Sunday sermon review - God's Purpose for Marriage

Many men get married because they want someone to take care of them and because their girlfriend is hot and they don’t want to lose her. Many women get married because they want a family and their boyfriend makes lots of money. Some people get married because that is just what they are expected to do. Maybe they don’t want to be lonely. Maybe they are in looooooooove.

Whatever their reasons for getting married, for many people, marriage is merely a way to make themselves happy, to get their needs met. Few men and women enter marriage because they want to become more holy.

I didn’t.

I never once thought about marrying Meredith so that God could use our marriage as a way to purify my character. I wanted to marry her because I loved her and I thought she would make me happy. Oh sure, in the back of my mind I thought about serving her and caring for her, but my desire to serve her was still motivated by selfishness. I thought, “If I keep her healthy and well, then she will be functioning at an optimum level to serve me.”

I cringe at my early thoughts on marriage. And I thank God that He has patiently taught me what marriage is really about. While Meredith and I do not reflect this perfectly, we do now understand that marriage is first and foremost about glorifying God by representing the relationship between Christ and his Church.

That means that we married couples are to show the world a picture of the covenant love Jesus has for us. A love that sacrifices, reconciles, forgives, serves with humility, and most importantly a love that never fails. Wow, that is a much higher calling and motivation for marriage than “She is hot… I want her.”

There is no way we can accomplish this task in our marriages. NONE. We cannot do these things because only Jesus was able to do them perfectly. So how can God make this the primary purpose of marriage?

Well, this is where the second purpose of marriage comes in: He gives us marriage to make us holy. God has given us a task that we cannot fulfill in our own strength or character. It is only through the work of Jesus on the cross in forgiving all our sins and granting us his own righteousness that we have any hope of glorifying God in our marriage. Therefore, it is imperative that we keep Christ central, that we live the gospel everyday, that we allow Him to continue the sanctification process.

We were created for worship.

Worship is glorifying Christ as supreme.

He makes us holy to make him glorious.

Marriage is intended to glorify Christ’s covenant love for the church. God uses our marriages to make us holy so that we can fulfill his purpose for them.

Now, this is not to say that there are other great reasons to get married. But what we need to recover in the church are the primary reasons for marriage and make sure we are keeping them primary. Be happy in marriage. Have kids. Grow into best friends. Do all these… for God’s glory, to make Jesus look great to the world.