Ephesians 5:31-32 | The Mystery of Marriage

Church, would you pray with me?

Psalm 128.

Father, as we come to the end of this series on marriage, we're reminded of Psalm 128.

We're reminded of the fact, Lord, that the prosperity that we seek for our families, for our spouses, for our marriages are ultimately those that are blessed by you.

And your word is clear, Lord.

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord.

Who walks in his ways.

And therein, Lord, we have clarity about what specifically it means to fear you, God.

You let us know that it's it's those who walk in your ways, that those who walk in your ways generally can expect blessing, Lord, that you give in an abundance of different ways.

Lord, we can look at this though and judge it by our own fearing of the Lord and recognize that we've not always feared the Lord as we should.

We've not always feared you as we should, Lord.

But we also recognize that because of that, because of that brokenness, because of that sinfulness in us, we have come to Christ by faith as a people.

The one who is indeed blessed, who did truly in every way fear you, walk in your ways.

And now we are in him, and as such, his righteousness is imputed to us.

That blessing that belongs to him now comes to us, his body.

And we thank you, Lord, and ask for this that by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we would walk in a way that we fear you, that we walk in your ways, and that we would enjoy the blessing that comes in our marriages, that you bless the labor, the hard work that brings sustenance and provision to the home, that you would bless the relationships, husband and wife, the wife like a fruitful vine within the house, the children to the parents, that'd be like wild olive shoots around your table.

Not just a blessing in the past, but a blessing in the future.

Verse 6 May you see your children's children, Lord, that we would live long lives, that we would see the flourishing, that this marriage, these marriages in this room would be but the beginning of a lineage, of a heritage of faithfulness, of a heritage of God fearing.

And the Lord, we gather as your people as well, and we long with healthy marriages to see a healthy church.

May the prosperity of Jerusalem be there all the days of your life.

Lord, speaking of your people, well, we are your people, God.

And so would healthy marriages lead to healthy churches, and healthy churches transform society so that Christ might be all in all.

So, Father, lead us in that way by your Spirit as your Son is exalted.

May there be two preachers as always pray is prayed, the one up here, and the Holy Spirit, so that the word wouldn't just go forth from a man, but in demonstration of power.

We believe this and expect this, Lord.

We trust you for it in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said.

Amen.

Well, let me have you stay standing for the reading of God's word as we go one final time to the book of Ephesians, and we're going to chapter 5, where we're going to look at really one verse today, but two verses in particular that I'm going to read.

We've read it before, but oh, it's good to read again.

And this is the word of the living God for us, Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 31, reading down to verse 32.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

It'll be on our screens, by the way.

And of course, as always, if you don't have a Bible, we've got Bibles on the ledges to the left and the right of the worship center.

We'd love to have you take one as a gift from us to you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound.

And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Loved ones, Ephesians 5.32.

That's our verse for today.

Those two verses, that's the word of the Lord.

May the Lord write these eternal truths on your hearts.

With that, you can be seated.

Good morning, church.

Happy Labor Day weekend to you.

If you have a copy of God's word, why don't you go to Ephesians chapter 5, as you know?

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

And uh, for those of you who are coming, maybe this is your first week of Doxa, you're in the last week of our series.

And so we now have come to an end.

15 weeks, I think it's been, unless you count the before you opt out series, which was merely the rebuke sermon to get you guys to all dial in, right?

Which I thank God that you received that rebuke with such warm-heartedness and uh uh maybe even a repentant spirit, you could say, as we address some things that needed to be addressed, but it's been 15 weeks, and this is the last week, and it's fitting that we're landing where we are.

And so pray and trust that it's been a blessing to you, and ultimately this will now be kind of a place that you can go when you want to come back to something and go, man, we need to sharpen something in our marriage.

You can come back to this series.

No better place to end it than in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 32.

Ephesians 5:32

The title of the message for today is The Mystery of Marriage.

The mystery of marriage.

Now imagine you were on a trip, and uh.

That you can get to.

And some of these signposts are are kind of epic in themselves, right?

