Joy in Marriage :: [Ep. 277]

Joy in Marriage :: [Ep. 277]

Joy in marriage isn't just for personal happiness but serves as a powerful testimony for Christ, showing others the benefits of following God. When couples follow God's design, their relationship becomes a living demonstration of God's undeserved love to a world that desperately needs to see it.

In this week's episode, we are covering the following:

• Why marriage is often reduced to roommates working through tasks rather than experiencing God's joy
• Christians frequently portray following God as difficult with little joy, making faith unattractive to others
• Learning from King Solomon who warns against worldly pursuits and encourages rejoicing in your spouse
• How Biblical marriage provides tangible language to explain Christ's love for the church
• Redemption in marriage isn't dismantling God's created order but recovering it

We hope as you listen, you are encouraged and blessed!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Winsome Joy in Marriage
• 5:41 The World's Pursuit vs. God's Pleasure
• 9:01 Marriage as Testimony for Christ
• 16:34 Solomon's Wisdom on Marital Intimacy
• 19:00 Christ and Church: The Marriage Blueprint
• 24:17 Call to Redemptive Marriage & Support

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. Our mission is to help couples develop biblically healthy marriages through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. We desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Are you missing the winsome joy your marriage used to have? Did you know that joy in your marriage is more meaningful than just for your happiness? A marriage done God's way results in a joyful husband and a joyful wife who are, straight up, a walking testimony for Jesus. Find out how this is possible in today's episode of Vows to Keep Radio, the show where you get sound biblical counsel you can apply immediately to your marriage. We're your hosts, david and Tracy. Sellers of Vows to Keep, david and I are biblical marriage counselors, authors, teachers, radio hosts and conference speakers. If you want to get back to being on fire for your spouse and for God, you're definitely in the right place.

Speaker 3: 1:03

People typecast Tracy and I. We're always holding hands. We kiss without regard, in public, in front of our kids at home, it doesn't matter. So people think we have the perfect marriage. We always must be having fun. Right, the truth is, we work long hours working with couples who are often at their lowest point. Joy is actually something we have to make margin for. We're both sinners, we're both selfish. We're also both deep thinkers and this actually leaves us often with heavy hearts.

Speaker 3: 1:39

And when I first met Tracy, I was blown away. I loved how she saw the good things, the stuff I constantly missed, like sunrises and full moons and the North Star, and I was completely blown away that, as a chick, she loved fast muscle cars and curvy canyon roads like Spearfish Canyon. But you know what? Even the secular world sees these good things. Go look at any generic worldly website and they'll speak of how great the sun and the moon and the stars and fast cars are. But it breaks my heart that what they see is the creation and not the creator. They see Mother Earth, they see a Big Bang.

Speaker 2: 2:23

God actually designed so many things for pleasure. Sunrises are amazing holding David's hand, Full moons are amazing on a walk together in the dark. God made sexual unity in marriage to be enjoyed. God made marriage to bring the bond of a best friend. He made horses, dogs, cats so many things that we enjoy. So the point is that God gave us many gifts simply for our pleasure, and we miss them all the time. Instead, we're downtrodden with the weight of sin. It's everywhere.

Speaker 3: 2:51

The crazy thing is, the world doesn't really want to call sin what?

Speaker 3: 2:55

it is when we understand it as we should. As believers, we live in disappointment with how much sin stinks. A husband recently shared how his wife broke his heart when she crushed him with disrespect, With concern he was highlighting a sin risk that he saw in her life and, out of rebellion, she did the very thing he asked her not to do. And we see all the time that our marriages can basically be reduced to two roommates working through a list of tasks and we focus on efficiency. Right, it's who's going to run the kids here, who's going to get the groceries there, who's going to be at work and when. And it has its effects. And we see those effects outside our home too. Walk around any community and, as believers, our hearts should ache for the brokenness we see. It's because we know it doesn't have to be this way. Problems are everywhere in every person's life, I know, including mine.

Speaker 3: 4:08

Romans 7, Paul speaks straight to my heart. In verse 15, he says I do not understand what I do, For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Continuing in verse 18, it says for I have the desire to do what is good, but I can't carry it out, For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it.

Speaker 2: 4:44

When was the last time you had a great seven-day stretch where joy was on your lips every single day, a great month where you were overwhelmed with God's gifts. You know what? I don't know either. The problem isn't just that we are struggling to see God's goodness. It goes further than that. We have marriages without the light of Christ.

