Items tagged marriage

Videos on "When Sinners Say 'I Do'"

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:26:11 GMT

Sovereign Grace Ministries has set up a YouTube page of videos related to Dave Harvey's book, When Sinners Say "I Do": Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage. Here are the videos:

Why I Wrote This Book

02:37

Why a book on marriage? And why talk so much about sin? Dave Harvey explains.

Chapter 1: What Really Matters in Marriage
02:41

What determines the quality of your marriage? Dave Harvey explains in this overview of chapter one: "What Really Matters in Marriage."

Chapters 2-4
02:29

Often the deepest conflict is the one we're not aware of, and our fiercest enemy is within our own hearts. Dave Harvey points us to the only hope for victory in this overview of chapters two through four.

Chapter 4: Taking It Out for a Spin
03:44

What actually causes conflict in marriage? You may be surprised at the answer in this overview of chapter four.

Chapter 6: Forgiveness, Full and Free
03:37

Is restoration possible after sin devastates a marriage? Hear one couple's story in this overview of chapter six.

Chapter 7: The Spouse in Sin
03:18

Growth in holiness is not a solo project. In this overview of chapter seven, Dave Harvey explains how to humbly, patiently, and courageously lead your spouse to repentance.

Chapter 8: Stubborn Grace
04:28

God's grace doesn't just bring you to conversion, then leave you on your own. In this overview of chapter eight, Dave Harvey explains how the grace of God provides staying power for your life and your marriage.

Chapter 9: Concerning Sex
03:01

Sex. It's a topic that has everyone's attention. But it's easy to forget that this topic has God's attention as well. In this (G-rated) overview of chapter nine, Dave Harvey explains what the gospel has to do with this part of marriage.

Chapter 10: When Sinners Say Goodbye
04:12

It's been said that all we need to do is live long enough, and we'll be bereaved. In this overview of chapter ten, Dave Harvey talks about maintaining hope when "death do us part" actually happens.

A Wedding Contract

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:50:02 GMT

Last week I went to Ottawa to enjoy my cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful, classy, simple wedding. While the service was great from beginning to end, I particularly enjoyed the brief sermon which drew a startling contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God; between the love of the world and the love of God.

The pastor began by discussing a marriage contract drawn up by Albert Einstein. With his marriage disintegrating and already participating in extra-marital affairs, Einstein made a last-ditch effort to keep his marriage somewhat intact, even if only for the sake of the children. This is the contract he sent to his wife:

A. You will make sure

that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;

that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;

that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.

B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, you will forego

my sitting at home with you;

my going out of traveling with you.

C. You will obey the following points in your relations with me:

you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way;

you will stop talking to me if I request it;

you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.

D. You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.

His wife eventually agreed to them terms. When he received her response, "Einstein insisted on writing to her again 'so that you are completely clear about the situation.' He was prepared to live together again 'because I don't want to lose the children and I don't want them to lose me.' It was out of the question that he would have a 'friendly' relationship with her, but he would aim for a 'businesslike' one. 'The personal aspects much be reduced to a tiny remnant,' he said. 'In return, I assure you of proper comportment on my part, such as I would exercise to any woman as a stranger."

This comes from the pen (and from the heart!) of one of the brightest men the world has ever known. It's a contract just shocking for its boldness and its polite disgust; its undertones of anger. Just imagine the state of the heart that would write such a thing.

What a contrast to the wisdom of the Bible. What a contrast to Colossians 3:5-17:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What a contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God!

I'm on my way down to Mobile, Alabama where I am going to bring a few reports from the Expositors' Conference featuring Dr. Steve Lawson and Dr. John MacArthur. I hope to check in a bit later today...

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What Christ wishes every husband knew about marriage

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:14:35 GMT

Over the past year God has been at work in my life, giving me a greater appreciation for the Cross in ways that have continued to make profound changes in my thinking and impacting my behavior. Recently, I was journaling at Starbucks, thinking about two things; First, my roaming mind was imagining how great it would be to PhotoShop the Starbucks cup with some true Christian wisdom. Secondly, (more to my purpose) was thinking about the most profound way I have encountered the Cross in the past year.

