“Sacred Marriage-Love”

(part 1 of 2)

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and 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.”
Ephesians 5:32-33


It is evident from this passage that the context of marriage was given to us by God to teach us truth. So often times we view marriage as simply, a framework for family, but marriage is a teacher! Marriage gives us opportunity, through close relationship, to develop and demonstrate Godly character. It teaches us how to love, respect others, address sin, exercise forgiveness, and serve. Marriage is about spiritual growth.

Over the past couple of months, the marriage home groups at our church have been utilizing a book by Gary Thomas called “Sacred Marriage.” The premise of the book is- “What if God designed marriage to make us Holy more than to make us happy?” What if God’s divine purpose for marriage was to build His character into our lives, so that every trial, joy, apprehension, and victory we face as a couple draws us closer to God?

Over the next few weeks we are going to look at a few of the things that marriage can teach us, which will not only result in a better marriage, but also develop the character of God in us.

So let’s start in Matthew 22:37-40:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commands.”

It is clear from Matthew 22 that God desires for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. It is also obvious that He desires for us to love those we are in close relationship with. So how does marriage teach us to love?

First let’s define “love”. The world defines love as an intense feeling of deep affection, an infatuation, a fleeting emotion.” However, scripture does not equate love with a fleeting emotion. It presents love as a divine attribute of God:

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 John 4:8

God is not temporal and God is certainly not fleeting, which means that real love is not meant to be temporal or fleeting. John goes on to describe what true love looks like:

“This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
1 John 4:10

Love is a choice. It is choosing to sacrifice for another individual regardless of the personal cost to you. It is not driven by emotion, but by being in a relationship with “Love” Himself!

(This marriage series was devoloped from principles taken from the book “Sacred Marriage” by author Gary Thomas.)


Pastor Scott Burr
http://faithandworshipseries.blogspot.com