A Distinctively Christian Approach to Marriage

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

Stephen Whitmer
Hey, welcome everyone to this session on marriage. My name is Stephen Whitmer. I’ve been the lead pastor of pepperrell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell, Massachusetts, about an hour northwest of Boston, for almost 17 years. I have the privilege of serving on the council of the gospel coalition. And more importantly, I’ve been married to Emma, my wife, for 19 years, and we have three children, Samuel, Annie and Henry, actually, just about 10 days ago, Emma and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. Thank you, and I’m really glad that TGC did not occur over our wedding anniversary, because that would have been a really awkward choice about whether to stay. I would have chosen to stay home for the anniversary. It would have been a hard sell to persuade my wife that I was going to miss my anniversary to come do a talk on Christian marriage. I think she would have detected that irony and pointed it out to me. I want to thank each one of you for being here. I’ve been praying for you, and in this session, we’re going to talk about the biblical distinctives of marriage, and I’m going to adopt a narrow focus and aim for a broad audience. So let me just explain what I mean by that. My assigned text is Ephesians, 521, through 64 which is, as you probably know, one of the most controversial passages in the entire Bible. Many lengthy books have been written on it, so I’m not even going to try to say everything there is to say about these verses. I cannot talk that fast. This session will not be a critique of egalitarianism, although it will certainly have a bearing on egalitarianism. It will not be a defense of complementarianism, although I certainly hope that it will shed some fresh light on complementarianism. It will not be a massive list of how tos for marriage, although it will certainly undergird I hope many how tos. Instead, I want to allow my assigned title, which is the biblical distinctives of Christian marriage, to guide my approach. So I’m going to highlight in this passage three distinctive features of a biblical vision of Christian marriage. Number one, the purpose of marriage. Number two, the partnership of marriage, and number three, the precious impermanence of marriage. Purpose, partnership, impermanence. That’s the narrow focus of this talk. Rather than try to say everything I could say, I’m going to focus on those three things now the broad audience. I’m hoping that what I say in the next few minutes will be helpful for those of us who are married and also for those of us who are single, whether single for life or not yet, married or divorced or widowed. Evidently, the apostle Paul himself thought that it was worthwhile for the entire congregation married or not, to hear his teaching about marriage. In this Ephesians five, passage, we know that Paul meant for his letters to be read aloud to the gathered congregation. He says so in Colossians, 416, so presumably Ephesians was read aloud when the congregation gathered for worship on the first day of the week. And we know for sure that Paul expected unmarried people to be present, because he directly addresses children in Ephesians, 61 so clearly he believed it was valuable for unmarried people to learn about marriage, when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense for a couple reasons, even if you’re not married. Now, it’s possible that you may one day be a Netflix show about the Grand Canyon is interesting, not just for people who live there, but for people who are considering a visit and even if you’re not married now and you never will be, you’re called to support the marriages of fellow Christians. You’re called to nurture, protect those marriages. Titus two says as much so if we’re going to take that responsibility seriously, to protect, nurture, invest in, encourage the marriages of those around us. We need to know what the biblical distinctives of Christian marriage are, whether or not we ourselves are married. So these words from God on marriage in Ephesians, five are for the whole body of Christ. That’s what I mean by my broad my broad audience. I want a narrow focus on those three points and a broad audience in this session with that introduction, let’s read Ephesians 518, through chapter six, verse four. Love for you to get there in your Bible on your phone. However. You read the passage, and I’m going to read Ephesians 518, through 64 then we’ll pray and jump in. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, Giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord, Jesus, Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. 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. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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, in the same way a husband should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ as the church, because we are members of His Body, 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’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord Father. I pray that you would open these words to us afresh. I pray for each single person in this room, that this would be an encouragement to them as they hear from your word, a reminder of the biblical distinctives of Christian marriage, and for each married couple in this room, that there would be Some insight, some fresh approach to your word, a faithful reminder of your word that would be an encouragement in persevering and thriving in marriage. And we pray this because we want your name to be known. We want you to be seen Lord Jesus. We want your worth to be displayed. So please come to open Your Word and apply it to our lives. We pray in Jesus name, Amen. So let’s see, in these verses, that passage I just read, the purpose of marriage, the partnership of marriage and the precious impermanence of marriage, all three of those are deeply biblical and significantly counter cultural. I’ll begin with the first one, the purpose of marriage, and this is foundational. So we’ll take a little bit longer on this one, and then go more quickly on the others. In his book, a preface to Paradise Lost CS Lewis said this the first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship, from a corkscrew to a cathedral, is to know what it was intended to do and how it was meant to be used. And if you think about it, that’s just common sense. You can’t really judge whether something is successful, whether it’s achieving its end, its purpose unless you know what that purpose is, what the goal of its existence is. That’s true for marriage as well. We can’t really understand marriage. We can’t conclude that a particular marriage is a good one, a successful one or otherwise, until we know what marriage is for. And the basic point I want to make in this talk, because I think it’s at the root of what Paul’s saying in this passage, is that marriage is designed by God himself to be a window, not a wall. Marriage is meant to be a window, not a wall. I think if we grasp that it will transform the way we think about marriage, the way we value marriage, the way we engage in marriage, our motivation for marriage, our motivation for persevering in marriage. So let’s think about the difference between a window and a wall.