This winter my wife and I will enter our 10th year of marriage. When I think back over this decade, there are many reminders of my leadership failures in the home stretching to both extremes. On the one side, I could be a Caesar, re-asserting authority anytime the little 2-foot-tall insurrectionist forgot who was in charge. On the other side I was Caspar Milquetoast, lazy and reluctant but eventually begrudging and willing to take on duties and tasks requested. In both ways I failed to lead biblically. Both were leadership failures.

The Cross became relevant to leadership at a marriage retreat this winter titled Passionate Partners for Life and led by Steve and Janis Shank. True leadership in the home, Steve explained, is defined by sacrificial love. I quote Ephesians 5 at length because of its importance. Listen to how Paul puts the husband/wife relationship.

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

I’ve read this dozens or hundreds of times, and maybe you have, too. But notice something very interesting about the roles. The wife finds her obedience in submission to, and respect for, her husband. The husband finds his obedience in loving, sacrificial care for his wife. The husband does not lead by asserting authority as the Caesar, nor simply on-call, awaiting the wife’s next request as Caspar.

The profound nature of the Cross relates to the husband because true leadership in the home is illustrated by the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross for His Bride. Nothing of Christ’s was spared in His love for the Church. Christ willingly laid down His comforts, His glory and emptied Himself of all that He was rightfully entitled to save an undeserving and sinful Bride. This He accomplished on the Cross! He released all claims of His reputation, became a bondservant, and humbled Himself in the pursuit of obedience (Phil. 2:5-11).

Christ is no tyrant and no pushover. The same Christ returning to destroy sin with the sharp edge of a sword is the same Christ who washed the feet of His disciples (John 13:5). He came to serve His Bride, not expecting to be served like a lazy husband watching TV with the expectation that his “submitting” wife will cater to the enhancement of his surroundings. Think of this: If the Groom came only to assert his authority and enjoy the fruits of His submitting Bride, we would have no Cross, no Atoning Blood, no forgiveness of sin, no wrath appeased, and we would be hopelessly lost forever.

In the profound mystery of the Cross, true spiritual leadership is emulated. The Cross calls me to serve my wife in way that has no limits on personal comforts sacrificed, calls me to initiate service, and find new ways to care for her spiritual health. I am to care for her as I care for myself.

The stakes are very high. Wives and mothers do not clock out. Their duties can last all waking hours and are on-call through the night. In the past month I have seen the devastating effects of wives who believe that everything in the home rests on their shoulders and to rely on the husband domestically is a sign of failure. Rather, an overburdened wife is an under-led wife and reflects more poorly on the man than the woman. When we as husbands take our eyes off the Cross, we will fail as leaders and our wives will suffer the heavy consequences.

Husbands, are you convicted of your leadership failures like I am? I would encourage you to look at the Cross where we are saved from God’s wrath. We may be poor leaders, but we are justified in Christ and our leadership failures do not impact God’s pleasure in us. Christ achieved the full ransom price for our sinfulness. We can look back with conviction but never should the Christian husband look back at failures with condemnation. The same Cross that emulates leadership is the same Cross that covers our leadership failures.

Conclusion

Recently on vacation C.J. Mahaney was walking with his bride, taking obvious joy in a walk with his best friend. From a distance, his daughter captured this sweet image of the couple walking up from the beach. The picture is ever more powerful because this is a man who understands leadership in the home. He once said, “Love is the one word definition for headship.” His leadership in the home provides us picture-proof that he knows what he’s talking about.

By God’s grace, I am learning to initiate and serve my wife and family spiritually in family devotions but also in the less-than-spiritual tasks like helping with evening baths. By the Holy Spirit, I no longer approach leadership grumbling as a Caesar whose authority is being questioned, or with the resentfulness of a push-over. Rather, I now see opportunities to initiate service towards my wife as what it really is – an opportunity to boast in the Cross (Gal. 6:14).

Marriage -- There Is No Alternative

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 10:05:10 GMT

The fact that many young women are recapturing a vision of virginity until marriage has attracted a considerable amount of media attention. Media coverage has been devoted to books by authors such as Wendy Shalit and Dawn Eden and to programs encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage. The force of our cultural and moral revolution is immediately apparent in the fact that these developments are considered newsworthy. Since when did virginity make news?

