful as marriage is, as set forth in the song we just heard, it’s also extremely challenging and can be pretty ugly at times.
It was George Burns who said, “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
Rodney Dangerfield, the man who gets no respect, says, “My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”
And Henny Youngman has said, “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.”
As we continue in our series “Heaven Help the Home,” it’s my prayer that a happy and fulfilling marriage will no longer be a secret, but something that will be both understandable and attainable. Last week we looked at three different stages of marriage:
Romance
Reality
Rethinking
Someone pointed out to me that there is actually one more stage to marriage. Maybe we could call it the recommitment stage. What happens to many people at the reality stage is that instead of rethinking the whole thing, they recommit to their spouse. I should also have mentioned last Sunday that some of you will not go through each of these stages and you don’t have to. I know that I’ve not gone through the rethinking stage and I hope Beth hasn’t either! After 15 years, we’re still in the romance stage, right honey?
I read recently about a golden anniversary party that was thrown for an elderly couple. The husband was very moved by the occasion and wanted to tell his wife what he thought of her. She was very hard of hearing, however, and often misunderstood what he said. With many family members and friends gathered around, he toasted her and said, “My dear wife, after 50 years I’ve found you tried and true!” Everyone clapped for them, but his wife was a little irritated and asked, “What did you say?” So he repeated it again: “AFTER 50 YEARS, I’VE FOUND YOU TRIED AND TRUE!” The wife was now visibly upset and shouted back, “Well, let me tell you something after 50 years I’m tired of you, too!”
Sadly, in our culture today, marriages are under attack. According to James Dobson, 5 out of 10 marriages end in conflict and divorce. And, of the five couples that remain together, only 1 out of 10 will achieve intimacy and oneness in their partnership.
Marriage is a complex relationship, perhaps the most intricate on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, many of us don’t realize this when we say, “I do.” We may think that the dynamics of a good marriage just happen, or depend on some mysterious blend of having the “right” people together. When marriages crumble, we often hear people say that they just must have been “wrong” for each other. More often than not, being right or wrong for someone depends not on some mysterious compatibility quotient, but on how willing and able we are to help meet our spouse’s needs. In other words, spouses need to learn how to serve one another.
Secure and Significant
Larry Crabb, in his excellent book, The Marriage Builder, is troubled by what he sees in many Christian marriages. He starts off by asking a series of questions: “Why are marriages so often filled with tension …and short-lived moments of romance? Why do I sometimes face a problem within my own marriage and, after earnest prayer and brutal self-examination, remain unsure how to respond to my wife in a way that deepens our oneness? Are there real solutions that will develop true intimacy? (Pages 7-8).
I want to attempt to answer some of those questions. In our text for this morning, we will see that the commands of God for spouses are very clear. Husbands are to love their wives and wives are to submit to, and respect, their husbands. Before we get to this however, I want to establish three propositions.
Proposition #1: Our two most basic human needs are for security and significance.
We can define security as an awareness of being unconditionally and totally loved. Significance is the realization that I am valuable and that what I am doing is worthwhile.
These two needs are so important that if a person lacks either one, he or she is unable to function effectively in a marriage relationship. Security is generally of greater importance to women and significance of greater importance to men, but actually both are essential for every one of us.
Proposition #2: Our most basic problem in marriage is that we look to the wrong source for our security and significance.
I would like to suggest that God never intended a wife to find her ultimate security in her husband, nor for a husband to find his total significance through his relationship with his wife I may have inadvertently implied that last week. If we aren’t able to find our foundational security and significance in our partner, where do we find it?
Stay with me on this one because your first reaction may be to roll your eyes. You may think my answer is trite. Here it is: your primary needs can only be met through a relationship with God.
