Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Marriage in Christ

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Ephesians 5 is like a fair number of people in New York City. It’s both rich and famous. Because it’s so rich, you could work through it word by word and get quite a bit out of it. But it’s also advantageous to do what we’re going to do, which is to fly over the whole thing. In this way, we’ll get a panoramic view of the immense biblical wisdom on this subject of marriage. What we learn about marriage here is 1) what it is, 2) what it does, 3) what it needs, and 4) what it shows. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 15, 2012. Series: A Study of Ephesians: Who is the Church? Scripture: Ephesians 5:21–33. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is taking us through a series on the Book of Ephesians, a book that is all about what it means to be Christian and what it means to live in unity with other believers. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelinLife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. The scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 5 verses 21 through 33. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as 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 a 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,

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 stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this 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 his own body, but he feeds and cares for it 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 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. This is God's word. Well this passage is like a lot of, a fair number of people in New York City. It's both rich and famous. And because it's so rich, you could easily work through it word for word, you

know, word by word and get quite a bit out of it. But it's also advantageous to do what we're about to do, which is to fly over the whole thing and to call out the main points by which we will get a panoramic view of the immense biblical wisdom on the subject of marriage. What we learn here is marriage, what it is, what it does, what it needs, and what it shows. What it is, what it does, what it needs, what it shows. First, what is marriage? What's the essence of marriage? What's the definition of marriage? And Paul, and this is perhaps the New Testament spot in the Bible about

marriage, he quotes the Old Testament, main Old Testament text on marriage. So you have it all right here. Down in verse 31, he says, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. That's a quote from Genesis 2, 24. And when it says a man shall leave his father or mother, be united to his wife, some of you know or recall that older English translations say a man will leave his father or mother and cleave to his wife. Because the Hebrew word there in Genesis 2.24 is the word that basically means covenant. And a covenant is a deep, exclusive, permanent, legal and personal binding commitment.

A covenant. So the essence of marriage then is not a declaration of present love as important as that is. Say I love you. That's not marriage. You can say that and not be married. Marriage is not so much a declaration of present love. It's the binding promise of future love. It's a promise not to feel warm and loving all the time because nobody can promise that. It's a promise to be loving and tender and faithful and cherishing and serving. Regardless tender and faithful and cherishing and serving, regardless of the ups and downs of emotions or circumstances, long term through thick and thin. That's the essence of marriage. It's a covenant. It's not the declaration of present love, it's the promise of future love. Now, I don't think I could, I have to tell you, but I will

anyway, that this is a complete collision with our culture, which doesn't think I could have to tell you, but I will anyway, that this is a complete collision with our culture, which doesn't see the most important thing to be covenant but chemistry. So, for example, in 2008 there was a movie maker, Dana Adam Shapiro, who noticed he was a single man and he noticed a lot of his 30 something friends were breaking up, their marriages were breaking up, they're getting divorces. So he interviewed 50 couples who were breaking up and then he did a film about it, I think the film was called Monogamy and a year and a half ago or so there was an article in the New York Times Magazine

about it and I'm telling you about it because his attitude was pretty typical. He said after doing all this study, he decided, he concluded that there is, quote, an intractable difficulty with monogamy. An intractable difficulty. What was it? And he went on to say, well, passion and sexual chemistry needs spontaneity. Marriage, by definition, is something that's obligatory. It's a something, it's a, it's a, what you do in marriage is a matter of duty because it's obligatory. So if passion and chemistry needs spontaneity and marriage is all about duty, marriage inevitably

stifles it. And so it's impossible to keep that spontaneity going, that chemistry going, because the covenantal nature of marriage inevitably stifles it, so it's not surprising that there's an intractable difficulty with marriage. Now, in complete opposition to that, the great poet, W. H. Auden, said this, and I quote, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate. Intake of breath. Can I repeat that with the stress on the word any? Now think about this. A brilliant man, great poet, W.H.

Auden, he says, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate. Why? Because he says marriage is, quote, not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion, but the creation of time and will. See, why would that be? How could anybody say that marriage, the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is more interesting than any romance, however passionate?