These developments have also attracted detractors, and one of the most revealing critiques of the virginity movement comes from feminism. Writing in the current issue of The Nation, Nona Willis-Aronowitz suggests that these movements are efforts to turn back the achievements of the feminist movement and, at the same time, prove that feminism has not "finished its job."

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The first twenty years

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:05:08 GMT

Phil Ryken wrote an exellent piece, reflecting on the first 20 years of his marriage to his wife, Lisa. I was surprised and amused by our similarities! (So much so that I emailed the link to my wife so that she could get a chuckle). The most important similarity was how Ryken closed his reflection:

If there is one practical principle that Lisa and I would insist on for marriage it is the absolute necessity of resolving any conflicts the same day they occur. We have taken Paul’s words to the Ephesians very literally: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:26-27). In order to prevent Satan from ever getting the chance to divide our partnership, we have sometimes stayed up late into the night. But in twenty years, by the grace of God, we have never gone to bed without being totally reconciled.

In nearly 14 years of marriage, my wife and I have followed this same principle. It made for some late nights (2 or 3 in the morning; yikes!). And yet, I think it has been important for us/me to pursue repentance and reconcilation so that we/I would not grow bitter. The other key principle has been the verse at the end of Ephesians 4: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another just as Christ has forgiven you" (4:32). Extending forgivenness freely and maintaining tender-heartedness toward each other, especially when we've sinned against each other, has been hugely important for us as well.

Weddings in a Secular Culture

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:25:06 GMT

I found this short interview with One Perfect Day author Rebecca Mead stimulating thinking I'd never done before. I have no sense she's a Christian, but the general point she makes here is that without the sacred, without the traditions of weddings, the size and expense of a wedding have filled a vacuum to give meaning where there is none without God. She offers some interesting thoughts about how people, especially women in this case, fill the sacred gap materially that our secular culture leaves.

Wedding Sermon

Fri, 25 May 2007 20:20:02 GMT

In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth (Ephesians 1).

We praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You hid Your plan from the wise and prudent and in the last days revealed Your secret in Your Son. We praise You because you are at work to sum up all things in Christ, and that You are directing all things to be consummated in the great mystery of the marriage of Christ with His church. Give us grace to manifest that final marriage today, for the glory of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

"This mystery is great," Paul says of marriage in Ephesians 5. "But I am speaking with reference to Christ and His Church."

This is not the first time Paul uses the word "mystery" in Ephesians. A mystery is something hidden, a secret, that's later revealed, and Paul says that in the gospel God tells the secret He's been keeping for millennia. Through Jesus, God has made known the "mystery of His will," namely, God's plan to "sum up all things in Christ." As the letter progresses, Paul becomes more specific. In chapter 3, the mystery is that "Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (3:6). God's secret is that Gentiles along with Jews are to be "summed up" in the Jewish Messiah.

When Paul gets to chapter 5 and describes marriage as a mystery, all this is in the background. Marriage is an earthly symbol of Christ's relation to His church; it also tells the whole gospel story. In marriage, God discloses the secret of the gospel, hidden from before the foundations of the world and now revealed in Jesus Christ.

It's difficult for us moderns to grasp the notion that marriage divulges a cosmic secret. It's often said that we live in an age that has cast morality out the window. That's not quite accurate. We haven't tossed out morality; we've tossed out mystery. We don't like mysteries, and we are suspicious of secrets. And that's because we live in an age of technique. We have our morality, but our morality is guided by abstracted, standardized rules, and aims for quantifiable results. Our culture is not amoral; ours is a culture that puts a premium on efficiency.

The problem is not rules per se. Christians have rules. But for Christians rules are signposts that mark the path of the good life. The rules symbolize the highest good and nudge us toward that good as the final end of human life. By contrast, the rules of our culture have no overall purpose in view. We prize efficiency, but nobody knows exactly what the end or goal of all our technical expertise might be. We follow rules to get who-knows-where as quickly and with as little clutter as possible.