Speaker 3: 5:05

And we're not saying that you're not a believer. We'll unpack this in a few minutes. But I believe the purpose of marriage is to put God's undeserved love on display to a world that desperately needs to know about it, so that those people would become Christians, so that they would join the church. The irony is this we fail at that simply because we are all really displaying the cost of following the Lord, and rarely do we put on display in our marriages the benefits of following the Lord.

Speaker 2: 5:37

We act, so put out about everything that comes at a cost. I know I do. We are such whiners. Having this kind of complaining, negative, in constant pain disposition isn't winsome. It actually casts a shadow on the reflection of who we're intended to be.

Speaker 3: 5:53

When I was 18, I had this freshman college dorm RA. He was a very worldly guy who, after hearing me talk about oh, how terrible the loneliness was that I felt and how much I wish to have a girlfriend, he said, David, that long face won't win you a girlfriend. It might win you five seconds of sympathy if you were lucky, if she's willing to listen at all.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I so wish we could have met as college freshmen rather than college seniors, David.

Speaker 3: 6:19

Me too, and we do this as Christians. We want the chance to witness to an unsafe co-worker whose marriage is breaking and we so want to help them to know Christ. But if they know we're a Christian and what they've seen is our lives constantly unhappy, your body language, your words, your actions saying that following the Lord is terribly hard and there is no joy. I have to give up everything. It's so hard, it's so stressful. I don't even feel like I'm succeeding most of the time.

Speaker 2: 6:50

In other words, we're being self-defeating.

Speaker 3: 6:53

Exactly Knowing that we're Christians. Anyone watching would easily pair the misery and the sadness with our faith and have no reason to want what we have Let that sink in, just like when my freshman RA gave me a pep talk as a Christian. Too often all we can see is our current state of misery.

Speaker 2: 7:17

The problem for us Christians isn't so much about giving up everything, because we don't typically live in self-sacrifice mode. It's more about a lack of the fruit of the Spirit. When we're led by our flesh, like Galatians 5 talks about, we're still serving ourselves rather than serving one another in love. We're backbiting each other and destroying relationships based on our preferences. We aren't loving our closest neighbor, who is our spouse, as ourselves and sadly it's really obvious to onlookers we are lovers of selves.

Speaker 3: 7:47

And so we're the people who say all the time God is good and don't show it. Today, I'm asking you to stop speaking of your life and marriage as though you're in a hostage situation. Call sin and the threat that it is to your marriage what it is, and then make changes to align your behavior with God's word. What we've been given by God is meant to be a testimony. We, as the church, are actually perpetuating a lie. Our marriage is sharing a testimony that is twisted.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Well, god is good, he's generous. When we do marriage his way, it is a gift and a reason we have to be so joyful.

Speaker 3: 8:26

We get a few reminders of this in God's word. One guy I'd love to learn from is King Solomon. Now he's King David's son and it's believed that King Solomon wrote the Song of Songs. It's the spicy depiction of a man and a woman doing what lovers do, and I think God included this text in the Bible because he invented sex to be a good time, and it's really described that way. It's a little risque. King Solomon also is known as the wisest guy on earth. He wrote another book that I enjoy, proverbs, and this actually we're going to be picking up in chapter five. He's speaking to younger men initially.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Proverbs 5.1 starts with my son, be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps follow to the path of Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life, her ways wander and she does not know it. And now, o sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

Speaker 3: 9:36

King Solomon is talking about the risks of going the way of the world. Here. We know this is true. Look around. When we follow our flesh, we can see the pain of lust, pornography, sexually perverse relationships. These leave people broken. So many great passages teach us about this, but the world still denies this as true.

Speaker 3: 10:00

I remember talking to a man we'll call him Tony who had siblings all from different dads, very rough growing up years Now. As an adult dad, tony now himself couldn't wrap his brain around the cost of his dad's choices. And now here he is, the one repeating this history of selfish decisions. Himself he was struggling with being faithful. Would he give up the drugs? Would he give up the selfish pursuits for pleasure? His wife wasn't enough of a convincing argument at this point. Now, if King Solomon would have been there, he would have had some words for Tony and for you and for I. He would say I've had it all, I've seen it all, I've indulged in it all. It's not going to fulfill you like you think. It will Just give it time.

