Colossians: Harmony in Marriage

This fall we're studying our way through the book of Colossians.

We've been saying that Colossians is structured in a very particular way to teach us something.

Chapters one and two give us the indicatives, what's indicated to us in Jesus?

What are all the gifts and the promises, all the lavishness we have in Jesus?

In Jesus, fully forgiven, in Jesus fully righteous.

What are all of these promises?

One and two just shower it on.

And then heading into chapter three, there is a shift, moving into chapter three, and we begin to receive imperatives.

Because of those promises in one and two, because of the lavish promises of Jesus, how should we live?

What should our lives look like?

And so we've been saying it this way: we live the imperatives, chapters three and four, through the indicatives, chapters one and two.

Meaning how we should live is fueled by what is already true about us.

Who we are in Jesus fuels how we live for Jesus.

And if we mess that up and we just live in chapters three and four, without chapters one and two, we just live for Jesus, but we're not living out of everything we already have in Jesus, that is where we get religious arrogance, exhaustion.

We swing from arrogance to despair quite quickly, and we don't know the joy and the freedom that we actually have of a faith walk with Jesus.

Now, today's passage speaks to family relationships, specifically husband and wife.

Now, maybe you're here and you come from a conservative family, maybe you come from a progressive family, single parent family, weird family, horrible family.

Maybe you thought you'd be married and you're not.

Maybe you thought you'd still be married and you're not.

Maybe you're in a great marriage, maybe you're in no marriage, maybe you're in a tough marriage.

We all come from somewhere.

But I think we can agree that we all want great families.

Nobody sets out or nobody says to their family, man, I just wish our family would be horrible or more horrible.

I hope we never get better.

And we all want great families around us.

Even if you're a single adult, you want to be surrounded by great families.

So let's look at what Paul is saying to wives and husbands.

Colossians 3, 18 and 19.

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Now in Ephesians, Paul expands a bit more.

Ephesians 5.21, he leads into the section in Ephesians by saying this submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So submission is for all of us.

And that's point number one.

Social harmony depends on each of us supporting and respecting one another.

Submission means that we support and respect another person.

Harmony requires this support and respect.

And Paul says, before he says this is for wives, he says for everyone, all of us.

And then he takes this universal principle and he applies it more directly to wives.

He does this for a particular reason.

Because at the time in the ancient Near East, women had almost no value.

And then the Christian faith comes along and it esteems women and it elevates women.

The woman has been set free.

Then Paul's point is: hey, wives, and all of your new freedom, and all your new freedom, continue to operate in the universal principle that creates social harmony, submission, support, and respect of another person.

Paul expounds, Ephesians 5, 22 through 24.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands and everything.

One time I asked my wife, I said, What does that what does it mean?

Like, what does it mean to you that you would have to submit to me?

Like, what is that?

What does that mean to you?

Which is a weird question because like most of the time in a day-to-day, we just kind of work as partners.

And she said, It means that I have to trust that God's doing something in you for the sake of our family.

And she said, It it means I don't have to control everything.

Because don't we all just control everything?

It's easy to hear the word submit and react like I did to Fat Bear Week.

Um, it is October.

You know, I was gonna get to it.

It's October, and so in October in our church, we like to talk about Fat Bear Week.

So if you haven't been here, Fat Bear Week is in October every year.

It's in Katman National Park up in Alaska, and all the grizzly bears they grab gather at Brooks Falls, where they feed on fish all summer long to fatten up.

And then in October, the National Park Service has Fat Bear Week and bear nerds all over the world.

They all vote which bear got the fattest from the beginning of the summer to the end of the summer.

And so last year's champion was Grazer.

Here's a picture of Grazer the beginning of summer last year.

There she is, and then the end of summer, she was the champion.

There she is as the champion.

Lassum.

And again this year, Grazer won again this year.

Here's a picture of her this year as the champion.

That's her.

Just gonna tip right over backward, it looks like, and it's kind of like a wheelie.

Um, which was great because Grazier beat out Chunk in the finals, and Chunk, Chunk had killed Grazer's cub in July.

So this was yes.

This Fat Bear Week, there's a lot going on, guys.

You gotta keep up.

So this was like a revenge victory, you know?

So good for her.