People will stop, and have you ever seen this at a signpost to a big deal of a place?

So you'll have people stop, everyone will get out of the car, it'll take a picture.

Imagine that's you, right?

You get there, you get to the signpost, you know, seen the big one in Napa or the one in Vegas.

Not that you go there, of course, but you get the idea, big sign.

And you get out with your family and you celebrate, and you're all like, all right, guys, we did it.

Say cheese, and you all smile and you go, wasn't that great?

Let's wrap this puppy up and head home.

Would you have said in that moment that you got the experience merely by looking at the sign?

What if you took a picture in front of the sign?

What if you celebrated how big the sign was?

What if you let your click kids climb up into the sign, right?

Is that the same as having the experience of actually going to the place?

Of course not.

You don't go to see the sign.

You a place that has a sign, you're going for the reason for which that sign exists.

You're going for the actual thing.

Right?

The same thing is true when we think about marriage.

Marriage, if you will, is a kind of an epic signpost to something greater.

You could describe it as kind of like a trailer to a feature film.

In a moose bouche to a three-star Michelin restaurant.

And if you don't know what that means, Google it.

A parable, a symbol, a shadow to the actual substance to which marriage is pointing.

All that to say, marriage, as we've talked about this for 15 weeks, is ultimately pen-ultimate.

It's not ultimate.

Marriage is a temporary earthly institution designed to give us a glimpse of a permanent heavenly reality.

You say, well, how do we know?

And the way to answer that is the old song, for the Bible tells us so.

And actually, that's really important when we look at this verse today.

For the Bible tells us so.

It's not just some cheesy phrase that Christians use, it's actually the way by which we understand what's going on in verse 32 of chapter 5 of Ephesians.

Now, if you go back, because again, Ephesians in verse 31 is going all the way back to Genesis 2, if you go back to the book of Genesis, you see that God established two institutions when he created the world.

The first was the Sabbath, the second was marriage.

Both of those institutions, both of those creation ordinances were designed to point to heavenly realities.

And Ephesians 5 gives us an insight into what marriage was designed to do.

And here's what we see in Ephesians 5.

It's our big idea for this morning.

Marriage was designed to display the covenantal love between Jesus Christ and his church.

Paul calls this the mystery of marriage.

That your marriage that you have right now was designed to display the covenantal love between Christ and his church.

Marriage as an institution was designed in this way to display the covenantal love between Jesus Christ and his church.

Paul calls this the mystery of marriage.

And so as we close out this series, we want to make sure we have an eye to the mystery.

We want to make sure we have an understanding of the mystery.

We want to make sure that our marriage is rightly weighted in light of the mystery, how we value it, how we think about it.

So as we look at this text, I want to do three things.

I want to call you to three things.

I want to call you to see your marriage by the mystery revealed here.

I want you to gauge your marriage by the mystery.

And then I want you to model your marriage by the mystery as we look at Ephesians chapter 5, verse 32.

Ephesians 5:32

So number one is this see your marriage by the mystery.

And by the way, if you're single or you're widowed, whatever your circumstances, you're not married for whatever reason.

There's still so much to understand because marriage is again a temporary earthly reality pointing to a permanent heavenly reality.

So let's jump in.

See your marriage by the mystery.

Here's what Paul says in verse 32, and it is significant, though in few words.

He calls it this mystery.

We've got to talk about that word mystery, and then we'll talk about the word this, and both of them matter.

Now, this word mystery, when you read that, doesn't mean unintelligible.

Something, oh, we couldn't understand.

Doesn't mean something hard to understand.

Doesn't mean a puzzle to solve.

When he's talking about mystery, it's not like, do you remember Christmas story?

Little Ralphie, and he he's like sending away for the Ovaltine little decoder kit.

Do you remember that thing?

And he's listening on that old radio that some of you remember from your life, but I just see as an old radio.

Anyway, and he's so excited, and he's got that little spinner thing, right, where the numbers correspond to letters, and he's trying to figure it out, and he thinks it's his big deal.

And so at the very end of, I think it's like the is it the Orphan Annie show?