Speaker 1
You’re looking at a wall, your gaze stops at the wall. A really good wall might be a nice color. It might be beautifully decorated. It might be very pleasant to look at. I mean, I must say, I’m very thankful for the walls in my home. They keep the ceilings up. It’d be a lot colder in the New England winters without the walls. Most of those walls actually mean something to me. So I’ve painted every single wall in my home, and my wife and I have decorated them. We have pictures of our children on those walls. We’ve worked hard to make the walls look nice, but the very best wall is still, at the end of the day, just a wall. You can only go so far with a wall. A window is very different. The worth of a window is almost endless, because its worth is not merely in itself. A window is made to be looked through, not at. In fact, usually, the only reason you look at a window is if it’s not well made or well maintained or well cleaned. It might have a chip or a crack in it, or if you have little kids or a dog, it might have hand prints or paw prints. We’ve got our kids are old enough. We don’t get the hand prints so much anymore, but we definitely have the paw prints. Those things draw your attention away from what’s on the other side of the window, because the purpose of Windows is to be looked through. They can be endlessly interesting, sometimes even revealing spectacular things. So looking out the windows of my home, over the years, I have seen the blazing colors of New England autumns. I’ve seen my wife and three kids playing badminton on the front lawn. I’ve seen five or six deer walking together through our yard, a whole flock of wild turkeys and a red fox sauntering along. By the way, the fox and the turkeys were not at the same time. The Fox would not have been sauntering if they were there at the same time. You know, the fact that a window shows things on the other side of the window makes it endlessly interesting and significant and valuable. It’s why the old fashioned punishment for a child was to send them to face the corner of the room all walls, not to send them to face a window that would not be any punishment at all, because it’s it’s interesting, beautiful. The image of a window and a wall is not explicit in Ephesians five, but I think it expresses a concept that’s deeply embedded in the Letter to the Ephesians. And I’ll call this concept see through ability, this is important. I think in the Letter to the Ephesians, it’ll be really important for understanding marriage. Let me just show you, via a quick tour of Ephesians, what I mean by see through ability. Because I think we’re if we bring this back and think through marriage in this respect, it’ll be really helpful in Ephesians, chapter one, verses seven through 10, Paul says that God has a plan that was long hidden and has now been revealed through Paul’s own apostolic ministry, although it’s only going to be fully realized at the last day when Christ returns, and Pastor John was talking about this passage in His plenary talk. According to chapter one, verse 10, God’s plan is to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. And some Greek lexica translate the word to unite as to bring together under one, several things under one, reduce under one head or another. Lexicon says to bring everything together in terms of some unifying principle or person at the last day. That means, when Jesus returns, God will publicly demonstrate that Jesus, Christ is the main point of all created things. He’s the reason they exist. They’re all united, summed up together in him, in other words, Ephesians. One says that we live in a Jesus centric universe. Now in the rest of the letter, Paul introduces that in Ephesians, one in the rest of the letter, he does a fascinating thing. He shows that God has created the world in such a way as to provide advanced previews of that great end time Christ centered Ephesians, 110, climax, and specifically, God has given us two realities, which when we look through them. TGC, like a window allow us to glimpse the end time summing up of all things under the headship of Jesus Christ. And those two God given windows are the church. We heard about that this morning in Andrew Wilson’s talk and Christian marriage. So first the church, Ephesians, three, eight and nine. Paul says he received grace from God to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things. And at that point in the letter Paul has just said Ephesians 36 that the mystery is that Gentile believers in Jesus are members of the same body, together with Jewish believers in Jesus. So God in Christ has overcome the chasm separating Jew and Gentile from each other and separating both from God. That’s what Paul preaches in Ephesians, three in Ephesians, 310 he tells us why he preaches it. So here’s what he says. Ephesians, 310 so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. And the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are spiritual beings, good and evil, as Alistair Begg was talking about this morning when Paul says that the manifold wisdom of God will now be made known through the church. I think he’s not mainly talking about the church’s verbal proclamation. So, yes, the manifold wisdom of God is made known as the church verbally proclaims him. But in Ephesians, 310, I think Paul’s mainly talking about the Jew Gentile church itself, because in Jesus, God has united what was formerly divided, so that when the spiritual beings good and evil look at a local church, even just a small, ordinary garden variety, local church, like many of our churches, and they see Jew and Gentile worshiping Christ together, they see now in the present, because remember Paul says so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known. They see now an advanced preview of the last day when all things will be united in Jesus Christ, Ephesians, 110 in other words, the heavenly beings look at and through the church, and what they see is God’s end time wisdom in Jesus Christ. And in that sense, though the church itself, the local congregation is see through like a window. It’s it’s cosmically significant the principalities, the spiritual beings, evil and good. Look at local churches, and look through local churches, and they see the bringing together of Jew and Gentile, and then ultimately, all things together in Christ Ephesians, 110 the second, see through reality in Ephesians is Christian marriage.