Our cult of efficiency is particularly damaging when applied to our relations with other humans. An ethics of efficiency may work when we're talking about the production of pins or widgets or computer chips. When you're talking about raising children, or shepherding a church, or teaching Latin or Irish literature, or singing, or writing a poem, or talking to a distressed friend late into the night – then efficiency is not only inapplicable. It's inhuman.

Today's culture is so obsessed with efficient technique that it even attempts to apply this paradigm to marriage. The shelves at Borders groan under the weight of how-to books on marriage. "How To Save Your Marriage Alone" is the title of one; "How To Save Your Marriage Before It's Too Late" promises another; another bears the title, "How to Survive Your Marriage," which seems a rather minimal aim. And a personal favorite: "Love in the Present Tense: How to have a High Intimacy, Low Maintenance Marriage." Talk about a good cost-benefit ratio – intimacy with minimum investment! Most tragically, even Christian marriage books are like this. One of the titles I've mentioned is by a Christian marriage counselor.

Applied to marriage, the reign of efficiency makes persons as interchangeable as standardized parts. But this perverts the essence of marriage. As the late Pope John Paul II said, maleness and femaleness never exist in the "abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman." In the natural course of things, sexual attraction is not an attraction to the "opposite sex," but attraction to a particular human being. Only when sexual desire is "directed towards a particular human being" can it "provide the framework within which, and the basis on which, the possibility of love arises."

Marital efficiency, the Pope also notes, is essentially egotistical, yet, paradoxically, turns each person into an abject instrument for the other. Husband and wife are each "mainly concerned with gratifying his or her own egoism, but at the same time [each] consents to serve someone else's egoism, because this can provide the opportunity for such gratification." The husband uses the wife as a tool for satisfying his own desires and aims; the wife willingly allows herself to become his tool because she hopes that she can satisfy hers in turn.

This is not marriage. This is mutual manipulation.

If you want to establish a Christian marriage in a culture like ours, you're going to have to stand strongly against the tide; you're going to have to take up a counter-cultural stance. You're going to have to resist the demand for efficiency, the demand for standardized rules and procedures without any end in view, the notion that marriage can work like a machine with calculable inputs and outputs.

You need something deeper than this, however. You need a transformation of imagination. When modern Americans imagine a "perfect" world, that world is orderly, regular, clean, sleek. It's all smoothness and shining surfaces. It's not only our morality that's distorted by utilitarianism, not only our marriages that are damaged by the how-to mentality. It goes deeper than that. Our imaginations have been emptied out.

Instead of perfection as symmetry, think of perfection as polyphony, the harmony of simultaneous voices. Instead of perfection as geometric, imagine perfection as a Gothic cathedral, which is nothing less than stone straining to become weightless spirit. Instead of a quantifiable perfection, meditate on the perfection of the fold-swirling-on-fold in Baroque painting and sculpture. Christian imagination does not reduce the rich radiance of the world to monochrome. Christian imagination does not package creation in boxes. Christian imagination, inspired by the unutterable beauty of the Triune God, receives the world in all its wild beauty, and imagines perfection not as taming but as the completion of both its beauty and its wildness.

Only when we're equipped with such imaginations can we even begin to grasp and live the "great mystery" of Ephesians 5. For the mystery is not just marriage, and not just Christ and His church. Both of those are mysteries, and great ones. But the greatest mystery of all arises from the interplay of these two mysteries, the great mystery that human marriage, the marriage of one all-too-human man to one all-too-human woman, that marriage, in all its complexities, challenges, failures, and ragged edges, reveals the world's destiny, the summation of all things in Christ. Your marriage, with all its flaws, imperfections, frustrations – your actual marriage, not some idealized perfect marriage - discloses the secret drama of human history. That, indeed, is a great mystery.

