The One Verb That Defines Marriage that Changes Everything About What You Thought Marriage Was

It happens all too often.   My wife, who is a psychotherapist, comes in from a counseling appointment sad and frustrated.  Why?  It’s because, in spite of weeks or even months of counseling, a couple looks headed for divorce.  And what makes her sad is that one of the partners wants to do everything he or she can to make it work, to resolve the issues.  But the other partner doesn’t want it.   What are the reasons?   Usually they come down to things like; I’m just not feeling the love.   Or I want something different for my life.  At times, it’s because that partner can’t let go of the anger, can’t forgive mistakes the spouse has made.  Instead, all they want is to get out. 

Beyond her sadness for the couple, my wife feels for the kids.   She knows that for these children splitting up, the break-up will be an emotional nuclear bomb.   Studies show that divorces, beyond those in seriously abusive situations, negatively affect outcomes for kids in almost every way from academic achievement to self-concept, from how they adjust internally to how they relate to others.   Now, in the Bible, God does give situations when divorce may be necessary.   But often, couples don’t break up for those reasons.  No, they break up because they have never really understood what a marriage is.   

They think that they know what marriage means, what it’s supposed to be, but they have no clue.   In fact, even a lot of couples who remain married don’t know.  And as a result their marriages become so much less than what God designed marriage to be.   Only when you know the true definition of marriage do you open the door for your marriage to be all that it can be.  And whether you are married or not, knowing that definition will give you insights that will make every significant relationship in your life all that it can be as well.

So what is the true definition of marriage?  In this passage, actually in just one key verb in this passage, God tells you.   And once you know that verb and what it means, it changes everything.  So let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Ephesians 5:21-33

When lots of folks look at marriage, they think they know how a marriage is supposed to work because they think they know what a marriage is.  But here’s the reality. They don’t.   And because they don’t, their marriages don’t work.   Even if the couple doesn’t divorce, the marriage doesn’t become what God designed marriage to be. 

But here in these words, actually in just one verb, God gives you the core meaning of what every marriage actually is.   Now before we discuss that verb, let me just say something about the rest of the passage.   Too often, people have interpreted the words I just read as endorsing inequality between women and men.  We won’t be getting into that question today, but I want to make clear.  That interpretation is wrong, and when the time comes, you will see that clearly. 

Secondly, even if you are not married, understanding what marriage is will give you insights that will benefit every significant relationship in your life.   So what is marriage?   God tells you here in just two words, this compound verb, “be joined” as in:  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  

The verb to be joined is actually a technical term that literally means glued together.  People used it to describe a public covenant or agreement.    And that’s what a marriage is. It’s a contract, a public contract between two parties.    And when you know that, then you get how good marriages always work.    They don’t work from the inside out.  They work from the outside in. 

What do I mean?   Well, let’s unpack why in our culture, talking about a marriage as a contract comes off as a major downer.    Our culture has romanticized marriage as this powerful confluence of feelings that keep a couple together through thick and thin.   Every day, these partners wake up, and gaze into each other’s eyes, and fall in love all over again.  And yes, all that sounds wonderful, but so do unicorns.  And like those marriages, unicorn don’t exist either. But because too many couples have bought into this false inside out view of marriage, their marriages either fail or even if they last don’t become the amazing and fulfilling journey that God created marriage to be.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Emotions and attraction have a powerful role in any marriage, but they cannot define it.   Something bigger and stronger has to do that.   And that’s what a covenant is.   That’s what you are doing when you stand up publicly before others, and say those marriage vows to each other.  You are entering into a contract, a binding set of promises that says ten years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now, you get the idea; I’m going to be there, until death parts me from you.  

Now why is that bigger and stronger than emotions and attraction?  It’s because a promise doesn’t change, while your feelings do.   Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised in just in the time you’ve been in this room that your feelings have changed in some way.  You entered happy, and now not so much.  Or you entered worried, and now you’re feeling better.    So when you have a relationship that is designed to last for a lifetime based on your emotions, on how you’re feeling, how unstable is that?  

You can’t build your marriage on the feelings you have.  Those change way too much.  You have to build your marriage on the promises you make.  

But you might ask.  Isn’t marriage based on love?   Yes.  But at its heart, love is not a feeling.  Love is an action.  Love is a commitment you make to the well-being of someone else regardless of how you feel.  Love works from the outside in, not the inside out.  When the Bible says, love your mother and father, and love your enemies, it uses the same word.  Love is an action and yes, those actions lead to feelings, but love cannot begin there.  But when you don’t get this, when you think love is a feeling first, it poisons your marriage in deadly ways. 

The syrupy love language of our culture camouflages the transactional way we unconsciously think of marriage.   But the slang shows the truth.   You might say.  “Oh he married above his pay grade.”   Or “She got a real catch.”  