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Gets the end of it, they get the numbers going, and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna write it all down and get this message, and then all of a sudden he's let down because the end of the message, which he thought it was gonna be this profound mystery, was be sure to drink your ovateen.

Do you remember this?

And he's kind of upset, and he maybe says a word that he shouldn't say or that we shouldn't say.

Nonetheless, that's not what Paul's talking about.

He's not talking about some sort of mystery where it's like, okay, if you read between the lines in the Bible and you put the numerology together, we're gonna figure out what this no, no, no, no.

That's not what mystery means.

It's not the mystery of what the mystery religions meant of the day, where you have these religious secrets, not uncommon to our day.

You hear about like, you know, certain secret rites or initiatives that get um experienced only by the few initiated people within a religion, right?

So, you know, I I've always joked that there's certain religions that, you know, get you undies when you get in there, right?

Special handshakes, um, sorry, excuse me, undergarments, okay?

Whatever.

Handshakes, rites that you get to learn.

Certain things that are special only to the initiated few, right?

And you have to get in in order to know these mysteries.

That's not what Paul's talking about here.

Let me be very clear.

The word mystery is something Paul's not uncommon in using.

He's used it in Ephesians 1, he's used it in Ephesians 3.

He likes this word.

And mystery is Paul's using it, was something that was concealed for some time past, and is now revealed at the appointed time by God through his spirit.

And so we don't want to make this overly bizarre.

When he's using the word mystery, think of it like this: it's a truth that without special revelation would have remained hidden within the secret counsels of God.

Known to God, not known to you, unless what?

He reveals it.

Unless he reveals it through his spirit.

So, this is what Paul means when he says mystery.

Now, what mystery is he referring to?

Well, you see the word, it's this mystery.

Now, what is this referring to?

Well, the reference is to the verse before, what was just said, namely, what he says in verse 31.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery, referring to verse 31, is what Paul is talking about in verse 32.

So it is to say this.

Verse 31 is pulled from where?

Genesis chapter 2, right?

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

He's pulling that straight out of Genesis chapter 2, verse 24.

Genesis 2:24

So what Paul's trying to tell us is something about Genesis 2.24 is a mystery that God had concealed but now has revealed.

There's something about the one-flesh union of man and woman in a covenant for life, that unbeknownst to Moses, unbeknownst to the people of his time, or frankly, the people of the Old Testament, though there were concealed yet subtle echoes that the Lord was kind of bringing forth in the Old Testament, was ultimately unknown to them, was concealed from them.

They didn't understand that Genesis 2.24 was really a picture of something greater.

It was really a prophecy of a greater marriage designed in heaven before creation.

The marriage to which John Piper describes, on that design, that marriage before creation, on that design and model, human marriage was built to image it forth.

And so, listen, marriage is a big deal, but it's because it's patterned after something that came in eternity past.

We talked about this a few weeks ago.

We talked about before God laid the foundation of the world, the father had already selected a bride for his son.

You think about that.

And of course, Ephesians 1 is clear about that reality.

We don't have to go to another book to hear that.

When we read in Ephesians 1 that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in love.

So you've got this kind of string of events, if you will.

You've got God's eternal decree before the foundation of the earth.

You have the execution of this decree in the coming of the Son for his bride, and then you have the consummation of the decree in that we are looking to the reality to which marriage points.

This has been God's plan from the beginning.

You're caught up in something far greater than your own marital situation.

And from eternity past, Christ considered his bride in the glory to which she would be brought at last.

Holy and blameless.

This is the situation before time had even come into existence.

And then what happens?

The Son comes to execute the plan of the Father, right?

In real space and real time, Romans 5, 5 or 5.6 says, at the right time, Christ came.

Galatians 4.4 says, when the fullness of time had come, that eternal decree became an executed reality when what?

Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose from the grave.

And when he died, the mystery of marriage finally got spelled out.

And we began to see all the patterns taking place.

Just as the man would leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, so Christ was sent by his father, a kind of leaving, to secure his bride.

That would be us, church, paid a dowry for her.

That would be his own life's blood shed for sinners like you and me to secure not a beautiful bride.