This is my exhortation to you: By all means, develop patterns and habits of life; by all means set up rules and procedures. But as you do that, resist the reduction of these rules and procedures to the cultural standard of efficiency. And resist by cultivating a Christian imagination, an imagination that sees God's grandeur in a grain of sand, that knows the face of God in the face of a beggar, that rejoices in God's good creation in all its layers, that discovers nothing less than the secret of the universe in the way of a man with a maid.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Marriage Sermon

Sat, 19 May 2007 18:07:33 GMT

At His ascension, Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, was exalted into heavenly glory where John saw Him "having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth." At Pentecost, which we celebrate in a little over a week, Jesus poured out this sevenfold Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit is the coronation gift from the Son to His bride, a sign that He has taken His heavenly throne and that she will share it with Him.

But the Spirit is more than a mere sign of Christ's kingship. The Spirit effects His kingship.

Through the Spirit, Jesus asserts His authority in the world, drives back the kingdom of Satan, and takes dominion over all creation. In Hebrew, the word for "spring" is the same as the word for "eye," so the Lamb's seven eyes which are seven lights and seven Spirits are also seven springs. At Pentecost, Jesus established springs of the Spirit on earth, which well up to water a fallen creation

Through Isaiah (44:3), Yahweh promised to pour out water on the land of Israel and His Spirit upon Israel's seed. Jesus tells Nicodemus that Israel must be born again of water and the Spirit, and John tells us that the witnesses to Jesus are the "Spirit, the water and the blood" (1 John 5). When the Spirit is poured out like water, he turns desolate places to fruitfulness, transforms the dry land into a grove, transfigures the withered leaf into a green (Isaiah 32:15; Ezekiel 39:29; Joel 2:29; Zechariah 12:10; Acts 2:17-18, 33; 10:45). In fulfillment of all these promises, the Holy Spirit comes as divine water flowing from the spring of the Father and Son to bring life to the world.

And to bring life to marriage. It's often pointed out that Paul begins his instructions on marriage with the exhortation to mutual submission: "be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." That's true, but it doesn't go far enough. To see the full context of Paul's instructions, we have to step back further, to Paul's exhortation to wisdom and his teaching about the Spirit. For Paul, godly marriage is a Pentecostal reality.

What does a Spirit-filled marriage look like? We should ask what it sounds like. For the first thing Paul says is that the Spirit makes us noisy. "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit," he says. Though he condemns drunkenness, Paul implies that the result of being filled with the Spirit is quite like the result of being filled with spirits. "They are filled with new wine," said the skeptical Jews about the babbling disciples at Pentecost. It was a plausible mistake.

For Paul, the Spirit doesn't make us placid and mild, quiet and retiring. When we're filled with the Spirit, we cannot not speak, and our speech breaks out in boisterous Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Being filled with the Spirit means being filled with music, in our mouths and in our hearts. A marriage filled with the Spirit is full of noise, harmonious and melodious noise, joyful noise. When the Spirit is poured out on us, we become like our God, whose thunderous voice is like the sound of many waters.

By the Spirit, we're tuned to the harmonies and rhythms of God, prepared to join a heavenly chorus, where we will not only make music but be made into music. Through the Spirit of Pentecost, diverse languages were harmonized to proclaim a single gospel. The Spirit must do the same in marriage. You come to marriage speaking different languages – one of you talks male, the other female. If you don't already realize you were multilingual, you soon will. Only through the Spirit can your voices be united in a single polyphonic song of praise.

By harmonizing marriage, the Spirit also beautifies. It's only through the Spirit that marriage can manifest the glory and beauty of the God who is Beauty and Glory. Jonathan Edwards wrote, "It was made especially the Holy Spirit's work to bring the world to its beauty and perfection out of chaos; for the beauty of the world is a communication of God's beauty. The Holy Spirit is the harmony and excellence and beauty of the deity. . . Therefore, 'twas His work to communicate beauty and harmony to the world, and so we read that it was He that moved upon the face of the waters."

According to Paul, the song of the Spirit is a song of thanksgiving. When the Father fills us with the Spirit of song and the song of the Spirit, He tunes us to give thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus. Our joyful song, Paul says, should be a hymn of universal thanksgiving, thanksgiving universal in time – at all times – and universal in circumstance – for all things.

