The Secret of Happiness in Marriage
Ephesians 5:25-30
1. Myth: The reason there is so much misery in marriage because husbands and wives seek their own pleasures
a. The real problem is that husbands and wives do not seek happiness in the pleasure of their spouse
b. Secret of happiness in marriage: SEEK YOUR OWN JOY IN THE JOY OF YOUR SPOUSE
i. What woman want: to be loved, to be listened to , to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What men want: tickets for the World Series
2. Husbands goal is to make a wife of splendor
a. Husbands are to love their wives the way Christ loved the church
i. How did Jesus loved the church?
1. “He gave himself up for her”
a. But why?
i. “To sanctify and cleanse her”
1. But why?
a. That he might present the church to himself in splendor!
b. The union between Christ and his bride is so close (“one flesh”) that any good done to her is a good done to himself.
i. Self interest is NOT the same as selfishness
1. Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others
2. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of your spouse
3. Erich Fromm said “Immature love says, ‘I love you because I need you. Mature love says, ‘I need you because I love you.”
c. Husbands should devote the same energy and time and creativity to making their wives happy that they devote naturally to making themselves happy.
i. If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your joy
1. Are you devoting yourself with all of your heart to the joy of your spouse?
2. To the degree you devote yourself to the joy of your wife, you love your wife.
d. It is not good to be alone
i. Why? Because God made a man to be a sharer
1. No man is complete unless he is conducting grace (like electricity) between God and another person (married or single)
2. What man needs is a person whom he can share the love of God
ii. It must be another person, not an animal
1. There is a vast difference between watching the Grand Canyon with another person and a dog
iii. God created a person like Adam yet very unlike Adam
1. difference between two people making the same sound and making a harmony
e. The mystery of Genesis 2:24 is that the marriage it describes is a parable or symbol of Christ’s relation to his people
i. “As God made man in his own image, so he made marriage in the image of his own eternal marriage with his people” Geoffrey Bromiley
3. The wife’s goal is to be willing to yield to her husband’s authority and follow his leadership
a. Warning: Woe to the husband who think his maleness requires of him a domineering, controlling and demanding attitude toward his wife
b. The wife take her cues from the church
i. Respect and submission
1. submission means to come under rank
a. Ladies, to be loved, be loveable. A woman is most loveable when she is most respectful
2. A wife should recognize and honor her husband’s greater responsibility to lead the home
a. What some of you wives need to regain is your respect level for your husband
b. Bitterness will poison your respect for him
c. Joyce Brothers “The best proof of love is trust”
i. You can’t trust someone you don’t love, and you don’t love someone you can’t respect
ii. There is no necessary correlation between leadership and intelligence or between submission and the lack of intelligence
1. A wife will always be superior in some things and a husband in others
c. Erma Bombeck said, “People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgivng woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Tom Cruise.
d. Richard Needham: “You don’t marry one person; you marry three: The person you think they are, the person they are, and the person they are going to become as the result of being married to you.”