Like when we go dating, you don't go, who's the worst, most obnoxious, disgusting person that I could date?

I'm gonna start with them.

Said no one ever, right?

The story of the gospel is that's exactly what happened.

Christ secured not just a gross, horrible, wicked bride, a dead bride.

Actually, that was the picture in Ezekiel before it's the picture in Ephesians 2, because of course Ephesians 2 tells us that you were dead in your trespasses and your sins, right?

We're a dead bride.

We weren't alive, we were spiritually dead.

But the picture that I said was concealed, and yet there were some subtle echoes in the Old Testament, God's marriage to Israel.

You look at this picture in Ezekiel 16, it's probably one of those, again, Bible reading, you've read it one time, you have no idea that it's there, but it's this picture of Israel being kind of like this baby left for dead, bloody, not cleaned up, thrown in a field, tossed to basically die, and God comes and brings this baby to life by saying, live, live in Ezekiel 16.

This is the picture.

Christ takes a dead bride and brings them to life.

Now, how does the wife come alive?

Well, we see the picture in Genesis 2, don't we?

How did the wife come alive with Adam?

As with Adam, a deep sleep fell upon him, right?

And God took the woman out of the man.

Well, then it's no surprise that how would we, the church, his bride, come out of Jesus' how how would we come out?

Out of the side of Christ, right?

So too, a deep sleep, if you will, fell upon the Son of God at Calvary.

The great Martin Lloyd Jones says it like this as the woman was taken out of Adam's side, so the church, the second Eve, is taken out of the side of the second Adam by the precious blood which flowed from Christ's wounded side.

And now it's like we're talking about earthly things when it was always meant to give way to something greater.

And now what is the Lord doing?

He's making his bride to flourish.

He rose from the dead, he ascended to the Father, where he intercedes for us, he sent his spirit, who is beautifying us by his own work.

His self-giving sacrifice is purifying us, is beautifying us, is making us lovely, is preparing us for heaven, is fitting us for Jesus Christ Himself, is creating in us longings that we might echo what Revelation says.

Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

This is where we are.

And marriage is meant to point in that direction.

We look to the consummation of which marriage gives us a glimpse into.

And you have to understand how much God is for you, church.

God will not stop until he has restored you to the beauty in which you were first presented to him in eternity past to the Son.

He will, the Lord Jesus, come again.

I love what Thomas Goodwin said in the Heart of Christ.

He said, It is the matter of bridegrooms.

When they have made all ready in their father's house, then to come themselves.

See, he will come again and fetch their bride, not to send for them by us.

Others, but by himself, because it is a time of love.

That the Lord's heart is so set upon you that if he has any glory, then you, church, shall have part in it.

Here's one of the things I'm saying.

Marriage is heavy.

A reason why a lot of you didn't want me to do this series was because marriage is a big deal.

But when you view it in light of eternity, marriage is not everything.

Christ is everything.

This marriage, and you having one if you do, and you hearing about it if you don't, is ultimately there to point us to that day.

Perfect union with Christ.

To keep that day in perspective today is part of what we ought to do and how we ought to respond to this series.

It ought to be the business of every day, but especially today, to keep in light of our future that day that's coming.

You go, well, how do we do that?

How do we see our marriage by the mystery?

Especially when 1 Corinthians 2 describes it like this: what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.

How do we prepare for that?

If we can't see it, if we can't hear it, if our hearts can't imagine what God has prepared for those who love him, then how do we see our marriage today by the mystery?

And the answer is by the eyes of faith.

You need to get your eyes off the obsession of just the marriage thing you're doing now, and let the marriage that you have be a motivator to see what's coming by the eyes of faith.

Faith, as it were, is the ability of the soul to go forth and apprehend its object, and the object is Jesus Christ, right?

To enjoy him, to love him, to go further up and further into Jesus, as it were.

Which is a challenge, no doubt.

Part of the mystery is the fact that the view we have of Christ, even as believers, is obscure, isn't it?

First Corinthians says we see through a mirror dimly.

We can't see as we ought.