Why do you think the Bible says so much about God’s unconditional love for his people, if it’s not to build into us a sense of security? We are loved by a love that is freely given, that cannot be earned, and can therefore never be lost. If we look to God to meet our basic need for security, then we will not be vulnerable, because He will never fail us. Deuteronomy 33:27 is just one verse that helps us be secure in our relationship with God: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
Why also do you think the Bible says so much about the fact that God is our Creator, that He is active in our lives from the very moment of conception, that He has gifted us, that He has plans for us, and that He desires to use us in various ministries, if it’s not to give us a basic sense of significance? Romans12:4-6: “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to us…”
Because He loves us unconditionally and is the only one who can love us this way He is the only real source of security. And because He created us, gifted us, and called us to serve Him, our basic significance and self-worth must also be found in Him. Friends, these truths can make an incredible impact on your marriage. If I know I am secure and significant already, whether or not I happen to feel it at any moment, then I am free to minister to my spouse without building up walls of protection to avoid being hurt. Nothing my spouse can do or say can destroy my security or my sense of significance.
That leads to Proposition #3: Our most basic responsibility in Christian marriage is to become reinforcers of the security and significance that come from God.
Once we believe, understand, and appropriate these truths, then we are able to reach out in love to our spouse. Listen carefully. While it is true that our basic needs for security and significance are met through our relationship with God it is also true that God normally uses husbands and wives as His principal instruments to develop within each other a conscious awareness of unconditional love and personal worth. While marriage partners cannot add to the fact of one’s security and significance, they can help create an environment where those needs can be met.
Unfortunately, many of us are not reinforcers but rejecters of what God wants to do in our mate’s life. We are so wrapped up in our own feelings, needs, and interests, that we often don’t even consider the needs of our spouse.
Ephesians 5
Ephesians 5, one of the principal marriage passages, says that I am called to minister to Beth by modeling God’s concern for her deepest needs, rather than manipulating her to fit into my own agenda and she is to do the same for me.
In the marriage relationship, it is the husband’s privilege to portray the headship of Christ over the church by his loving and sacrificial leadership. The wife’s privilege is to symbolically represent the church in its submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, its Head. These divinely appointed marital roles serve as symbols of the mysterious and beautiful relationship between Christ and His church.
This is a very intriguing text. Only 3 ½ verses are addressed to wives, while 8 ½ are written to husbands. Verse 21 begins by addressing both spouses: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” It is unacceptable for anyone to exalt themselves as better than others. This is very similar to Paul’s exhortation in Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” We are called to humbly submit to others by focusing on their interests, concerns, and needs.
The methods and roles differ for husbands and wives, but the principle submissive humility is the same for both. We see how these different responsibilities are fleshed out in verses 22-33.
Responsibility of the Wife
This passage teaches that the wife has one primary responsibility and is found in verses 22-24: wives are to submit to their husbands, as to the Lord. This call to submission creates a head-on collision with the beliefs and practices of our culture. Some of you may be tempted to write this off as the ranting of an ancient male chauvinist. Let me remind you that this is how God set it up and there’s really now way to soften it.
It does help however, to realize that the emphasis here is upon the Lord. There are three statements in these verses that serve as guiding principles:
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (verse 21)
“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (verse 22)
“As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (verse 24)
The central and common element in these verses is Jesus. The idea is this: Being devoted to Christ, in a like manner, submit to your husbands. The wife is to be subject to her husband not because he is such a wonderful creature, but because she has a previous and primary relationship with her Lord. What the Lord then asks of her is to yield to her husband. Submission to your husband is to be a reflection and outworking of your submission to Christ.
As we established last week, this is really the fulfillment of Genesis 2:20, where we read that the first wife was created to be a “helper” for her husband. She is not to be in charge, but neither is she to be a slave. Instead, she is to be a loyal helper who willingly submits to her husband out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, how are you doing on this? Are you striving to submit, or striving towards strife?
True submission is not only difficult, it is impossible. Wives, there is no way you can do this in your own strength. This section of Scripture, with its high standards, follows immediately after Paul’s teaching about being filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18: “Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” It is only as the Holy Spirit controls our life that we can have the will and the ability to obey His commands.
The Husband’s Responsibility
Now, it’s the husband’s turn. If wives are to reflect the submission of the church to Christ, what would you expect Paul to command the husbands to do? I would have expected Paul to reason this way: Husbands are to manifest the headship of Jesus Christ over His church, and thus they are to be the spiritual leaders of their wives. If the wives are commanded to submit, then the husbands surely must be instructed to lead. But they are not. Instead of commanding husbands to lead their wives, Paul instructs us to love our wives. Then, as we love our spouse, we can provide servant leadership in our marriage.