Speaker 1
Paul says, in order to glimpse now the uniting of all things under the headship of Christ, then at the last day, we should look at and through a Christian marriage. So this is probably familiar to many of us. Ephesians, 522, to 33 those verses I read, Paul compares the wife in a marriage to the church and the husband in a marriage to Christ. Verse 24 now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Verse 25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. And I think the real power and the real purpose of that comparison wives to the church, husbands to Christ, the purpose and power of that comparison is clearer when we get down to verses 31 and 32 in Ephesians, five so in verse 31 as many of you know, Paul quotes Genesis 224, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Paul’s talking there about marriage ever since Adam and Eve, the first married couple. And in verse 32 he says, this mystery is profound, and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So Paul looks at marriage, and he says it refers to something beyond itself, to Christ and the church. There were marriages. Is long before Jesus walked on earth and all those BC, marriages were meant to be see through to something greater than themselves, a reality still to come, and even today, every marriage is meant to display the relationship of Christ and His Church. Ray ortland says that the Christ Church parallel in this passage, is not merely illustrative, but the generating theological center of Paul’s entire presentation. And I think he’s right. Marriage is designed by God to be see through like a window and looking through the coming together of two different humans, man and woman in a one flesh relationship, provides an advanced preview of the coming together of All things at the last day in Jesus Christ, the coming together of the church and her bridegroom, Savior, Jesus Christ, that union fully realized at the last day. But more than that, the union of all things, the demonstration that all things have been created for Jesus Christ at the last day, all things are summed up in Jesus Christ. So the view out the window of marriage is the most spectacular reality in the universe, a loving, dying savior, a gracious gospel, a purified people and End Time uniting of all things, under the Lordship, under the headship, under the authority, under the loving protection of Jesus Christ. Now obviously no marriage provides a crystal clear view of all those things in every marriage, the dings and dents and dirt of sin will partially obscure that amazing that stunning view. And it might even feel like some marriages, you know, or maybe, maybe your own marriage, it’s just the windows been boarded up. Maybe it feels like there is no view out that window. You can’t see anything through it, but God’s purpose, His design for marriage, has always been, this is what Ephesians five is saying. What Paul’s saying has always been, ever since Adam and Eve’s marriage to show the view. And this reminds me of a story that’s told by one of Charles spurgeons biographers. This is the Arnold dalimore biography of Spurgeon dalimore says, I’m going to quote him here. During the 1880s a group of American ministers visited England, prompted especially by a desire to hear some of the celebrated preachers of that land. On a Sunday morning, they attended the city temple, where Dr Joseph Parker was the pastor. Some 2000 people filled the building, and Parker’s forceful personality dominated the service. His voice was commanding, his language descriptive, his imagination lively and his manner animated. The sermon was scriptural. The congregation hung upon his words, and the Americans came away saying, what a wonderful preacher is Joseph Parker. In the evening, they went to hear Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The building was much larger than the city temple, and the congregation was more than twice the size spurgeons voice was much more expressive and moving, and his oratory noticeably superior. But they soon forgot all about the great building, the immense congregation and the magnificent voice. They even overlooked their intention to compare the various features of the two preachers, and when the service was over, they found themselves saying, What a wonderful Savior. Is Jesus Christ? You know, the mark of a truly successful marriage is not when people say, What a great marriage, but rather what a great God, what a loving Savior, what a beautiful gospel, what a great view. Through that marriage, you know, maybe they’re not maybe they’re not even believers, so maybe they don’t use that language, maybe they don’t even fully understand what it is they’re seeing. But they come away from that kind of marriage, being around that husband and wife with a greater sense of the sweet sacrifice and love leadership beauty of Christ and the intimate relationship he enjoys with his church, which eagerly submits to him and extends his work in. The world, and it might be a