Our sin obscures our view of Christ.

We get distracted by all kinds of things.

We have an impartial view.

We long for the perfect.

We have an imperfect view right now.

And so it's hard to see your marriage by the mystery, but God enables that by faith that we might apprehend Christ, that we might look as a day-to-day reality beyond our marriage to the one that our marriage points to.

Maybe you could say it like this: marriage is the preparation station for heaven.

Make marriage the preparation station for learning heavenly love.

That will help tremendously.

If you see your marriage by the mystery, then you will see your marriage as practice for heaven.

You will gauge yourself as to how that's going in light of where it's leading.

So here's what I mean: marriage, frankly, exposes how unheavenly you are.

Right?

It can reveal how incompatible your life is with heaven.

That's how you should see it.

If, in the words of Jonathan Edwards, heaven is a world of love, then when you walk out of step with love, you are showing how incompatible you are with the world to come.

And this is all part of it.

When you're jealous, bitter, spiteful, controlling, nagging, you name it, you are cultivating what will not exist in heaven.

It's more than just you're sinning against your spouse.

You're seeing in this bigger reality that wait a minute, I'm not cultivating things in my marriage that aren't making me fit for the life to come.

I'm not going to sow seeds today that don't line up with that day.

We're going to make this a preparation station.

So all of a sudden, it elevates the fact that it's not just sin against the Lord, it's a lack of preparation, it's a lack of compatibility with your life and with heaven.

And so really seeing your life by the mystery is are you a microcosm of the world of love to which you're headed?

Is your marriage that?

Edward said it like this: when you have the least love, you have the least of heaven.

So, by faith, make marriage the preparation station for learning heavenly love.

Make it your practice for heaven.

Secondly, is this gauge your marriage by the mystery.

You see your marriage by the mystery, but then gauge, in other words, be weigh your marriage by the mystery.

I'm convinced we don't do this enough.

Mainly because of the way problems in marriages feature like these Mount Everest.

These huge, big, monstrous things.

You need to right-size your marriage.

We'll talk about that.

Paul says this this mystery, which we know is referring to Genesis 2.24, that one flesh union is ultimately a picture of that union between Christ and the church.

This mystery, Paul says, is profound.

Which in the Greek, you'll know the word if I just say it.

The word is mega.

The mystery is mega.

It's monumental, it's mega mystery.

Why?

Here's why.

Because the thing signified is so great that marriage, even at its unbelievable best, I'm talking, you have the best marriage in the world of all time.

You have the goat marriage.

At its best, what it signifies is so great that that great marriage is but a mere shadow to the substance of what's coming.

Profound.

Because marriage is a sign of the supreme revelation of God's entire cosmic plan.

That we see in Ephesians 1, the word is used, verse 9, making known to us the mystery of his will.

What is that?

Verse 10, that he's uniting all things in himself.

It's profound.

Ephesians 3, verses 3, 4, and 9, including this talk of Jews and Gentiles into one new man, one new body, co-heirs, full citizens, partakers of the promise in Christ.

Ephesians 3:3

Then clarified even more, Ephesians 5.32, this mystery, this one flesh union with his people, Jew and Gentile of all time, who are in Jesus Christ, will enjoy this future glory to which marriage is but a shadow.

The best of marriages is but a shadow of what's coming.

So what's far more important at the end of this series is not necessarily whether or not you have the greatest marriage of all time, but whether or not you are in Jesus Christ by faith alone.

Because there is no name given among men under heaven by which you must be saved in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why we present Jesus Christ as dead for sinners and has risen from the grave so that the preacher can preach that those who are in need of a savior, who see their sin for what it is, who see their incompatibility with heaven, also see a savior.

Who came for a dead bride, dead in their trespasses and sins, unable to alleviate or fix or remedy the situation, he came and did for you what you could not do, and by his perfectly righteous life, in his substitutionary death, in his victorious resurrection, is able to save to the uttermost all those who come to Jesus Christ by faith.

All those who get out of themselves and get into Jesus Christ by faith.