Speaker 3: 10:51

Solomon continues in verse 8, keep your way far from her, don't go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength. And at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and body are consumed and you will say how I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. I am at the brink of utter ruin. Verse 14 says you see, suffering for doing wrong is much higher than we realize. This is basically a cause and effect. It's a consequence thing. Doing it God's way is actually very beneficial, but Satan doesn't want us to proclaim God's goodness. The world doesn't want to even acknowledge that sin has consequences.

Speaker 3: 11:45

Let me level set with you. When we talk with our kids about sex and we've got three teenagers I make it a very specific point to share God's gift, god's goodness, within marriage to our kids. They see Tracy and I's enthusiasm for each other. They see us flirt, they see us kiss, they see us touch. If you want your sons and daughters to follow God's sexual plan for their life, you have to realize that Hugh Hefner and the YouTube influencers, the TikTok stars, guess what? They are full of direct and indirect relationship advice. Those temptations will look good. They will look like a world of evidence that God's way is simply going to leave your son and daughter without your marriage is meant to refute this lie.

Speaker 2: 12:36

King Solomon's advice for us continues in verse 15. Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own. Well, I hope you can read between the lines there. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? This is a direct reference to only indulging in sex within your own marriage, and he asked the question would you let sex outside of marriage devalue your marriage? He continues in verse 17,. Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. Solomon is saying go, have fun with your bride.

Speaker 3: 13:11

In order to understand this whole water analogy, I think we have to put ourselves back in the time when these words were written. Water wasn't something that was just on tap. Imagine being thirsty back when Solomon wrote this. Water was precious. It was held in cisterns and you know what? I actually had one of these when I was growing up.

Speaker 3: 13:29

I grew up in northern Wyoming in an area which was basically high country desert. My dad, several times a week, would drive from our property out in the country to the nearest town to haul water. We had this big truck with a thousand gallon tank on the back and that sounds like a lot of water, but let me tell you it is not. We never left the water running when brushing our teeth. We showered when our parents thought we needed it and let me tell you, that really made for an interesting dynamic. When I got to middle school. God was just protecting me for you, tracy, this was just normal for me.

Speaker 3: 14:03

And then I remember going to a friend's house. I was a teenager and I went there to spend the night and he took a shower that night and then again the next morning and I'm talking long showers he left the water running till it was cold before he filled a glass when he was getting a drink. He left the water running when he was brushing his teeth. All things, sadly, I do those things today, but the contrast would have been much more stark back in Solomon's day. Even my approach to water, growing up in Wyoming, would have been totally impossible. They didn't have plumbing. They didn't have pumps. Water was not taken for granted like it is today. They didn't have pumps. Water was not taken for granted like it is today. Water sustained life. It was the perfect way to speak to the younger generation of that day.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Solomon is making this analogy between the sustaining water for life to the sustaining intimacy in marriage, and to understand the reason Solomon was an expert. Let's turn to 1 Kings 11. Verse 1 says King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter Moabites, ammonites, edomites, sidonians and Hittites. This is as insane as it sounds, but back in Solomon's day, marriage was a strategic move to gain favor of nearby nations. Back then, marrying a neighboring nation's princess was a great way to ensure peace. God's not cool with this, so let me continue in verse 2. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites you must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, solomon held fast to them in love. Verse 3,. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines, and his wives led him astray.

Speaker 3: 15:46

Solomon was all the way in the extreme. Now, in our modern dating culture, being with a couple different sexual partners is seen as completely normal. In fact, we were on a date two nights ago and the table next to us was clearly a hookup date in the making. Now God's using the voice of Solomon to teach us about this. First Kings 11, verse 4 continues. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, just as God had warned, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord. As God, Ignoring what God wants comes at a very high cost. Think about the ripple effects of just King Solomon's life and all of those ladies. So with that context, let's fast forward down the road in Solomon's life back to Proverbs. So here's Solomon saying God's way is best.

Speaker 3: 16:38

Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Verse 19 continues in Proverbs 5, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fulfill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love. Solomon's been with a thousand women. He's done what was right in his own eyes, Trust me. He says rejoice in the wife of your youth. Why does he say rejoice? Because you don't rejoice in all the stuff of the world. You don't rejoice in the past failed relationships. He knows this. We rejoice because God's goodness in marriage is legit. Tracy knows me. I know her. I know when she's excited and perky, I know when she's sad, when a long walk has needed to talk out something hard. We have that bond of experience together. But you know what? I know thousands of people.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Yeah, me too.