Paul’s main point is obvious he repeats the command for husbands to love their wives three times in this passage in verses 25, 28, and 33. I think he wants to make sure we get the message. Here’s the best definition I’ve found on what this kind of love is: “Love that acts for the best good and promotes the well-being of the other person, demanding nothing in return.”
Husbands are to love their wives according to two models, each of which is introduced by the word “as” in verses 25 and 28.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (25)
“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” (28)
I see four duties of husbands in this passage.
1. Love your wives. 5:25a: “Husbands, love your wives…” There is perhaps no word in our language today that needs more interpreting than the word love. It is grossly misused today as it describes everything from sordid passion to patriotic emotion. This passage puts some teeth into love. As in the case of the wife, Paul holds up the example of Christ we are to love our wives as much as Christ loves the church.
2. Give yourself sacrificially to your wife. 5:25b: “…as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Paul does not merely say, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church,” but he goes on to describe what that love looks like: “…and gave Himself up for her.” The husband is not to give in, but to give up to give himself up for his wife, willingly, sacrificially and purposely. Husbands, when is the last time you sacrificed something for your wife? When did you give up? Are you willing to die for her?
3. Aim at making your wife holy. 5:26-27: “To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Fellow husbands, God calls us to love and to lay down our lives so that our wives are propelled toward godly living. One of our key roles is to help our wives reach maturity in Christ, building them up every chance we get. It involves relating to your wife as a sister in Christ, not just as your mate. We need to do whatever it takes to help them grow in purity and godliness, which includes praying with them and opening ourselves up to them spiritually (which is not always easy for me to do).
4. Care for your wife. 5:29: “After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” Just as we feed and care for our own bodies well, most of the time -- we are called to not only provide a positive spiritual environment but to care for our wives physically and emotionally as well.
Husbands, I don’t know about you, but this charter is impossible to completely fulfill in my own strength. Just as wives need to be filled and energized by the Holy Spirit, so too we need His power and strength in order to carry out our responsibilities.
Summary
Verse 33 gives us a good summary of the entire passage: “However, each one of you also must love his wife, as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” I want you to notice that both husbands and wives are to work at fulfilling their responsibilities regardless of how their spouse responds. We can’t say, “When he starts loving me, then I’ll submit to him.” Nor can we say, “When she starts submitting to me, I’ll begin loving her.” Friends, somebody told me this a long time ago, and it fits here: my response is my responsibility. I must focus on what I must do, regardless of how my spouse is fulfilling his or her role.
Let me come back to where we started.
-If it’s true that a man’s primary need is for significance, and this need is met ultimately through a growing relationship with Christ, God also uses the wife’s submission to reinforce a man’s significance.
-And, if it’s true that a woman’s primary need is for security, and God meets this need through a relationship with Himself, God also uses a husband’s love to reinforce a wife’s security.
Earlier this week, I asked Beth if she would be willing to come up to the front and talk about our marriage specifically about I have helped affirm and reinforce her security. She thought about it for a minute and said, “Sure, if I can think of anything good that you’ve done for me!”
With that as an introduction, we’d like to share a couple examples that have been helpful to us in our marriage.
(Beth and I share examples)
Communion
This is the time of year for weddings. Going to weddings reminds those of us who are married about our vows some of us need reminders like this. We may be reminded of how things used to be, and of how far we’ve drifted from our mate.
Communion is another kind of reminder. It’s helps us remember when we said, “I do” to Jesus. It’s a time for us to take a look at our relationship with Him to make sure it is fresh and to reaffirm our vows to Him and to hear again about His vows to us. He grants us eternal security by forgiving our sins and shortcomings. And He gives us eternal significance by gifting us and using us in His kingdom work.
Before we have this marriage supper this morning, I must ask you one last question. Have you ever responded to Jesus’ proposal? As a man seeks out the woman whom He loves and woes her to himself, so Jesus Christ seeks those who will become a part of his bride, the church. Are you ready to say, “I do” to Jesus?
Distribution of Elements