And so we could make the mistake of, man, marriage is getting better, but you still being outside of Christ.

Come to Jesus Christ.

That's what marriage is trying to push you towards and make you commit to is won't you come to Jesus.

You bring nothing but the sin that your salvation requires, you know, that makes your salvation necessary.

You come with just as a beggar, resting in and receiving Jesus Christ's work in your place.

Have you done that?

Because the mystery is profound.

You think this life is mega?

The mystery is mega.

The mystery is for eternity.

And listen, so like I what I said, you make the mystery mega and it will help resize everything else that you're dealing with.

Get caught up in the mega of the mystery and it'll reshape everything.

Here's what I mean: a whole bunch of illustrations of this making the mystery mega.

I remember on my wedding day, and frankly, I hear relatives say this to people on their wedding days, you'll get some aunt or uncle or random person and go, okay, you ready for the big day?

Right?

Something like that.

Wow, this is such a big day.

And the person that's there is like, yes, my whole life is flashing before my eyes.

Thank you, random crazy uncle, who comes up and says, This is such a big day, which does nothing to encourage.

If anything, it resolidifies the fact that I do need to be like hyper-vigilantly focused about what I am doing with myself right now.

I'm giving my life away, have no idea what the future is going to hold.

But yes, now I feel more weighed down by this is such a big day.

What if in that moment you understood that today's a big day?

It's my wedding day.

But it's peanuts in comparison to that day.

And so I can sit in the pocket and I can enjoy this to the glory of God because actually this marriage really isn't even about me.

And it's not what most people say it's about in the kind of light-hearted joking sense, they say it's about the bride.

It's not really about the bride either, though it should be more about the bride than the husband.

Can I get an amen?

I'll give you that.

Okay.

But it's ultimately about Jesus Christ.

It's ultimately about that reunion between his bride, which we have become by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

You become part of the bride of Christ.

Through faith in Christ.

It's about that day.

Helps resize your problems when you make the mystery mega.

When you think, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Marriage is a big, big, big deal, but it is peanuts compared to the mega of what it points to.

Here's another one.

Make the mystery mega, and the majors in your marriage will seem more right-sized.

Right?

This is the end.

We can't go on.

There's no more.

I can't, I can't stand the phrase I can't.

I don't care what you can do.

I wasn't depending on you for any of this.

I care about what God can do.

But here's the thing that happens.

When you make the mystery mega, it right-sizes all your problems.

They may be problems, they may even be significant problems.

But here's the thing, here's what I found.

When you can, instead of creating mountains like Everest, make them little molehills, those problems are a lot easier to deal with.

They come with a lot less stress, a lot less headache, a lot less worry, a lot less fret.

It's easier to battle if the things you're battling aren't so big.

With an eternal perspective, you right size everything else.

You make the mystery mega, and the majors in your marriage will seem more right-sized.

Let me give you another one.

You make the mystery mega and you'll get the practical stuff thrown in.

So much of the series is about what do I do or how do I make my marriage better?

Give me a good communication technique.

And we've talked about some of that stuff, and we could even say after the series, I could just hear it.

Well, he didn't get to everything.

They didn't get to everything.

They didn't say all the things.

I wish they had done this and done this and done this.

And here's the thing.

You're 100% right.

We didn't get to everything.

It was 15 weeks.

When I said 15 weeks at the beginning, people were like, oh, 15 weeks.

I'm melting, right?

15 weeks.

I can't handle it.

Here's the thing, because ultimately we don't need to get to everything.

I could tell you about it.

Marriage has like legit statistics that family stability, way better with a good marriage.

We could talk about that.

I could do a whole sermon on that.

We didn't talk about intimacy as much as we could.

Intimacy, for sure.

Those that have good marriages have good intimacy.

Success and health of children.

Do you know how much higher the success and health of children is when you have a good marriage?

Way, way higher.

Statistically.

Financial well-being, higher with a good marriage.

Societal stability in places where there is stronger marriage commitment, also better.

But here's the thing: those are all byproducts of the better thing.

If you go after the better thing and you understand what this thing points to, the love of Christ in the church, you get all these byproducts as part of it.

