If you’ve been dating someone and are thinking about marriage, how do you know when you’re ready for the next step?
Have a question you’d like answered in a potential future Ask Pastor Mark video? Send an email to [email protected].
If you’re a Christian and are approaching marriage, does the Bible say you must get married in a church or is it ok to get married outside or in another non-church building?
Have a question you’d like answered in a potential future Ask Pastor Mark video? Send an email to [email protected].
If you’re in a marriage where you’re not practicing physical, marital intimacy with your partner on a regular basis, what does that mean for the marriage and the relationship?
Have a question you’d like answered in a potential future Ask Pastor Mark video? Send an email to [email protected].
Proverbs 15:13-19, 22 [NLT] – A glad heart makes a happy face; a broken heart crushes the spirit. A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash. For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast. Better to have little, with fear for the Lord, than to have great treasure and inner turmoil. A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate. A hot-tempered person starts fights; a cool-tempered person stops them. A lazy person’s way is blocked with briers, but the path of the upright is an open highway…Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.
Early in a relationship, going out to have fun and make memories on dates is what helps things get off the ground. But before long, marriage gets bogged down with work to do, bills to pay, errands to run, laundry to fold, dishes to wash, and kids to tend to.
Dating should not end when we get married. Dating should get even better once we are married.
In our book Real Marriage, my wife Grace and I talked about three kinds of marriages:
1. Shoulder-to-shoulder – these people get a lot done, are good at working together, but are more roommates than soulmates
2. Back-to-back – these people have reached a rough place in their relationship and are not really dealing with it
3. Face-to-face – these people are friends and take time to go on dates, make memories, and keep the romance kindled
God can make your heart glad. God can give you wisdom. God can change your heart to be happy and find something good to enjoy every day.
Our world is filled with people whose lives are full, but souls are empty. They have a lot of money, possessions, and wealth but are starving for relationship, love, and peace.
One key to a face-to-face marriage is learning to enjoy who you are with more than what you are doing. Another is learning how to put water on a fight rather than gas. A third is to work hard at what matters while seeking the wise counsel of others who have a great marriage. This will allow you to make plans for the future so that something fun is always on the horizon to look forward to with your spouse.
Who do you know that has a great marriage and could be wise counsel for you?
When my wife Grace and I started to write our book Real Marriage, we read all or part of 187 marriage books. One thing missing in nearly all of them was any reference to friendship with your spouse.
The word “friend” has been used and abused by social media. The truth is, it’s easier to click a box to be a friend than live life together as a friend. All friendships are relationships, but not all relationships are friendships. Friendship is crucial to marriage and Proverbs gives us three aspects of real friendship.
1) Real friends are rare
Proverbs 18:24 [ESV] – A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
On social media, the focus is on the quantity of people connected to you. In life, what matters most is the quality of your relationships. We should be friendly toward all, but only have time and energy to be friends with a few.
2) Wise friends are a gift
Proverbs 13:20 [ESV] – Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
Throughout Proverbs, there are three kinds of people – wise, foolish, and evil. If we want to grow in wisdom, we need to walk away from evil and folly and find some wise folks to walk with as friends. We can minister to the foolish, but not walk the same path as them. In marriage, seeking to be a wise friend to your spouse and helping one another pick wise friends, including other couples, is crucial. One rule that Grace and I have is that we agree on one another’s friends who we confide in and seek wise counsel from. Of course, your walk with Jesus is the key to all wisdom as He is one whose wisdom is “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42).
3) Hard times reveal real friends
Proverbs 17:17 [ESV] – A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
When times are the worst, real friends are the best. Hard times do not change our friendships as much as they reveal who our friends truly are. In marriage, this kind of friendship means you can depend on one another, which guards against one person domineering over one another.
Are you a wise friend? Do you seek wise friends?
Dr. John Gottman is a widely respected researcher in the field of marriage. For some 16 years, he observed 49 couples in an apartment that also functioned as a lab seeking to create a more home-like environment than is common in therapy. He recorded everything from facial expressions and heart rate as couples had discussions and debates. His findings gave him a list of marriage principles that allow him to predict divorce with a 91 percent accuracy. These are called the “Four Horsemen,” echoing the apocalyptic doom of the last book of the Bible.
Preceding the Four Horsemen is a conversation with a “harsh startup”. We all know what this is like. Things start with an attack, raised voices, mean comments, or bringing up the same old issue we keep fighting over. What follows are the following:
1. Criticism – naming the sin, attacking the person not the problem
2. Contempt – disgust, name-calling, mocking, provoking, and negative body language like rolling your eyes or glaring
3. Defensiveness – the guilty person doubles down, excuses their behavior, and blame-shifts to someone else
4. Stonewalling – a Cold War sets in where couples walk into separate rooms, start sleeping in separate beds, and eventually start living separate lives. Indeed, the heart divorce always comes long before the paperwork is filled out. Curiously, 85 percent of stonewalling is done by the husband.