When we've all that straight, then we can begin to talk about headship and submission. When we talk about headship and submission outside that context, we are in danger of turning Paul's instructions into an excuse for domination and control on the one side, and for abject, cowering submission on the other. But in this context, marriage is not so much a hierarchy as a harmony; Paul doesn't instruct us in a method so much as teach us a melody. Marital union, fulfilled in the Spirit, is not a rigid hierarchy, a top-town tyranny. It's a dance; it's music, the embodied music of the seven-stringed Spirit, who first tunes us and then breathes through us so that we resonate with thanks.

In Eastern Orthodox wedding celebrations, the bride and groom wear crowns for part of the service. The crowns are royal crowns, since the husband is a new Adam and the wife a new Eve, king and queen of creation. They are martyr's crowns, calling both husband and wife to self-sacrifice for one another and for others. They give a foretaste of a future crown of glory; at the end of the Orthodox service, the priest removes the crowns to remind the couple that they have not yet won the crown of life that they shall receive in the life to come.

Above all, the crowns are signs of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because of the Spirit, we're already crowned with glory, crowned as martyrs, crowned as rulers. Through the Spirit, we're able to receive everything from the Lord's hand – plenty or want, joy or sorrow, sickness or health – with triumphant thanksgiving. Not with indifference, not with endurance, not with equanimity; but with gratitude and joy. The Spirit is the love that binds the Father and Son, and He is the conquering love that transfigures every moment into a moment of grace, every cross into a threshold to renewal.

Israel stood in awe when Moses struck the Rock that followed them and saw the water burst forth. As the Lord marches through the dry wilderness of this world, He makes it flow with rivers of water. He changes a dry land into a pool (Psalm 107). We have seen greater things than this. When God struck Jesus, our crucified Rock, water flowed from Him to renew the earth.

But we've seen greater things even than this: It's not surprising that when Yahweh walks through the wilderness, refreshing waters spring up. We expect the incarnate Son to be a well of eternal life. What's surprising is that the same happens to us. Not only Yahweh, but also those whose strength is in Him make the barren valley fruitful (Psalm 84). And we flow with living water the same way the Rock in the wilderness did, the same way Christ did. We're of the earth earthy; but when God fills us we become fountains of the Spirit. We're dust and ashes, but when the Lord strikes, the water of the Spirit wells up and flows out. When struck, we become springs of the seven Spirits which are seven eyes. When struck, we are the seven strings of the Spirit's lyre, resounding with Psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs.

The Holy Spirit is the creative Alpha Spirit of the first day, the one who begins to form the stuff of the creation into beauty. He is the re-creative Omega Spirit of the Sabbath who brings everything to completion. In marriage, the Spirit unites man and wife as one flesh, shapes two lives into one, and impels this dual to be completed. All that you wish for and hope for and yearn for in your marriage, from its beginning to its end – enduring love, fullness of joy, flourishing life, children, a long life of unity, ministry, a role in the redemption of the nations – all of it is a gift of the Spirit. All of it springs from the Spirit, the sevenfold Holy Spirit who flows from the Father and Son.

So, from this day, and throughout your marriage, drink deeply from this well, drink until you are filled, drink until you overflow. And then drink again.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us Pray.

Almighty God, our Father, we pray that by Your grace their marriage would flourish and produce abundant fruit. Teach Gabriel to lead and Kristen to follow; teach them the dance of initiation and response, the melody of love and returned love. May they not shrink back when You strike; may they know that You strike to make them fountains of living water. Above and before all, fill them with Your Spirit, the sevenfold Spirit of Your Risen Son, that they may keep in step with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, pray in the Spirit, sing in the Spirit, speak in the Spirit. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Defining Marriage Down?

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:56:12 GMT

David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, takes on the issue of same-sex marriage in The Future of Marriage, soon to be released by Encounter Books. Blankenhorn brings a wealth of insight to the book, arguing that Western nations have been "deinstitutionalizing" marriage for decades.

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Grudem on Marriage and Ministry

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:26:07 GMT

This article is now about 6 years old. It's a very encouraging, humble, personal account by Wayne Grudem regarding his marriage, his understanding of headship, and his marriage.

Upcoming Sermon on Marriage

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:06:26 GMT

(Author: John Piper)

Title: Marriage: Pursuing Conformity to Christ in the Covenant
Text: Ephesians 5:21-33

Before moving to headship and submission, there is one more issue to deal with in regard to the dynamics of grace in marriage.