They'll all be thrown in, if you will.

You go after heaven and you'll get the benefits on earth.

Now you may say there's some that would say something like, Man, but I have such a good marriage, Scott, as you're saying all this, I have such a good marriage.

And it just keeps getting better and better, and I never want it to end.

And so I'm kind of struggling with this whole heaven thing and it giving way to heaven.

And are you saying that I'm not going to be married in heaven?

You know, your marriage is going to give way to something so much greater.

And you're like, I don't, I don't like that.

Well, here's the thing.

Think about how you're thinking of your marriage, right?

I have such a good marriage.

It just keeps getting better and better, and I never want it to end.

Sound familiar?

You just described what heaven's gonna be like, didn't you?

It just keeps getting better and better.

I never want it to end.

See how that works?

This sounds like heaven.

That's the point.

Aaron and I have been on, we we have done date nights in various ways.

When you have little kids, you can't get out of the house, and so you do different whatever, lower key things.

But in this season, for whatever reason, I've told her this.

We've we've had just awesome times.

I don't know why I'm giving you these details.

You don't need to have all of it.

What you need to know is the point, but just hand-holding, great conversations, laughing a lot, long, just like fun walks, places that we're going.

And I remember saying multiple times, man, dating you is the closest thing to heaven that I have in my life.

Going out at night, when we get to get out of the house and do something, is the closest glimpse to heaven that I get.

And I think that's part of the point.

It's not to make me go, I never, I can't imagine our marriage not ever being a thing.

Like I think beyond that into wait a minute, can you imagine how great the reality must be if it's this great with us?

How glorious it must be to sweep us off of our feet such that we wouldn't have any kind of sorrow about what gives way in light of what's to come.

That there's a mystery in that will take our breath away.

And so instead, what one of the things you should do if you have a strong marriage is take the stature of a strong marriage and let it age your anticipation of what's to come, not sour it, not hamper it.

Man, if this is that great, how much greater?

I can't even put my mind on that, but whatever it is, it's so much greater, it's gonna take my breath away in a way that this can't even compare.

And that's crazy because it's the greatest thing in my life.

How much better will the marriage supper of the land be?

It won't even be close.

At the same time, you could take the stature of your marriage and not only let it age your anticipation, but you should take the stature of your marriage and test it for idolatry, because there is some of that potentially in there, right?

A good marriage where you're just like, I can't ever, I can't ever see it giving away.

We've got to be careful about how our love is shaped in that sense too, in the way of like maybe comparing it like this.

A marriage not making you hungry for Jesus Christ ultimately is like parents who love their kids so much they never let them fly the coop.

Do you know what I'm saying?

You get these parents that are like, I just love my kids so much, I don't ever want them to leave.

Well, here's the problem: God says you're supposed to train them up to leave.

Right?

Now, now the sentiment is sweet, I get it.

But when you're holding on to them and going, no, you can never leave, you're never gonna leave.

I love you so much, I'm gonna show you how much I love you by never preparing you, training you, or thinking you think it's normal to leave.

That's not the play.

Because what's most loving is not that, that is inordinate love.

What's most loving is doing what God's word is calling us to do, is directing, for example, the kids towards God's good for their lives.

The same thing is true of marriage.

Love at its capacity is directed towards God's good in infinitely greater ends.

And so you could say that marriage accomplishes its purpose at the highest level when marriage is excellent but not ultimate.

That's the pocket that you're looking for.

Marriage accomplishing its purpose when it's excellent but not ultimate.

Because it's meant to give you a foretaste of something better.

It's meant to make you long for what it points to.

You're not supposed to make your marriage heaven, but you are supposed to make it heavenly.

You're supposed to make it help you hunger for heaven.

Make you into a person whose greatest happiness is God.

Where Christ is supreme, not your spouse.

Where your marriage fulfillment in its deepest sense is found in belonging to Christ, which by the way helps to make sense of so many other circumstances.

What about those who aren't married?

All of this is ultimately pointing to the greater marriage, to find your ultimate fulfillment in belonging to Jesus Christ.