visitor in your home, someone over for dinner. It might be your children after seeing your marriage for 18 years. Remember CS Lewis’ claim that the first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship, from a corkscrew to a cathedral, is to know what it was intended to do and how it was meant to be used. So Christian marriage is designed by God to be see through to His glory, to point beyond itself, to serve larger purposes in the world, beyond just the emotional needs of the husband and wife. Now in our day, that assertion is counter cultural. Some of you maybe have read Tim Keller’s book on marriage, and in that book, he explains why most people do not think that way anymore. And he argues that views of marriage began to change substantially as a result of the Enlightenment. For many hundreds of years before the enlightenment, he says marriage had been understood because of the influence of Christianity, to serve larger purposes outside of itself, so to show the glory of God, to serve the common good, to bring children into the world. Yes, of course, marriage was about husband and wife. It established bonds of love and devotion between them. It strengthened the character of each spouse. But marriage was understood with reference not just to the self, but to God and to children and to society. And you can see, already in this Ephesians five passage, indications of that that marriage is embed is not isolated. It’s embedded within those larger structures. You can see that in Ephesians five, because just notice, if your Bible is open, there to that passage, marriage, the marriage instructions are flowing out of the relationship with the Triune God, Ephesians 518, to 21 right from that relationship with the Triune God into instructions on marriage, and then flowing out of those instructions on marriage, instructions on the bearing and rearing of children in chapter Six, verses one to four. The view of marriage as serving larger purposes outside of itself, prevailed for a long time after Christ, but the Enlightenment taught that the meaning of life, I’m quoting Keller here, was the fruit of the freedom of the individual to choose the life that most fulfills him or her personally

Speaker 1
and so again, to quote Keller, marriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self actualization. Keller says the Enlightenment privatized marriage and made its purpose individual gratification, not the broader good of reflecting God’s nature, producing character or raising children. In other words, is how I would summarize what Keller says in his book on that modern enlightenment influenced view marriage is not fundamentally about something beyond itself. It’s fundamentally about me or in other words, it’s basically a wall, not a window. And the implications of that shift are very significant. To think of marriage as an end in itself, as the point your gaze terminates on, has profound implications. We see those worked out in the second two points I want to highlight more briefly in this Ephesians five passage, the partnership of marriage and the precious impermanence of marriage. So first, the partnership of marriage in Ephesians five marriage is between a man and a woman. The apostle Paul doesn’t argue for that. He states it, it’s not between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman, or between multiple men and multiple women. And we should ask, why is that? Why is that? What Paul says in Ephesians five, is it a random arrangement, or does God perhaps intend to create hardship and sadness for those who are attracted to the same sex? Does he mean to be hurtful and cruel to those with polyamorous desires? Well, clearly it does not fit what we know of the character of God and the rest of the Bible, so we ought to look around for a better answer, and it’s helpful to go all the way back to the first marriage in Genesis, two. By that point in the story, as you know, God has created the world. He’s planted a garden. He’s placed Adam in that garden to work and keep it. And in Genesis. Genesis 218 the Lord God says it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. And God creates all the animals, and Adam names them. But Genesis 220 says there was not found a helper fit for him. So God creates Eve, and he gives her to Adam in the first marriage. Now the phrase fit for him appears in both, both verse 18 of Genesis two, and in verse 20, I will make him a helper fit for him. And there was not found a helper fit for him. And the Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham says that phrase literally means like opposite him. And Wenham says it seems to express the notion of complementarity rather than identity. In other words, Eve isn’t completely unlike Adam, and she isn’t completely like him. She’s like opposite him. She complements him, physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, she fits Adam, not because she’s the same, but because she’s different. The reason God means for marriage to be the coming