Covenant is far more interesting than chemistry, in other words. How could anybody say that? All right, well imagine a person with that view that the chemistry is what really matters, asking me a kind of combative question. Imagine the person coming up to me and saying, think of the first time you kissed your wife, your future wife. Thirty-eight years later, does it have the same electrical thrill to it? Hmm.

And my answer would be No, and I should hope not and here's the reason why that chemistry you're talking about that first electrical thrill The very first time you kiss or you touch somebody, you know is largely ego It's largely about you. That's why you're so excited. It's not really love. It's more ego It's largely about you. That's why you're so excited. It's not really love, it's more ego. What's so thrilling and electrical about it is this person that you think is pretty great

is into me. It's responding to me, to me. And so this deep need for affirmation, this great need of affirmation that you have, every human being has, is getting filled. And of course that feels wonderful. I want you to know that the incredible thrill of knowing that this pretty great person likes me isn't anything like the

electrical thrill of actually loving the other. Not just, see, that is all about you, but to actually love someone, to actually be so absolutely committed to somebody else's joy and somebody else's happiness and somebody else's well-being that you would cut your right arm off, that you would die for that person, that's a strong feeling.

That's a passion too. And that's not the same. You can have a so-called night of passion and not be willing to make any sacrifices at all, which shows it's about you. How does that other kind of passion develop? That other kind of thrill develop? It takes a long time.

First of all, you have to get to know who that person really is. And at the very beginning, when you think you're falling in love with someone, you're always falling in love with your image of the person, not the real person. It takes a long time to find out who that person is, and vice versa.

Secondly, you have to make sacrifices. You've got to walk through difficulties. There's got to be confrontations and reconciliations and as time goes on, it shifts from the thrill of this person, this great person, liking me, to your love of that person, your desire for that person, your commitment to see that person flourish and thrive

even at great cost to yourself. That's a passion too, and that grows, and that's a thrill too, but it's a thrill that contrasts with that first thrill, the way a river contrasts with a mud puddle. It's covenant, not chemistry. That's the meaning of life. Any marriage, unhappy or happy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.

Because the essence of marriage is covenant. It's not the declaration of present thrill. It's the binding promise of future love. That's what it is. Secondly, what does the text say? Marriage does. What is its purpose? Now, there's really more than one, but I'm going to,

looking at the clock and watching the clock, I'm going to try to give you two. There's way more in the passage, of course. It's a rich and famous passage. There's more than I can get out, but let me give you two. Two things, two purposes, the Bible says for marriage. It cleanses and it meshes. It cleanses and it meshes. It cleanses and it meshes.

Okay, cleanse. Look, very, very famous verse. Husbands love your wife 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 a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Okay, let's ask the question, what's Christ's purpose when he comes into your life? What is his purpose? What is he coming for? Well, you say he's coming to

be adored, to be worshiped. Yeah, sure. But is that all? No. He's coming to bring about change. He's coming into your life because spiritually we are twisted, blemished, ugly spiritually. And he wants to make us spiritually brilliant and beautiful. And then we're told that's the basis of marriage, that your spouse comes into your life, not to be your savior, but to partner with the savior to bring you to become the person that Christ is making you to be. See if you, again, let's do a little contrast here. If you ask the culture, what's the purpose of marriage? If you ask our culture now, what is the whole purpose of marriage?

Why? Why do the marriage thing? It's not too hard to infer. You can tell from empirical studies, and you can tell from ads for dating services and relationship services, you can tell by the ads. The empirical studies show increasingly young single adults say,

I want someone who will not change me. The studies show that. And the ads say the same thing. I'm looking for somebody who will accept me as I am, not try to change me, but accept me who I am, for who I am. Okay, so you're not getting married to be changed. So why are you getting married? And the only answer I can tell would be,

it's to supplement me. You know, to enhance my life. In other words, I'm fine the way I am. I don't want anybody to try to change me. So I want companionship and I want romance and I want added income and I want things like that, you know, because I don't want to be changed. Nobody should change me. I've got an income and I want things like that, you know, because I don't want to be changed.

