The Purpose of Marriage

You can read the blog articles for this month's series on Marriage here:

Part 1: You Can Have a Happy Marriage

Part 2: The Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Marriage

Part 3: The Purpose of Marriage

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Series
• 6:12 The Purpose of Marriage
• 11:12 Fulfilling our God-given Assignment through Marriage
• 21:12 Marriage as a Foundation for Family
• 31:12 Meeting Emotional Needs Through Marriage
• 41:12 Reflection of Christ in the Marriage Covenant

Transcript

Audrey: 1:13

Hello, welcome back to Grace From my Home. I'm Audrey McCracken and I am honored to join you again this week. I hope that you're doing well. We are in the middle of a series on marriage. This is the third week and I hope that you have enjoyed this. If you missed the first two, you can go back to the show notes and click on the first two episodes. Go back to the show notes and click on the first two episodes Also, just so you know, I write a blog post with each of these podcast episodes and sometimes you can get more information.

Audrey: 1:46

If it's a subject that you're interested in, you can get more information from the blog post because I put scripture references. I also will list some books that I recommend, some things that I've read that I found helpful, especially during this series on marriage. I'll put the blog post in the show notes so you can click on that Also. I've put together a free resource for you. It's called Seven Powerful Prayers to Pray Over your Husband, to pray over your husband and I just. You will be amazed at how much can change in just one week. Praying for your husband daily. You know God answers our prayers and it's amazing to me, you know, if you pray, if you commit to seven days of praying for your husband, god will do something in him. God will do something in your marriage, but God will also do something in you. I've seen it time and time again. I've thought Lord, my husband needs prayer, he needs to change. And as I go to the Lord in prayer and I start to pray for my husband, god will do a work in my heart and he'll show me that there's areas I need to change too. And prayer opens up our hearts to the Lord where he can do a work in us, and also in our husbands, of course. But if that sounds like something that would be helpful for you, just go to the show notes and click on Seven Powerful Prayers to Pray Over your Husband. And that is a free resource and I encourage you to take advantage of it.

Audrey: 3:12

This week we're going to talk about the purpose of marriage. This week we're going to talk about the purpose of marriage. The first week we talked about the first episode in this series. We talked about you. The name of that episode was you Can have a Happy Marriage, and we talked about the redeemed marriage. In the second episode, we talked about the most important thing you can do for your marriage. And then today we're going to talk about the purpose of marriage. And to me it's helpful to talk about the purpose of marriage because if I know the purpose of something, it kind of gives me insight into how to treat that thing. If I know why something was created, if I know the purpose of it, it gives me insight into how it functions and kind of my place in it. And so I'm hoping today, as I share with you the purpose of marriage, that it will give you an insight into where's my place in marriage and why did God set it up this way. And hopefully that will help you in your everyday life, because I like to know, I feel like if I have an idea of how and why something is set up, then I can treat it better. And so today I'm going to share with you five purposes that I see when I study marriage, that I see in marriage. There may be more, but these are the five that I see when it comes to marriage.

Audrey: 4:36

The first purpose of marriage is that marriage helps us to fulfill our God-given assignment. Marriage helps us to fulfill God's assignment for our lives. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden. He gave them an assignment. We call it the creation mandate. We call it the creation mandate. And he told them be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Now, adam could not fill the earth without Eve and Eve could not fill the earth without Adam. That was an assignment that God gave both of them, but they needed each other in order to do that, and I believe that marriage is. One of the purposes of marriage is that it gives us a partner. It gives us someone to do life with. It says in Ecclesiastes 4, it says two are better than one, because if one falls, the other can help them up. So it's better for us to go to have a partner, it's better for us to have someone to walk with, for we're designed that way and God gives us assignments as individuals and as couples. When we're married, we still have individual assignments, but God also, I believe God also gives us an assignment as a couple, for example. I'll use my life as an example, because it's the only example I know intimately.

Audrey: 6:09

I have assignments that I feel like the Lord, things that the Lord has asked me to do, and so does my husband. My husband is a high school principal and he is deep in that world. He's working on his PhD right now in administration and you know I don't know a whole lot about that world, except for some of the things he's allowed to tell me, and you know some of the things. I know he's a very busy man but he enjoys his job and he does it really well. I think he's a great principal. He loves those children and I see God's hand on his life to do that. There's an anointing on him, a strength on him to do that well and I support him in that. I pray for him, I encourage him, I listen However I can. I support him in that. But that's not my assignment. And the same thing with me. There are things that God has asked of me that my husband that's not what he's called to do. I run a coffee shop. It's something I do for my church, it's something I feel like the Lord has asked of me, and so that's my world and he listens and if I need him to help with an event, he'll come in and help with an event. But he doesn't carry the weight of that but he does encourage me in it and that's our two separate assignments but we encourage each other in that Now we also pastor a church together, and that is something that I believe God's called us to do together, and I sure wouldn't want to do it without him, and I don't think he would want to do it without me either. We pray for people, we teach people, we encourage people. We pray for God's plan.