together of two like opposites is clarified when we reflect on the purpose of marriage as a window to a greater reality. Christ is not the church and the church is not Christ. They’re different. And therefore, in order to portray, in order to be see through to Christ and the church, marriage is the coming together of two like opposites of man and woman. And this means that the uniting of two different genders is important, not incidental to the very purpose of marriage, just as the end time, uniting of all things in Christ Ephesians, one is displayed in the present by the uniting of Jew and Gentile in the church to different peoples, Ephesians three. So it’s also portrayed by the uniting of man and woman in marriage. Ephesians five. And of course, this can make marriage very challenging, because of the differences between men and women, any married couple will be able to tell you stories of times when it was hugely challenging just to understand one another, let alone agree. I remember standing in a kitchen in England with my wife Emma in our first year of marriage, and the trouble wasn’t just that we were disagreeing about something it was that we didn’t even understand fully what the disagreement was about we had. I just remember that feeling of, how do we even move forward here? We are so different, and this is going to be really hard to figure one another out and yet, oh, the beauty of 19 years of two different people with different instincts and different backgrounds and different takes on the same issues, figuring one another out and being united. And the point is, God does that work. God’s the one who does that. He unites husband and wife. He brings them together. This shows something far greater than itself, that that that image, that reality of of two different people coming together, is displaying a greater reality. See through ability of marriage, is also why marriage is designed to be between one man and one woman, not one man and two women, or two men and two women, or some other combination. God’s prohibition of those arrangements is not arbitrary. It’s aligned with his design of marriage as a window to the absolute fidelity of the one Christ to His one church. This is also why God gives men and women different rather than identical, roles in marriage. Ephesians, five teaches godly female submission in marriage, not in order to demean wives, but in order to display the goodness of the relationship between Christ and the church. It teaches male headship, not because it thinks husbands are wiser or better, but in order to display the goodness of the relationship between Christ and the church. It’s also why Christians are taught to marry fellow believers rather than unbelievers. First, Corinthians, 739, because a marriage partner who is not captivated by the glory of Christ and the beauty of his union with his bride will not be able to display that union to others, because our broader culture sees marriage and. Not as a God given window to the reality of Christ in the church, but rather as most basically about personal fulfillment. Of course, it makes sense to understand marriage as including the loving relationship of two men or of two women, or perhaps even of multiple partners, so long as those consensual relationships are emotionally fulfilling and don’t hurt other people. And of course, it makes sense for male and female roles to be identical, if that’s what makes the partners happy and fulfilled, or to be okay with Christians marrying non Christians, if that’s their preference. My point is we understand the God designed partnership of marriage only when we grasp the God given purpose of marriage, and understanding the purpose of marriage also helps us appreciate the precious impermanence of it. We come to realize that the window does not last forever. I think it’s pretty easy to fall into one of two equal and opposite errors regarding marriage, and actually both of them wind up in pretty much the same place at the end of the day. On the one hand, we might demand so much from marriage that it becomes an idol. Now, obviously, if we’re married, we should be prioritizing our marriage. We should be working hard at it. We should have date nights. We should have times together away. We should read the Bible together, pray together. It. Should have opportunities to check in with one another how things are going. That’s all really good, but in my pastoral ministry, I’ve seen people who expect way too much from their spouse and their marriage, they become very demanding. As a result, never satisfied, always grumbling, finding fault, and as a result, Christ is not seen through the marriage. It’s really ironic when you think about it, expecting too much actually leads not to improvement, but to ineffectiveness. The marriages cannot bear the weight that’s being placed upon it. And these spouses, you might say, have become so fixated on the window that they’ve forgotten that the most important thing is the view through the window.