Nobody should change me. Now the Bible says, oh, romance and companionship and fun and partnership are all extremely important, but they will be enhanced if you begin with this admission. You are not fine as you are. You are flawed. You've got all kinds of problems. You know we're close to being the person that God created you to be. And when you understand that, then you begin to recognize what God says the

purpose of marriage is and therefore what your spouse comes into your life to do. What you want is a person who understands what God is doing in your life. If you're a believer in Jesus, Philippians 1, 6 says, the good work he began in you when you believed he will bring to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. What is that good work? You're just a shadow of who you're supposed to be. If you get to know somebody who Jesus is changing, you see the person who's there and you like that person, but you also see the person that God is creating.

Sometimes you get glimpses of the future. You get glimpses of a wisdom, of courage, of an insight. You get glimpses of the future glorious self that Jesus Christ is creating. It's in there, but it's sometimes kind of covered by all the crap, actually. Now, Kathy and I like to, if we can, we love to travel in the western mountainous parts

of the British Isles, you know, whether it's Wales or whether it's England or Scotland. But those of you who are from there, or those of you who tried to travel there, know that as beautiful as the mountains are it always rains there So if you go there for four days, you'll be very fortunate if one day you actually can see the mountains And what happens is you look up there and it's all cloudy

You can't see a thing then one day the clouds part and there's this breathtaking mountain And then of course after a while the clouds come back and you can't see it anymore. That's how all of us are actually. Every so often the clouds part and you can see in yourself or you can see in your friends who Jesus is working in their lives, you can see the glorious wonderful thing that God is making them into. And then usually the clouds roll back in, okay. And your flaws and your sins and your bad habits and your besetting sins, they obscure it. Now here's what we need in our lives. First of all, we need Christian community.

We need fellowship. And that means you need brothers and sisters around you who not only love you for what you are, but they particularly are excited about what God's making you. Christian marriage then is a unique and a uniquely intense form of Christian fellowship. What you need in your life is someone who comes into your life and says, I love you. I'm also excited about what God is making you. I see the great thing that God is doing in your life and it excites me. And I want to be part, I want to partner with Christ in helping you grow in grace

and become that. And I want you to partner with Christ in the same thing in my life so that someday we'll stand before the throne and all of the bad things, all of the sins and all the flaws will have fallen off and we'll finally be the people that God actually created us to be. It will be absolute beauties, you know, and we'll look at each other and we'll say, I always knew you could be like this. That's the purpose of marriage. Are you getting a nosebleed yet?

Okay, let's bring it down to earth. If that's really the purpose of marriage, to cleanse one another, to help, to partner with the Savior in helping your spouse become the future glory self that God is making him or her. If that's it, you say, well, that's awfully lofty. I'll bring it down to earth. I'll give you three very practical implications. Number one, you get into marriage expecting confrontation. You expect to

clash. You expect you're going to be speaking the truth and love to each other. You're going to expect that you're going to talk to each other about things that need to be changed. You're not going to come in saying, oh, I don't want anybody to change me. You're not going to come in as soon as you have your first clash, say, oh my goodness, I didn't marry the right person. If you have married the right person, and in fact, if you are really married, marriage is going to bring you to confront the things that are wrong with you in a way that no other relationship has been able to do. It's going to bring you to confront the things that are wrong with you in a way that no other relationship has been able to do. It's going to get through to you.

You're going to get out of denial about who you are. So first of all, you expect that kind of thing. You expect the give and take. You expect the clashing. You expect to be done speaking the truth and love, but you expect it. Years ago, somebody said to me, and I've never forgotten, and I've told, I probably, some of you have heard me say this before, this person said marriage is like a gem tumbler. It's two rough stones put into a tumbler. They tumble around,

they knock the rough edges off of each other. When they come out they're beautiful. But how do they get beautiful? Through knocking the rough edges off of each other. So first you'll all expect the clashes, and you're not shocked by it. Secondly though, who do you choose to marry? Who do you choose to marry? You know what you do. Look, when people say to me,

but shouldn't I be attracted to the person, really deeply attracted to the person I marry? Yeah, but I would like you to be, to have a comprehensive attraction. Why not be attracted to something in the person that you know will be getting stronger as you get older, not weaker? See, most of us,