Her cub was killed, but she won Fat Bear Week.

Uh as well, there was more drama, and this year's tournament was actually delayed.

And I knew this because as soon as this event happened, so many of you texted me because you're, you know, you're locked in to Fat Bear Week.

Uh, because uh Bear 469, a male, killed Bear 402, a female, killed her.

They got into it for some reason there at the falls, and the female tried to back away, and then the male attacked her, killed her, and then ate her.

So pretty disturbing.

Uh so in bear world, that's like submission taken to extreme, right?

And my point, of course, is that bear world submission is nothing like Christian relational submission.

But sometimes we confuse these things and we react emotionally in a way where we hear that word and we think that's what it is.

It's that's not what it is at all.

Submission is not about demeaning or destroying.

Submission does not mean you are not valuable or equal or intellectual or you have ability.

Submission is about supporting and respecting another person.

You don't have to control everything.

The family unit is like all other units and relationships.

This is what Paul's saying, right?

Paul first says everybody submit to everybody.

Imagine how great relationships would be if we just supported and respected each other.

Harmony comes through support and respect.

And then Paul goes out of his way to teach this to wives.

And that's point number two.

Wives, you're called to support and respect your husbands.

Okay, husbands.

Paul has a word for you.

Colossians 3 19, husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

That phrase, do not be harsh with them, could be translated as embittered.

Meaning, do not lead in a way that is filled with resentfulness.

Do not lead in a way that's filled with anger.

You should be leading in a way that's empathetic, compassionate, gentle.

In Ephesians, Paul expounds, Ephesians 5, 25, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So, point number three, husbands are called to love their wives with rich loyalty and sacrifice.

Men were called to lead and love like Jesus, and Jesus always enters the mess.

He doesn't shy away.

Headship seeks out the chaos, the mess of the hearts of those in the family.

If you want an adventure, men, if you want an adventure, you don't need a new car.

And you definitely don't need an affair.

Just begin to adventure into the hearts of the people in your family.

What worries and fears and stresses are eating at them?

We have a coin bowl in our kitchens filled with coins.

Do y'all remember coins?

Do you remember?

Anybody still carrying coins?

Right, this is a quarter.

I used to uh gas up my truck when I was 16 with the coins in the ashtray, right?

Anybody else?

Anybody else gassed up with the coins that were in your ashtray as the ashtray pulled out and all the coins you dump your coins in there, and that's how I gassed up my truck every every week.

So we have a coin bowl in our kitchen.

I'm pretty sure all the coins that are in there have been in there for 10 years because we haven't used a coin in probably 10 years.

And this is just a quarter I grabbed out of that coin bowl this morning.

Basic quarter, eagle on one side, uh, George's on the other side.

Nothing special about this coin, basic coin, two sides.

A coin always has two sides, right?

It can't not have two sides.

If I give you a coin, you're always gonna get two sides.

They come together.

This is what Paul's doing in both Ephesians and Colossians.

When he teaches about submission, he teaches two sides.

When he teaches about loving a wife, he teaches two sides.

One side, husband, love your wives with rich loyalty.

Be gentle.

Other side, wives, submit to your husbands, be supportive and respectful.

They're two sides of the same coin.

You can't have one without the other.

They work together for harmony.

The commentary on this text says it this way The two imperatives ought not be isolated.

And then one of them emphasized without thought for its dependence on the other.

How natural to love a loyal wife.

And who would not want to remain loyal to a truly loving husband?

One of my favorite stories the last few years about a friend of mine, we'll call her Ginny.

Her name was not Ginny, the husband, let's call him Billy, his name was not Billy.

And they were at odds.

Nothing horrible had happened.

There was not some massive moral mistake in the marriage, but they did not get along.

They did not like each other, they were nitpicking, they were all over each other.

And the husband would get home, Billy would get home, and Ginny would just nag him.

Hey, can you do this?

Can you do this?

Why didn't you do this?

What about this one?

What about this?

Can you please do this?

Right?

She's like scorekeeping on him.

Do this, plus one.

He didn't do this, minus one.

And this going on in her brain the whole time.

Scorekeeping is kind of like nitpicking, right?

Like you get a s you have a sweater, you have that one, just that one little thread, and you don't have any scissors or clippers around you.