When you get married, whether you acknowledge or not, you are thinking of it as a bargain.  You are saying to yourself, “Hmm, she’s better looking than I expected to get, and yes, there are a few issues on this front, but overall, I think I made out pretty well.”   Or “Yes, he could lose a few pounds, but he’s cute, and he’ll provide well and be a good dad, so I’m feeling pretty good about it.”   What you are thinking is that I will get about as much or maybe more out of this relationship, then I am going to put in.   You are thinking about it as a bargain. 

But then you get married, and you discover that maybe he or she isn’t the bargain you thought they were.   They’re not giving what you expected, what you desire.   By the way, lots of folks think that’s what love is, what they desire from the other person. But that’s not love.  That’s emotional hunger.   Love is not about what you want.  It’s about what you are willing to give. 

But when your partner doesn’t deliver the goods, what do you do?  You withdraw.  You think.  Well, if he is not going to put the effort in to this thing, why should I?   Or if she is not going to be the wife she used to be, why should I be the husband I used to be?   And that begins a cycle that spins you further and further down.

But do you see how upside down this is?   Think about it with kids.  When children are first born, how much do they deliver?    Before three months, they don’t even smile at you.  Instead they poop on you. They pee on you.   They barf on you.  They keep you up to all hours of the night.    All you do is give and give and give, but as you do, do you know what happens?  Love happens.  Your actions lead to the love.  And the older they get, the more that love grows, until when that child is grown, it doesn’t matter how they screw up, you love them no matter what.  

But when your spouse acts like a baby, what do you do?   With your child, you act on the basis of a commitment you’ve made.  So the more you give, the more you feel the love.  But with your spouse because you think of it as a bargain, when they fail to give, you pull away.  And then you wonder why the love you felt when you first began has disappeared.   Love has to be an action first, and then a feeling.  The actions of love lead to the feelings of love.  Love has to work from the outside in, not the inside out.          

And when you love like that, over the years, your marriage just gets better and better, stronger, richer; deeper.   This week, I was talking to someone, who was happily celebrating her 30^th wedding anniversary.    And as we were talking, she said.  After you get through those first ten years, things really start getting good.   But the feelings didn’t get her through those 10 years but the promises did.   If you follow your feelings, your marriage will crash and burn.  But if you follow the promises, then the sky’s the limit, not only for your marriage, but for you.

When you follow the promises in your marriage, it enables marriage to change you, to shape you into the very person God created you to be.  

Think of a bridge that has all these hidden flaws that no one realizes are there.  But then this huge truck rolls across and strains that bridge out.  All of a sudden, the flaws show up big time.   But that truck did not create the flaws. It just revealed them

“And when you get married, your spouse is a big Mac truck coming right through your heart.” (Tim Keller). And what that truck reveals ain’t so pretty.   Now before that, your parents might have tried to tell you about these flaws.  Your friends or roommates might have pointed them out.  But you could always walk away.  But in marriage, those promises bind you, and you can’t so easily walk away there.

Too often, you can think that the conflicts you have in your marriage are with your spouse.  But in reality, you are usually facing a conflict with yourself.  Marriage brings out the worst in you so you can confront it, so you can change it, so you can become free of it.  As the preacher, Bill Coffin put it.  The truth may make you free, but first it makes you miserable.  But the promises that bind you in marriage, give you the power to move through the misery to that freedom.   And the more you follow those promises in marriage, the more marriage grows you into the greatness God created you for.  

Now how do you live into this vision?  How do you hold onto the promises when you just want to tear it all down?  How do you love when you are not feeling the love at all?   How do you not run away when marriage shows you the ugly truth of who you are or who your spouse is?  You look to the One who kept his promises, even when you were tearing him down, who loved you even as you rejected him, who saw the ugly truth of who we all are, and didn’t run away.  

When God in Jesus was nailed to that cross, do you think he was saying to himself?  “Oh these people are so good looking and nice, I can’t wait to die for them?”    No, he was loving you from the outside in.   He had decided to love you, and nothing you did was going to change that promise.  He loved you no matter what.   His promises of love bound God so deeply not even death could break them.  The more he had reached out to you in love, the stronger that love grew, until on that cross the power of that love changed everything not just for you but for everything.   There on that cross, when Jesus saw you at your very worst, as you were murdering God, even then his love did not walk away.  But in Jesus, God stayed on that cross to bring you his lost children home.  

And the more you experience that love, the more it fills you with the power to love others like that, your spouse, your children, your friends, even those in the pews around you.   And as that love transforms you, it will transform your marriage, your family, every relationship in your life in ways more wondrous and more beautiful than you could ever dream.  

(This series is based on a famous series of messages by Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, who has also written a book on Marriage that is certainly worth checking out.)