most of us say I want to marry him or her because of what? Well, I can tell you, however you want to describe it, it will get probably weaker and weaker as you get older. It has to do with looks, doesn't it, or something like that. Why not choose something that could get stronger? That's comprehensive attraction. You should be, in other words, instead of choosing people on the basis of looks and money and connections

and things like that, you should be saying, I need to find somebody who can be my best friend and my most trusted counselor. So here's what you're doing, right? You walk into a room, you see 10 people of the desired gender. You immediately roll out seven of them on the basis of what? The stuff that will fade as you get older. Then you go after those three,

hoping that maybe one of them could be a best friend and trusted counselor, but you left your best prospects back there at your first cut. Who are you choosing? Who are you looking toward to be your spouse? It should be someone who'd be your very best friend, your most trusted counselor.

And then the third thing is when people do say, but really shouldn't I, you know, I really need to have, there needs to be chemistry. You know, there needs to be this really great attraction. And I say, well, yeah, but I want you to know there's nothing more attractive than to be loved by somebody who you respect. And in the very beginning, it's fairly easy to respect somebody because of resume

and the figure they cut. But 10 years later, who will you respect? You're gonna respect somebody who knows how to make changes. Somebody who's gonna be there for you. Somebody who knows how to speak the truth and love. Somebody who's willing to sacrifice for you and who's willing to make changes for you, he or she. That's the kind of person you respect.

There is nothing, nothing more wonderful than to be loved by somebody you respect. The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. It's easy to assume that if we understand the gospel and preach it faithfully, we will be shaped by it. But this is not always true. How can we make sure that our lives, churches, and ministries are being shaped by, centered on, and empowered with the gospel? Tim Keller's book, Shaped by the Gospel, is meant to help congregants, lay leaders, and pastors understand how to make the gospel the center of all ministry. In Shaped by the Gospel, Dr. Keller shows how Gospel-centered ministry

is more theologically driven than program-driven. As you read, you'll discover how reflecting on the essence, the truths, and the patterns of the Gospel lead to renewal in your churches and ministries. This month when you give to Gospel in Life, we'll send you Dr. Keller's book Shaped by the Gospel as our thanks for your gift. Just visit GospelOnLife.com slash give. That's GospelOnLife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with Christ's love. Now completely rethink your marriage searching and your understanding of your marriage in light of the purpose of marriage. Because one of the purposes of marriage, one of the things that marriage does is

it cleanses you. The other is it meshes. Now, when I say it meshes, what I'm about to do is what my wife, Kathy, calls stunt preaching. Now, stunt preaching is this. In the next four and a half minutes, I'm going to take you in and out of a subject that is culturally supercharged with controversy. I'm going to take you in and out of a subject that is culturally supercharged with controversy. I'm going to take you in and out to show you what the Bible says, but to not allow the subject to hijack the rest of the sermon. Watch. Observe. The second thing, here's the second purpose of marriage. It's to bridge the gap between the genders. Have you noticed that the way the wife's role is described

and the way the husband's role is described here are not identical? They're not identical. They recognize differences between the genders in marriage. The Bible doesn't just come and say the wife's role and the husband's role, the male's role and the female's role are exactly the same. No, they don't do that.

It doesn't do that, why not? Because the Bible takes our gender differences and our gendered difference seriously. It doesn't ignore it the way modern culture does and just assumes that everybody's gonna do exactly the same thing, no matter how deeply different we are. It not only takes the gender differences seriously, but it gives us a way to allow our genders, the genders to complement one another and

mesh together in a marriage for the health and the enrichment of the whole relationship. Now how does the Bible do that? It does it brilliantly because it lays down one and actually only one principle. This is a basic principle. It's a far reaching principle. It's a controversial principle, but it's also incredibly flexible. What is that principle? It says, it's headship.

It says, wives, let your husbands be your head in the marriage. And what does headship mean? You may have heard all sorts of things. I probably have studied it as much as anybody here. Not everybody's going to agree with me, but from what I can tell you, from what I can understand, whatever else the Bible means by headship, it means final say. It means leadership. It means saying, wives, if you want to get in touch

with your own gender difference, and husbands with your own gender difference, adopt this as a principle. That in the end, the husband has leadership and has the final say. When you can't agree, let him have the final say. Let him have the authority in the relationship. That's how you mesh.