Speaker 1
It’s like a person who works really hard to build an ornate, gold plated, diamond encrusted window frame while failing to recognize that the glass itself is becoming cloudy and fogged up and covered in hand prints and there’s no good view anymore. Who wants a beautiful window frame when you can’t actually see through the window, but ironically, that’s exactly what happens when we demand too much from marriage. Now, on the other hand, the opposite error is to not care enough about marriage, and this is certainly happening in our broader culture. Many years, the National marriage Project at the University of Virginia has been tracking marriage in the US and also significantly popular perceptions about marriage, and they found that Americans are becoming much less likely to marry. In 1960 more than 72% of American adults were married, but in 2008 only 50% were married, and that percentage was still about 50% in 2021 there’s a widespread belief that most people are unhappy in marriage, and a widespread lack of confidence that marriage is actually a benefit to society or to individuals. Teens were asked by this national marriage project to agree or disagree with this statement, most people will have fuller and happier lives if they choose legal marriage rather than staying single or just living with someone. And less than a third of the teen girls and only slightly more than a third of the teen boys agreed with that statement. The teaching of Ephesians five about the purpose of marriage, that it’s a window to a greater reality, allows us, I think, to avoid both of these errors, overvaluing marriage or undervaluing marriage. The most successful marriages do not expect too little or demand too much from the marriage. The spouses treasure their marriage, but they don’t make it their greatest treasure, and they believe there’s something even better coming. They realize that a humble pine framed window with a view of the sun rising over the Rocky Mountains is way better than a Louis the 14th window with a view of a brick wall across an alley, what they see out the window of their marriage is so compelling and so beautiful that it sustains them when the marriage itself is disappointing, when their spouse is grumpy or irritating. He leaves that little bit of milk in the bottom of the carton and puts it back in the fridge so that he doesn’t need to rinse it out, or when he leaves his whiskers in the sink after shaving, or when she leaves a clump of hair in the shower drain, or when there’s a mutual misunderstanding, and even when the marriage is running on all cylinders and is deeply delightful. Neither spouse in this kind of marriage gets confused into thinking that this is as good as it gets. There’s always the expectation, always the hope, always the anticipation of something better coming, because marriage is a window to Christ in the church, which is the most beautiful, satisfying, eternal relationship ever. Marriage is very precious. It matters enormously. Just think about this. God wants to show us the relationship between Christ and His Church. How does he decide to do that? What is the window he creates? And the answer is, as we’ve seen, the church and Christian marriage, what a beautiful thing, what an awesome thing. God does not even delegate the work of joining husband and wife to other people, he does it himself. Mark 10, nine. What therefore God has joined together. Let not man separate. So we had better receive and honor marriage. This is why we commit to remain in marriages for better or for worse, till death do us part. But if marriage is a pointer to Christ and the church. That means marriage itself is not the ultimate reality. There’s coming a day in the new creation when we’ll be invited to climb through the window and walk into the very reality we have been viewing from a distance all along, and in that day, we will not need the window anymore in the new creation. The love of Christ for His bride, the Church will be all in all. And Jesus Himself taught that. And in that day, there will be no marriage. So the imperfect picture will give way to the perfect reality. And that means that we cherish marriage without totalizing it. We realize that it’s not ultimate. It will not last forever. It’s precious and impermanent. And additionally, very importantly, we recognize that singleness is also a pointer to that future time when we are so totally satisfied in God that we don’t need marriage anymore. Godly singles who are happy in Jesus now are see through like a window to that future time, that future new creation reality, just as healthy marriages are, in other words, godly singles and godly couples are windows. Understanding marriage as a window helps us to treasure it, but not totalize it shows us that marriage is sweet, but not supreme. It’s amazing, but it’s not everything. The purpose of marriage is to show Christ in the church. That’s why the partnership of marriage is to be one man one woman for life, the man humbly leading and serving the woman, gladly receiving and supporting and extending that leadership. And it’s why we can cherish the precious impermanence of marriage, not valuing it too highly and not holding it too loosely, I’ll close with one more Charles Spurgeon story. In spurgeons lifetime, street lights were gas lit, and each one had to be lit individually. And apparently one night, Spurgeon was coming back home to London from being out on a ministry trip somewhere, and as he rode along in his horse drawn cab, he saw this line of street lights being lit that went right up the hill into the distance. And Spurgeon says, I did not see the Lamplighter. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor his residence, but I saw the lights which he had kindled, and these remained when he himself had gone his way. As I rode along, I thought to myself, how earnestly do I wish that my life may be spent in lighting, one soul after another, with the Sacred Flame of eternal life, I would myself be as much as possible, unseen while at my work and would vanish into eternal brilliance above when my work is done. Our marriages can show Christ wonder of wonders. Our flawed, imperfect marriages can actually show. Christ, they are advanced previews of his end time supremacy. One of my favorite places in the world is a little cottage on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland that I’ve stayed at many times. And just outside that cottage are brilliant green fields with white sheep speckled along those fields grazing leading down to the rugged coastline. And the best compliment I can pay to the windows of that cottage is that I’ve never thought about them. They’ve not gotten in the way. I’ve not studied the windows. They’ve always done their job perfectly by showing me that spectacular, unforgettable view. So may each one of us, married or single, live see through to Christ, he is the center. He’s the price. He’s the treasure. May our marriages or our singleness show him, Father, that’s my prayer for each of us in this room. I pray that as you join us together, or as you sustain us and give us amazing joy and productivity and singleness, either way, you will be showing displaying the most awesome realities in the universe, you’ll be giving people around us, whether they know what they’re seeing or not, experiences, insight, a foretaste of what’s coming. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you all very much for being here.