Last week we looked at pursuing change in ourselves (7 garments) which enabled forbearing and forgiving the annoying and hurtful and sinful things that do not change in the beloved. Now we focus on the pursuit of conformity to Christ in both ourselves and the beloved. Now we talk of pursuing change both in ourselves and the beloved. This will involve the issue of confrontation.

The last two weeks, we spoke of putting the foundation of marriage on grace, especially grace to forbear and forgive. Now we focus on the grace to change and conform to Christ, so that we minimize, as much as possible, the need for forbearance and forgiveness. Grace is a high form of passing over sin--and a high form of power not to sin.

5 Paths to the Love of your Life

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:13:42 GMT

I am so glad to be married. That was the sentence resounding in my head as I looked through 5 Paths to the Love of Your Life, edited by Alex Chediak.

In God’s kindness and providence he gave me a wife even though I didn’t have the benefit of a book such as this.

If you’re a parent sorting through what you’re going to do with your teenager, thinking through the positions articulated in this volume would be a helpful exercise.

If you find yourself caught in the crossfire between those who have kissed dating goodbye and advocate arranged marriages, betrothal, or courtship on the one side, versus those who kiss on the first date, those who date if it’s purposeful, and those who just wish they could get a date on the other, this is the book for you.

UPDATE: A friend of mine who is a singles pastor at a large church asked me to elaborate on this book, so here goes: it�s sort of a �5 views� on how to handle one�s self as a single person. The editor has each of the authors address three situations: a high school couple being encouraged to date one another, a college couple�each new believers with unbelieving parents, and a 30 year old single female looking for a husband. The authors comment on how, in their view, each of these situations should be dealt with. I think this would be an excellent resource for you and the folks in your ministry.

Christ, Marriage, and the Church

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:21:36 GMT

Tomorrow, Saturday, February 3, 2007, I will be delivering a presentation on �Christ, Marriage, and the Church� at Southeastern�s 20/20 Collegiate Conference. The presentation will summarize some of the material in my book God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. To adapt Paul, clearly, no foundation can be laid other than the one laid by God himself in his Word. For those who won�t be able to join us, please find below the outline for my presentation. If you are within driving distance, I�d love to see you in Appleby 207!

1. The Divinely Revealed Purpose of Marriage (Genesis 1�2)

�� Equality in essence

�� Distinct roles

�� Partnership

�� Joint dominion

�� Fruitfulness

2. The Consequences of the Fall on Marriage (Genesis 3)

�� Loss of innocence

�� Labor

�� Relational tension

�� Struggle for control

3. The Redemption of Marriage in Christ (Ephesians)

�� Sacrificial love of husband

�� Voluntary submission of wife

�� Part of restoration of all things under headship of Christ (Eph. 1:10)

�� Spirit-filled (5:18)

�� Putting on the full armor of God (6:10�18)

How exciting that marriage and the family are included in God�s redemptive purposes in Christ! The biblical message is that marriage is not an end in itself but a means toward the end of glorifying God in Christ. You will notice that I find in Genesis 1�2 indications of both equality in essence and distinct male-female roles. Correspondingly, Paul urges even Christian women�those redeemed by Christ�to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ.

A truly God-honoring marriage, however, will be possible only for spouses who are Spirit-filled (Eph 5:18) and who affirm Christ�s lordship over all their lives (Eph 1:10). As all believers, husbands and wives�and their children, too!�must unite in putting on the full armor of God, so that they can stand firm against the devil�s schemes, who is intent to thwart God�s plan at every turn (Eph 6:10�18)�marriage must be lived by faith, not sight.

Do you and I want to have a successful marriage? Or do we desire a God-honoring marriage?

Success defines marriage in the world�s terms: it is works-oriented and prides itself in human accomplishment and human means toward attaining it. Bringing glory to God orients the purpose for marriage in the only one who is truly worthy. We depend on God and acknowledge our need for him. And we can be successful even when we fail, because our failure puts the spotlight where it properly belongs: the never-failing love of God, and his all-sufficient grace.

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