That's how you bridge the gap. Now, as soon as you hear that principle, right away you're already thinking, oh, that means, that means, that means. No, wait. The Bible gets control of this and won't let you just throw in your own content. It tells you two things in the text

that kind of takes control of this whole idea of headship in marriage. The first thing it says is, the man must never exercise headship to please himself. Look, it says, love your wives as Christ loved the church and sacrifice, died for her, gave him up for her. Now that principle, which is in verse 25, is this, husband must never do anything just to please himself. It's the husband's job to always put the needs and desires of your wife ahead of yourself, ahead of your own, always, which means this. Okay, let's say you have to buy a car, husband and wife, and you can't agree because the wife

really wants to buy a red car and wife really wants to buy a red car. And the husband wants to buy a blue car. And you can't agree. Does the husband say, honey, remember Ephesians 522? I'm the head, so it's the blue car. No, because the wife can say, honey, remember Ephesians 525. You're supposed to die for me. This is sort of short of that.

And she's right. See, the point is a husband must always, always, if you're following Christ, a husband must never use your headship ever to just please yourself. In fact, you should always be actually trying to find ways in which to put your wife's desires and needs ahead of your own. Of course you should let her have the red car if it gives her joy.

That's your job. You say, well, what's headship about then? What is it about? You only overrule your wife when the two of you are working on something and you can't agree agree and you believe that the way she's going wouldn't be good for her or you or the marriage or something like that and somebody's got to make the final call and you make the final call. That's when you overrule your wife.

Only when you think you're doing the best thing for you both. Never just to please yourself. That's the first principle. Here's the second principle. There's almost no cultural details given in the Bible to this principle. The Bible says, wives, let your husbands be head. Now I know a lot of guys, a lot of traditional minded people say, right, that's right. In my family, the husband did this and this and this, the wife did this and that's how it's

going to be. The Bible doesn't give you details. It says, here's the principle, now you work out the details. Why wouldn't the Bible give you details? Why does it say who gets control of the checkbook and what about working? Why doesn't it say anything like that? Because the Bible is giving you a principle for all times, places, cultures, centuries. It would be stupid to give you details. But don't you see? It's form and yet freedom. It means a man and a woman. The Bible is saying don't reject the principle of male headship because that gets you in touch with your gender difference and it helps you mesh. But you

must agree on what that works out to be. You must agree on the details. You work it out yourselves based on your personalities, your temperaments, your time and place, your culture. You work it out. Don't you dare have anybody come in and say, well, my family, the husband did this, the wife did this, and so we're married, so what? It says the man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

You can't say that, you can't go back there. You have to work it out. Liberals don't like the principle of malehenship. Conservatives want to bring in all their cultural details, and the Bible doesn't go either direction. The purpose of marriage, what it does, cleanses and meshes. Now thirdly, what does marriage need?

And I'll just tell you, and then I'll show you where the Bible says it. The Bible says here, marriage, if it's going to work, desperately need, you need a Holy Spirit powered, gospel based ability to do love philanthropy. You need a Holy Spirit powered, gospel based ability to do love philanthropy and that's the key to marriage unless you have that marriage won't work. That's what you need. What? Now notice we started the text with verse 5th 21 which was actually in last week's if you were here it was actually covered in last week's message. It says submit to one

another out of reverence for Christ. But if you were here last week, you'll know that this is actually the last clause in a long sentence that stretches back to verse 18. Chapter 5 verse 18, Paul says, be filled with a spirit. Be filled with a spirit. And we talked about this last week. What does it mean to be filled with a spirit?

Paul explains, to be filled with the Spirit is actually explained by John chapter 16 where Jesus says, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will take what you know of me and he will glorify me. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 3 verse 17. The Holy Spirit's job, as it were, is to take the things you may know with your head. Do you know Jesus died for you? Do you know that He loved you enough to die for you? You take what Jesus did on the cross, the Holy Spirit does, and it makes it alive to you. It makes it existentially alive. You grasp it. You grasp how wide and high and deep and long is the love of Christ. And it becomes a blazing fire in your heart.