Audrey: 7:54

About a little over a year ago, our church moved. We moved from a country church to a city, the city where we run our coffee shop. And that's hard work, you know. We're trying to do something new, we're paving a new road into a new place, and it's not easy work. But God's given us each other and other people. We're not doing it alone. We have a whole group of people who God has given this heart and this vision to. But this is an area where I believe God's called us together, and I think God does that. I think you know, as a couple, we need each other to encourage each other in our individual assignments and to do the things that God's called us to do together.

Audrey: 8:40

Raising our kids was something that God called us to do together. They're not just my children, they're not just his children. You know that's an assignment God's given us together. Now we may have different roles in that, but our heart is to do it well and to do it together, and so one of the purposes of marriage marriage helps us to fulfill God's assignment for our lives. Number two, another purpose that marriage serves is that marriage provides a secure place to bring children into the world.

Audrey: 9:18

The first podcast on this series of marriage I talked about how marriage is the first institution that God ordained In the beginning. He created Adam, he created Eve, he brought them together. That was the first family and that was the first institution that he created and he blessed it. He told them to be fruitful and multiply. Marriage is God-ordained and good things happen in strong marriages. Good things happen there in strong families and strong homes. And see every society is. Every strong society is built around strong families, and see strong families make for strong churches and strong communities and strong countries. So marriage creates a framework to bring children in to the world and get, so that they can grow and mature and be the people that God created them to be.

Audrey: 10:19

My father was a farmer and some plants. He would go out into the field and he would sow those plants in the elements and they would grow. But there are other plants that he could not do that. They wouldn't live. They wouldn't survive if you just went straight from seed into the ground. Some plants he had to start in the greenhouse. So he would plant the seed in soil in the greenhouse and that seed would sprout and it would create a small plant and as that plant matured and grew and got stronger, he would transplant that plant outside and then it would survive. But see, it needed that little in-between time so that it could survive and thrive outside of the greenhouse. And our homes are kind of like that. Our families, the family that we create, is like a greenhouse. We create a place where children can get their needs met, where they can learn about God, where they can get strong in their faith, and we don't just throw them out into the world, we transplant them when they're ready, when the time is right. Marriage provides a good place for children to grow, to get stronger, so that they can go out into the world and do well. Another purpose of marriage is that marriage is the way that God chooses to meet our emotional and relational needs.

Audrey: 11:52

Last week I talked about how we all have needs. You know we are body, soul and spirit. My body has needs. If I don't get the needs of my body met, my body will not function properly and eventually die. No, my spirit has needs, and those are needs that only God can supply. But I also have other needs. I have a soul. My soul is made up of my mind, my will and my emotions. See, we're created in the image of God and, like God, we have an amazing capacity to love and to be loved and to care for people and to know people on a deep level, to commune with people on a deep level, and so, because of that, we have emotional and social needs. We need love. We may not think we do, but we need love. We were designed, we were created for love, to receive love and to give love. We have a need for intimacy, we have a need for connection. We have a need for community and security, friendship and companionship, and there are some needs that God uses marriage to meet, and part of our obedience to God in marriage is meeting our spouse's needs. It's not about taking from our spouse what we need. It's about giving them what they need and receiving from them what we need. It's a love relationship. It's not a take-take, it's a give-give, and in that kind of relationship our needs get met.

Audrey: 13:46

One of the biggest complaints in marriage is unmet needs, and so when you're not getting your needs met, when your spouse isn't getting their needs met, then you're not happy in marriage. You feel like something's wrong, something's off. You know everything else can be going fine, but when there are unmet needs, when you're not relating to each other the right way, when there's no intimacy, when there's no closeness, when there's no trust, you're not happy in marriage. I heard it put this way one time and I thought this was a good way to put it Without love, without intimacy, without closeness, then marriage is just business. Without that connection, that heart connection where we're meeting each other's emotional needs and physical needs, it's just business. It's just who's going to pick up the kids, who's going to pay the bills, who's going to cook supper, where are we going on vacation it's just business. A big part of our satisfaction in marriage depends on if our needs are getting met, and the same is true for our spouse. So God designed marriage as a way for us to get our emotional and our relational needs met.