For the Christian, there is one solution to each of these four problems. Sin leads to death and Jesus leads to life. Jesus not only forgives you, but He also wants us to “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Christianity is about being forgiven by God and forgiving others as God has forgiven us. Jesus does not make us pay for our sin, which is mercy. And, Jesus does pay for our sin, which is grace. It is this grace and mercy that invites us, when we have sinned, to come to God in repentance knowing how He will respond to us.
There is simply no possibility of relationship without forgiveness. You could not have a relationship with God if there were not full and free forgiveness. You cannot have a relationship with anyone if that same full and free forgiveness is not flowing.
How do you know you have forgiven someone? Jesus said to bless even those who act like enemies as God has blessed us, despite our acting like His enemies. Blessing is the test of whether or not we have truly forgiven someone.
Have you accepted full and free forgiveness from God? Is there anyone you need to forgive?
In the early years of our marriage, Grace and I kept getting stuck in the same cul de sac, driving round and round going nowhere. When we hit a rough patch, like a relational archaeologist, I would dig up one thing from the past and use it to emotionally discourage my wife.
Why?
There was something I had not forgiven and, as a result, was keeping a record of wrongs. I had to learn, and likely we all need to learn, God’s principles of reality, repentance, and reward.
Reality is found in Proverbs 20:9 [NIV] which says, “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?” Not only are we married to a sinner, so is our spouse. At some point, even the most loving couples disappoint and/or hurt one another. Therefore, since perfection is impossible, we need to keep practicing repentance if we are the offender, and forgiveness if we are the offended.
Repentance is found in Proverbs 14:16 [ESV] which says, “One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.” Turning away from evil is the act of repentance. Practically, repentance is a change of mind and heart, which leads to a change in the decisions we make and direction of life we choose.
Reward is found in Proverbs 13:21 [ESV] which says, “Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.”
God is gracious. When we turn from the wrong and turn to the right, He steps in with favor and blessing. If you look back on your life, you will see this which will give you faith for your future.
Some years ago, I was asked by some friends to speak at their 40th wedding anniversary and vow renewal. As I prayed and prepared, I decided to speak on four things that I have seen sustain all great marriages:
1. Faith
2. Forgiveness
3. Friendship
4. Fun
We will take some days to examine each of these, starting with faith.
Faith means that everything, including marriage, begins with putting God first. Serving as the theme for the entire book of Proverbs, 1:7 [ESV] says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Fear here does not mean recoiling in terror, but rather recognizing God as Father. Practically, this is respect and reverence, honor and humility, priority and purpose. Everything begins with God, and thankfully, through Jesus Christ, God gives us a new beginning. To those who fear the Lord and walk in wisdom, Proverbs 28:14 [ESV] says, “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.”
The heart of your relationship with God is your hearth. God’s heart is for you, and He wants your heart to be for Him. Why? So that as honor goes up, blessing comes down. God does not bless people, He blessed people whose hearts are for Him.
When it comes to marriage, everything starts with hearts. Jesus said that underlying every cause of divorce was “hardness of heart” (Matthew 19:19).
Grace and I did not begin our relationship in faith. I was a religious nominal churchgoer who did not know Jesus, and Grace had known the Lord from a young age but had some years of folly and wandering. After dating a few years, I came to the Lord and Grace came back to the Lord. We had to relearn how to have a relationship that was God-centered and God first. For those who have gotten it wrong like we did, we want to encourage you that God can make it right if your hearts are for Him. We recently celebrated 27 years of faithful marriage and can assure you that, without the grace of God working through honest hearts, everything would be different and nothing would be better. It is foolish to try and work on your relationship with your spouse until you have first devoted energy to your relationship with God. It is your relationship with God that meets your deepest relational needs, models for you healthy relationship, and gives you the resources you need – such as grace, the Holy Spirit, and forgiveness – to build a happy, holy, and healthy marriage.
How is your relationship with God, honestly?
Do you want to have a great marriage that lasts? In this sermon based in the book of Proverbs, Pastor Mark gives four keys – faith, forgiveness, friendship, and fun – to have a great, Christ-centered marriage that you can enjoy for a lifetime.
Are you married or about to be married and have different views on what your life and ministry should look like? This week, Pastor Mark discusses the options for how to proceed under these circumstances.
Have a question you’d like answered in a potential future Ask Pastor Mark video? Send an email to [email protected].
Getting married can be complicated! In today’s age, is it a sin for Christians to sign a prenuptial agreement before the big day?
Pastor Mark responds in today’s video to a specific scenario regarding remarriage to a previous spouse after infidelity. Is trust earned?
Do you have a question? Email it to [email protected] today.
This week’s question is from this month’s exclusive Marriage Content: “Pray together, play together, and lay together so you can stay together!” With busy schedules, how do you make sure to find time to connect with your spouse?
Watch Pastor Mark and Grace team up to explain the difference between Shoulder to Shoulder relationships, Back to Back relationships, and Face to Face relationships.