You think, I'll just, I'll just kind of pull it, kind of, you know, you just try to break it off a little bit.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

Like and so you pull it and then like, and then, oh no, and then it started, right?

And then you pull, oh, and then you pull another one, and then you pull that one, right?

And you didn't intend to unravel and cause more of a mess, but you caused more of a mess.

Nitpicking causes more of a mess.

Scorekeeping is a losing game.

It's just a circle of judgment and bitterness.

And that's exactly what happened with Ginny and Billy.

She started nagging, we call it nagging, nitpicking, scorekeeping, him, and then you know what he wanted to do.

Nothing.

He didn't want to do anything, right?

Nobody wants to do anything if you're being nagged.

Like that's the opposite of a way to motivate somebody.

And the scorekeeping goes the other way, and it certainly did, where he is doing that to her.

Author Paul Tripp describes it this way: When we live for the kingdom of self, our decisions, thoughts, plans, actions, and words are directed by personal desire, and we seek to surround ourselves with people who will serve our kingdom purposes.

Now, therapist Lynn Roosh explains it this way when it comes to marriage.

A marriage of two people serving their kingdoms will eventually end in bloody battle.

But when both people submit to God's kingdom, where Christ reigns and where joy and life are found, marriage becomes an opportunity to exit the small space of the kingdom of self and begin to enjoy the beauty and the benefits of the kingdom of God.

Our greatest marital problem is ourselves.

We will always rise to our own defense and be tempted to blame others while believing the best about ourselves.

Not surprisingly, God uses marriage to reveal the sin of self-righteousness.

And marriage can be transformed when just one person sees this sin and humbly confesses ways they have damaged the relationship.

It's only when two people give up their own kingdom that peace, harmony, love, and joy can be found.

Now back to Ginny.

Praise God, Ginny realized that, oh, she also wasn't as perfect as she thought.

And she began to actually love her husband while he was still a mess.

He would come in from work and she would ask, How was your day?

How can I help you?

See, she began finding her joy and sufficiency and validation on a daily basis, not in her husband loving her, or her husband getting certain things done.

She started to live in Colossians chapters 1 and 2 that Jesus was enough for her full forgiveness, full righteousness, and full word.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

And so she came into the relationship to begin to serve her husband.

It fueled her to support and respect her husband, even while he didn't deserve it.

And amazingly, the husband found that he now actually wanted to help out some.

Now, I I don't think this is a magic equation to fix all marriages or all issues in a marriage or any in every situation, but it shows us, it just shows us how the two sides of the coin always come together.

Back to Paul Tripp in his book on marriage, he gives six commitments for married folks.

Commitment number one we will give ourselves to regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.

Just this week, Christina, we were driving on the interstate, we're on I-75, we were coming back up from Atlanta, and no kids in the car.

We had gone to lunch, and she is she is sharing her heart about like she is sharing her heart, like she really was like talking about something kind of profound and meaningful.

And we're surrounded by cars, and there was one problem for me in this.

I'm driving, and this really cool, like big truck pulled up to the left of me, and it had like this awesome long flatbed trailer on it.

And she's like sharing her heart.

I mean, she's really, and then I say in the middle of this, look at that awesome trailer.

To which she says she's not impressed with the trailer, and she says, Hey, when you do that, it makes me think that you don't care about anything I'm saying.

To which I said, Well, I know you like trailers, which wasn't the right thing, apparently, to say.

And she does like a good trailer.

I mean, so in my defense, we're gonna rise to her own defense.

She does like a good trailer, she respects a good box trailer, a flatbed trailer, you know, like, and so I and so I said, Well, I know you like a good trailer, like, don't you think it's a that's a really like really long flatbed trailer, like that's an impressively long flatbed trailer.

But unfortunately, like she was way right, and I was way wrong, and she said, No, like that, like what you just did is incredibly demeaning.

Like, I'm in the middle of actually sharing something important, right?

It's just a little snapshot of like failure in marriage, and me first just defending myself of like, no, I know you like trailers, like, this isn't that way off here.

Um, and just having to go, like, okay, well, marriage is gonna be about a regular lifestyle confession of forgiveness.

And so, it's like, how quickly can I get to confession?