And remember, Paul goes on and says, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And he describes it. One is that you're always going around singing inside. Remember, inner music. You're not just thinking, oh, I'm a Christian. You're singing. You know, you're making melody, Paul says.

You're always amazed at his grace, amazing grace, amazing love. And the last thing he mentions is that will make it possible for you to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ when you have this incredible inner love and joy, a sense of God's love in your heart. It makes it easier for you to serve other people. That's verse 21. Then suddenly he says, verse 22, why submit to your husband? Now, wait a minute. He's talking about the fullness of the spirit. He's talking about having your soul sloshing with God's existential, experiential love. He's talking about being filled with the spirit. And then he starts talking about marriage, wives, husbands. Why isn't there any transition?

Why doesn't he say, okay, readers, I'm talking about the fullness of the Spirit, but now I'm going to talk to you about marriage. Why is there no transition? There's no transition because he hasn't changed the subject. Because what he's saying is marriage will never work unless you assume this. This is the presupposition.

Unless you know God's love, existentially, powerfully, in your heart of hearts, you will not actually be able to do what you should do in marriage. Why not? Remember I mentioned love philanthropy. What do I mean by that? You know what a philanthropist is? It's a man or woman who's getting so much money over here that he or she can give away all kinds of money over here. Why can a

philanthropist give so much money away to charity, not investment where you get a return, but so much money away. Why can he do that? Because he's getting so much over here, he can give so much away. There is no way you will ever come to the place I've been talking about, the place that through thick and thin, through conflicts and reconciliations, through times of difficulty in sacrificial service, that initial selfish, egoic, electrical charge turns into real deep oneness and love. You're never going to get there unless you can help, unless you can love your spouse during times in which

your spouse is distracted, during times in which your spouse is discouraged or sick, during times in which your spouse is not being the spouse he or she should be. Now, if your spouse is the main source of love and happiness in your life, and God, you don't either have a relationship with God or the relationship with God is not existentially real to you. It's just a, it's just, you know, kind of a, it's a, something you subscribe to, but it's not a real present reality in your life. If your real source of meaning and hope and love and joy is your spouse, then when your spouse stops giving you

the love he or she should give you, when the spouse criticizes you or has a problem or it goes through a rough patch, you're going to melt down, you know why? You can only keep giving love as long as you're getting it. So as long as you're giving love to your spouse, your spouse is giving you love back, fine. But when you have to give love

and your spouse isn't giving you much back, you're gonna freak out. Why? You don't have any other source. When your spouse criticizes you, if he or she is the main source of love in your life, you're gonna freak out, you're gonna melt down. If your spouse goes through a big time

in which she is not being the spouse he or she oughta be, you're gonna say, well, you're going to melt down. If your spouse goes through a big time in which he or she is not being the spouse he or she ought to be, you're going to say, well, you're not being the spouse you ought to be. Well, I can't be the spouse I ought to be. And you'll withdraw, you'll break down, and you might go looking for chemistry somewhere else. But what if you have? What if you love God more than your spouse? Then you'll love your spouse well. What if you get all more than your spouse? Then you'll love your spouse well. What if you get all this love from him? Like I said, it's just sloshing around in the center of your being. Then during those times, you'll be able to do love philanthropy. You'll be able to love even when you're not getting much love back.

And how will you have this incredible, Holy Spirit-powered, gospel-based ability to do love philanthropy, which you desperately need if your marriage is ever going to become to a place of strength and wholeness. It comes from the gospel. The Holy Spirit making the gospel real. And what is the gospel? Jesus Christ was the perfect spouse. Do you see the spouse of love of Jesus? Jesus made us. The Lord created us. And then Genesis says, we turned away from him. We went away from him. What did Jesus do? Did he say,

well, you're not being the spouse I...you should be. I'm not going to be the spouse I should be. No. He came to earth. He emptied himself. He went to the cross. He gave himself for us. Husbands, wives, look at how Christ loved us and gave himself for us. the ultimate spousal love. And when he was up there on the cross looking down at us being terrible spouses, killing him, betraying him, denying him, mocking him, in one of the great acts of spousal love in history, he stayed and he spoke the truth and love to us and didn't leave us. And through that death came