You make your marriage, you weigh it in light of the mystery, and things will right-size themselves, things will direct themselves in the way that they ought to go.

But then this, let's finish here.

You model your marriage after the mystery.

You should model your marriage after the mystery.

Paul says it like this the mystery, this mystery, is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Jesus Christ and the church.

So when you say I do, you've begun a new model, a new living, breathing dramatization of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church.

This is what you've become.

So I don't know what you said I do too, but that's exactly what you are out there to be.

You're to be a living dramatization of how the church interacts with Christ and how Christ interacts with the church, and you're to play roles in your marriage that display to a watching world what it looks like for Christ to love his bride.

You're like foam fingers, if you will.

You remember those foam fingers people would get at sporting events?

You're there as a marriage to point anyone around you, and frankly one another, towards Jesus Christ, towards the holiday of heaven.

Your marriage is to be a peek through the window, as it were, into eternity.

Is that how you think about your marriage?

When you think about the roles, what's so interesting about roles, and both roles have an issue, right?

Men in their headship and women in their submission.

It's always about, oh, I don't like the roles, I don't like the roles.

How often have you thought about it in light of what the bigger picture is?

How often have you thought about it in light of God's design?

How often have you thought about roles from the perspective of modeling a marriage after the mystery by making the gospel look glorious?

That in the man's role of lovingly leading sacrificially, in the wife's role of submitting and respecting, we can put on display to a watching world the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That we can model our marriage after what God designed it to be and then watch you every sorrow, every setback, every struggle will serve then ultimately, not as an impediment, but an accelerant to the ultimate goal to which marriage leads.

I mean we have the privilege essentially of making Jesus look as awesome as he is.

And we're not going to do that perfectly, but man, that's worth getting off the self-centered, I don't like my role thing, and getting onto the greater glory of, wait a minute, this is something that this is pointing me in the direction of heaven.

I can lay aside however I feel because all the stuff I'm dealing with is ultimately incompatible with the things to come.

And so I'm looking at it going, okay, we can do this.

Let's do this.

Let's love one another.

And let's commit to loving first before the other deserves it, before they're lovely, because that's the picture we see in Jesus Christ.

And let's commit to loving fiercely, distinctly.

You have a special love, a set-apart love for your spouse.

Just like Jesus does for the church.

And our love is to be formative.

To move you to give yourself.

And that self-giving, that sacrificial love actually has a changing, a sanctifying effect on your bride.

This is what the Lord does, right?

The gospel makes his bride lovely.

He didn't come to us when we were lovely.

He died for us, sacrificially gave of himself to make us lovely, and we are becoming lovely, and he is rejoicing in the flourishing of his spouse just like we ought to.

Rejoice in the flourishing of our spouse.

Like we ought to ask the question: how do I give myself in a way that promotes my spouse's flourishing?

The reality is that you may not be a preacher, but every one of you has a marriage and it's preaching.

Your marriage is preaching.

Does it preach Jesus Christ?

Does it preach the wonders of the dance of the glory of that relationship that Jesus Christ has with his church?

Does it put on display the wonders of his grace?

John Bunyan said it ought to be like this with husbands.

A wife should be able to say, God not only gives me a husband, but such a husband as preaches to me every day the way of Jesus Christ to his church.

That's the goal.

That our marriage preaches.

It does preach.

Does your marriage preach Christ?

Does it preach the glories of Christ?

Is your marriage a living dramatization, a living proclamation of the wonder of what's waiting for the Church of Jesus Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb?

Let's pray.

Father, we recognize that our faith is not sight, impartial, imperfect, not what it ought to be, Lord.

But we long with faith to apprehend Christ more and more, to see through our marriage to the marriage, to savor Jesus Christ and to be so caught up with Christ that we are transformed, to be demonstrations of Christ and his love for the church within our own marriages.

Father, would that high and holy calling be seen in our marriages?

Would they be sweetened with just the mindfulness of things above and things to come?

Would you get us so heavenly minded, Lord, that it shapes our marriages and prepares us for the life to come?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.