How quickly can you get to like you're right, I I'm a more I'm sorry, and how quickly can the forgiveness come, and how quickly can you just like get back into like the conversation you were having?

How quick can we be falling into confession and forgiveness?

Commitment number two, we will make growth and change our daily agenda.

Number three, we will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.

Those those things take time, right?

And trust, change, growth, um it's gonna take more than just talking through uh your schedule.

It will take more than just just like uh doing the dishes.

Like you might need to go on a walk, you might need to sit on the porch together, and and that probably needs to be like a regular practice.

Number four, we will commit to building a relationship of love.

One thing that I love when we do an overnight, and our overnights they've ranged from sleeping in the back of my forerunner because we didn't have any money, you know, like to like staying at a nice resort.

Like it just depends on the season of life you're in.

What's great is to get past, like you're no longer talking about schedule, and you begin to like see the other person, and you're like, oh, there you are.

Like, I I see, like, wow, I see you.

Like, I'd seen you in a while because we've been in so much logistics.

Like, to get to that place, we need to be doing that regularly.

My friend says it as like they love to like have an overnight overnight because they say, like, oh, I see you and I and I still love you.

Like, I see you and I still love you.

Number five, we will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.

Number six, we will work to protect our marriage.

Well, I mean, you read those and you're like, how am I gonna do that?

That's a like that's a lot of work.

Like, there's actually wording in there.

Like, I will work to do this.

We will work for this, we will work on how are we gonna do that?

Chapters one and two of Colossians is how are we gonna do it?

You're never gonna get to any of this unless your heart, at the core of you, is settled in Colossians one and two.

Our premarital counselor told us the greatest gift you can give your spouse is your spiritual independence.

I never heard anybody say that.

That blew my mind.

It was 20 years ago.

That if I am fully validated in Jesus, if Christy's fully validated in Jesus, when we come to each other, we're not coming needy, but we come to give.

And that's powerful.

We're not doing it perfectly, right?

I'm tired just like you're tired.

I just want to watch Netflix and I want to eat some bluebell and I want to go to bed.

Like I'm just like I'm just like you.

You know, like we get tired, but one thing I've learned is like have conversations.

Create the places, create the margin to have conversations, and venture into people's hearts and let them see your heart.

Right?

If you're fussy, say like, man, I'm fussy today.

I don't know why I'm fussy.

Like, let them, don't just abreact from the emotion.

Say, like, I'm kind of depressed this week.

I'm not quite sure.

You want to go on a walk and talk about it a little bit?

Like, I'm I'm angry, I'm fussy, I'm anxious, I'm so anxious about this, this, and this.

Start to let the people in your family, your spouse, into your heart start to adventure into their hearts.

It's not about headship and submission, neither are about having your act together, because we're never gonna have our act together.

It's about honesty and confession.

It's about each of us going to Jesus so that we can come together to love each other.

Ephesians says that husbands are to love their wives like Christ loves the church.

So, what did Jesus do for the church?

Well, he made himself nothing.

He died on the cross, loyal and loving and sacrificial.

He became what all of us are scared to become in front of anybody else, and that is weak and vulnerable and exposed.

And yet, that's the very things that create intimacy and joy in a relationship.

He became weak in front of us.

Great marriages and families are not great because they go on amazing trips and have perfect houses.

Horrible families go on amazing trips.

Horrible families have great houses.

Great families are filled with people that are living in Colossians 1 and 2.

They're resting in Jesus.

And because they're so secure in Jesus, for their worth, they can risk, they can risk going to the other person and saying, I will be for you, even while you're a mess, because Jesus is always for me.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you know us and love us, and in a room this size, there are marriage issues, there are family issues, there are single people, divorced people, married people, great marriages, tough marriages, second marriages, third marriages.

And we come before you with wounded hearts from the past, mistakes, and oh how we need your forgiveness, and we need to find our healing and worth in you and you alone.

Would we entrust that you are enough for our failures?

Would you help us to live more in the way of Jesus?

Submission, love, sacrifice, loyalty, support and respect to other people.

Father, help us to live more in Colossians 1 and 2.

Everything we have in Jesus that we might be able to live out in our families and in our marriages in a way that honors you.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.