resurrection. If you know he loves you like that and the Holy Spirit brings that home to your heart, you will have, if you love God more than you love your spouse, you will love your spouse well. And if your spouse is the main source of love in your life, you will not love your spouse well. And I want you to see when Paul says, this is the thing you need. You need the fullness of the Spirit or you're not going to be able to do what you're supposed to do. I don't want you to think, by the way, that means that only Christians can have good marriages, but here's what you have to understand. People who are not Christians who have good marriages have good marriages because

whether they know it or not, they're walking in Jesus' footsteps. They're recapitulating the gospel. They're sacrificing. It's the self-giving love of Christ that they're actually acting out in their marriages whether they know it or not. They're loving us. See, when you are acting out the gospel, you love your spouse not because he or she is lovely, but to make him lovely because that's what Jesus did for us. Last, last, last, last point. You know what marriage is, what it does, what it needs, and now what it shows, what it points to.

This is a profound mystery, Paul says, but I am talking about Christ in the church. This image in the Old Testament that God is like a husband and Israel is like his bride, this image in the New Testament that God is like a husband and Israel is like his bride. This image in the New Testament, that Christ is like our husband and we are like his bride, is not just a metaphor. It points, according to Romans 7, according to Revelation, it points to a reality that some day, at the end of time, the marriage supper of the Lamb, that Jesus Christ is going to unite with us, that we are is going to unite with us, that we are really going to fall into his arms.

And let me say it as vividly as I can. The Bible says human marriage is therefore penultimate. It points to the ultimate marriage. And even the most wonderful, rapturous episode of marital love is just a dim hint of the ecstasy and cosmic joy of falling into the Lord's arms. Because that's what you were created for. And human love is just a pointer to that.

And human love is penultimate, that's the ultimate marriage. And unless you see that, unless you see what marriage shows and points to, you won't be single well, or you won't be married well. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, you won't be single well. Why not? Well, there's two ways not to be single well. One is to want too much to be married so you're so unhappy. My life is over because I'm not married. The other actually is to be single and not want to be married enough to say be afraid of marriage or to hate the idea.

If you see that human marriage is penultimate, you'll be single. Well, why? Because you'll know, gee, I'd like to be married, but the ultimate marriage, the ultimate set of arms, the ultimate marriage feast, because I believe in Jesus Christ, awaits me. The one that I really need, the one that will really satisfy me, that no human marriage can satisfy, is mine. And only when you understand that will you not let your single state throw you. But then on the other hand, if you don't know that human marriage is penultimate, you won't be married well either, because you will try to that human marriage is penultimate, you won't be married well either.

Because you will try to make your marriage or your spouse or marriage itself give you what only Christ can give you and that will crush. You will crush your marriage under that expectation. Oh no. Oh no. You know, I remember years ago having a terrible day with Kathy. It was my fault. Not always my fault. But I remember falling into bed

after having studied this text in the morning. I fell into bed and I thought after a hard day of marriage and I said, this is a profound mystery. But I was making a joke to myself but I was wrong. What's a profound mystery about marriage is not that it's hard. Actually, it makes perfect sense. Is your relationship with God hard? Yes. Is it glorious? Yes.

Is it the most rewarding possible thing? Yes. You shouldn't surprise us that marriage is too. This is the profound mystery, that marriage helps us understand what the gospel is about about and the gospel gives us the power to be either married or unmarried very well. Think on that. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that you've just flown us over this panorama and shown us the immense biblical wisdom of marriage. There's probably never been a

culture, a place or time that most needed this, though we've always needed it. I pray that you would help us to every person hearing this to order our lives in accord with it. Oh Lord, most of all, let your Holy Spirit apply this teaching to every person in this room's life where they need it and we ask that you would grant this because we ask for it through Jesus in His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching.

We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you a deeper appreciation for God's grace and helps you apply it to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at GospelInLife.com. When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 2012. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor

at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.