Speaker 3: 17:36

And while I call many people friend, only the person I'm married to, only the person that you're married to, knows your heart, like you need it to be known.

Speaker 2: 17:45

King Solomon knows a thousand women. He knows he actually doesn't know them. This is why he asked the question in verse 20, why should you be intoxicated my son with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline and because of his great folly he is led astray.

Speaker 3: 18:12

You see, a smart man learns from his own mistakes. A wise man learns from others, as wise as Solomon was. He learned all of this the hard way. He had to make the mistakes and he speaks to them. He begs us, the reader, to not be just smart enough to learn from our own mistakes, but to be wise enough to learn from his. Don't believe the world's lies. Be led by the spirit and not the flesh. That is where there is true joy.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Anyone who knows Jesus as Lord knows that with God anything is possible. I'm a living testimony that anything is possible. My sins are forgiven and I don't deserve it. I could tell you about Jesus or I could show you I could live the enjoyment before you. We want to close our time today with Ephesians, chapter 5.

Speaker 3: 19:00

And that's because it talks about this comparison between Christ and the church and this husband and wife relationship. On the surface it's kind of hard to follow, but it famously paints a picture for the purpose of marriage as it relates to our Christianity. It's no accident that biblical marriage provides tangible language to explain Christ's unconditional love for the church. Human marriage is the copy it's not the original. Ephesians is kind of seen as one of these great biblical references about your marriage. In chapter 5, we read of a biblical metaphor you and your marriage are meant to live out. Listen to Ephesians 5.1.

Speaker 2: 19:42

Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Jumping down to verse 21, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is how we can follow God's example. Right Wives, submit to your own husbands as you do 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 the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Husbands, love your wives, 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 their own body. But they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. Verse 31 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. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Speaker 3: 20:52

The reality in this metaphor is that God ordained a permanent union between his son and the church. Your marriage is the earthly image of this divine plan. As God desired for Christ and the church to become one and in love, he desires the same thing for your marriage to reflect this exact same pattern. As you, as a husband and wife, become one flesh. When we're there, one as a couple, as Christ is one with his church, as Jesus is one with the Father, there is such joy, such winsome joy, unlike anything else. When our marriage has such joy, people look on with wonder.

Speaker 2: 21:33

And when people see that joy they're going to start to ask questions. And all those secondary side effects that being godly gives in marriage unity, friendship, sex, kindness, mercy, forgiveness. They point people to Jesus. Our faces wear it, our body language shows it, our kids see it and so do our coworkers. Faces wear it, our body language shows it, our kids see it and so do our coworkers.

Speaker 2: 21:54

You might say but hey, didn't the fall ruin the harmony of marriage because it twisted a husband's loving headship into hostile domination and lazy indifference? And didn't the fall twist a woman's intelligent, willing submission into manipulative obstinance, a fight for control that constantly divides? Yes, it's true, the fall still affects us today. But don't miss the point. The redemption we anticipate with the coming of Christ is not the dismantling of the created order of loving headship and willing submission, but a recovery of it. This is precisely what we find in the passage I just read from Ephesians 5, 21-33. Wives redeem your fallen submission by modeling it after God's intention for the church. Husbands redeem your fallen headship by modeling it after God's intention for Christ.

Speaker 3: 22:40

Husbands. This chapter is about marriage, but let's hear our part. Christ is loving the church deeply. He dies for his bride, the church. This action results in the saving, undeserved love that we enjoy as believers, and it will have the same powerful impact on your marriage too.

Speaker 3: 22:59

Ephesians 5.32 is talking about this profound mystery. As I said, tracy and I have to work hard to be joyful. Can I ask you to join us that we would be a people who see our lack of joy to a correlation in how we follow our flesh, that we would realize what a terrible witness our marriage might be in our state of selfish, complaining, unforgiven bitterness. Our marriage might be in our state of selfish, complaining, unforgiving bitterness. Sin is heavy, but seeking forgiveness brings freedom. Will you join me in trying that in your marriage today? You see, serving God's kingdom yields fruit. Join us as forgiven people who count the joy that comes from a biblical marriage. Can you blow off the things you don't have? Can you put a God-honoring, passionate love on display? Can you make the fruit of Christianity so convincing that people would actually ask you to testify about Christ? We do have a great fun marriage, but I hope you know it's not about us, it's not even us. It's. Doing things God's way Creates winsome joy that others will see as a testimony of God's love for them.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, ohio.