Audrey: 15:17

Another purpose for marriage is that marriage helps us to be transformed into the image of Christ. One of God's purposes for our life is that we become more and more like Jesus. We were originally created in the image of God. Sin marred that image, but in Christ we are being renewed again. In Christ we are born again and we are being transformed into the image of Christ. Now we become like the one we behold, and it's the things that we go through in life that we are making choices. Are we going to look like Jesus? Are we going to act like Jesus? Are we going to think like Jesus? Are we going to do the things that are pleasing to the Father, like Jesus did? And marriage is full of those opportunities.

Audrey: 16:09

See, in marriage, in the context of marriage, of living with your sinful nature, living with somebody else with a sinful nature, having to decide am I going to give in to my sinful nature or am I going to choose to obey God? Am I going to be transformed into the image of Christ? And marriage gives us so many opportunities to choose Christ or not. But God uses marriage to transform us into the image of Christ. If we let him us into the image of Christ, if we let him. Marriage is really hard on selfish people, and I say that as a selfish person. I'm not pointing my finger at you. We are all, at our core, selfish without Jesus. And so in marriage, god gives us opportunities to choose to serve and to love someone else and, even when they have bad days, even when we're having bad days, to choose to be more and more like Jesus. And the last purpose of marriage that I want to mention today, one of the purposes of marriage is to be a reflection of Christ and the church.

Audrey: 17:31

Marriage was the first institution that God ordained, but in the New Testament we see that Jesus establishes another institution, and that institution is the church. And the church is made up of believers, those who believe in Jesus Christ and who have been born again by his spirit, who have chosen him. They choose to believe and they choose to follow and obey and serve him. And in the Bible, the church is called his bride. And in Ephesians, paul talks about a mystery. And let's read that. I'm going to read out of the NIV, ephesians 5, starting in verse 21.

Audrey: 18:13

Submit to one another, out of reverence for Christ, 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 in everything. Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without any stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless, in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body. But they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. So Paul is talking about a mystery here, and he refers back to the very beginning in Genesis, where it says for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And he's saying this is a mystery, but this relates to Christ and the church.

Audrey: 20:01

The church is a sacred institution and the relationship between a husband and a wife reflects the relationship between the church and Christ. And we can learn a lot about marriage by looking at the church and Christ. Both of them are sacrificial relationships. Jesus sacrificed everything in order to redeem his church and so we too, as married couples, are to sacrifice for each other. Both work together better when there's an attitude of servanthood. You know, jesus said the greatest among you is the servant and he said. And in Mark he said I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. That's the attitude that makes strong and healthy and happy marriages. When both have that servant heart and their goal is to love each other, to serve each other, to sacrifice when needed for each other, that is a happy marriage. That is a strong foundation for marriage.

Audrey: 21:24

It reflects the way he gave himself for his church and the way he serves. Remember him washing the feet. Remember that the night that he was going to be arrested, the day before his crucifixion he bent over dirty, nasty feet and he washed them with love, and that is a servant's heart. And so he said, even as he bent over, he told his disciples I'm doing this as an example for you that as I have served you, as I have loved you, as I have washed your feet, that you would do for others and in marriage. Marriage gives us wonderful opportunities to serve in love and to reflect the way Christ loves the church and the way the church is to respect Christ.

Audrey: 22:19

Both relationships the relationship between a man and a woman in marriage and the relationship between Jesus and his church they're covenant relationships. Both of them require a lifetime commitment. This is for keeps. We say till death do us part. And so one of the purposes of marriage is that it would reflect Christ and the church, that the love relationship between a man and woman and holy matrimony and covenant love, committing themselves to each other, and how the church is to honor and love and serve him. And so those are the five purposes of marriage.

Audrey: 22:58

And I want to end by saying that marriage is hard work. I know that it is. It's often messy, it's more complicated than we want it to be, and a happy. Marriage is not a passive marriage. You know, if we're going to enjoy our marriage, we're going to have to put work into it, we're going to have to be intentional about it. But marriage is good. It's work, but it's good.

Audrey: 23:24

I like this excerpt from Gary Thomas' book. Gary Thomas wrote a book called Sacred Marriage and in that he wrote this quote what if God designed marriage to make you holy instead of happy? What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God? And I love that quote because I think it helps us to have perspective that, yes, it is between me and my husband, but it's more than that, and my obedience in marriage has a lot to do with my relationship with Jesus, and I hope that these thoughts have been helpful to you. I hope they've been encouraging to you as you grow closer to your spouse, as you grow closer to the Lord.

Audrey: 24:10

Join me again next week as we finish up this series and I hope that you have a great week. Don't forget to touch base with me. I would love to hear from you. You can click on the show notes and send me fan mail and just tell me about yourself. Tell me where you're from and tell me about your family. I'd love to hear from you, and if there's anything that I've shared that's been helpful, I would love to hear that. Until next time, god bless.