The Ten Commandments Through A Marriage Lens

The fastest way to find what you worship is to look at what gets your attention when life feels tight. David and Tracy Sellers start with a simple sense of wonder about the universe, then bring it home: the same God who designed the cosmos also designed marriage, and His plan is not limited to your past or your honeymoon memories. If you’ve ever felt like God’s “rules” are heavy, we challenge that assumption with a different lens: His commandments are meant to protect, free, and realign our hearts.

We connect the Great Commandment to the real world of marriage, where loving your “nearest neighbor” can be the hardest assignment of the week. Why is it easier to be kind at church than to be gentle under your own roof after disappointment, conflict, or betrayal? From there, we walk through the first three of the Ten Commandments with practical marriage application: putting God first instead of keeping Him on speed dial, recognizing modern idols like comfort, success, consumerism, and control, and seeing how idolatry quietly reshapes priorities, time, and intimacy.

We also unpack “do not take the Lord’s name in vain” as far more than avoiding a phrase. Our words, our tone, and the way we talk about our spouse can either strengthen our witness or sabotage it. With James 3 as a warning about the tongue, we point to a better starting place: asking God to change the heart so the mouth follows. If you want a biblically healthy marriage built on trust, obedience, and grace, this is a grounded next step. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more couples can find it.

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

0:03

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They 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. Thanks

Space Wonder And God’s Design

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for joining us. We are David and Tracy Sellers, and we have made Vows to Keep. When our kids were younger, they were super interested in outer space. Their little minds were filled up with all kinds of facts that I had long ago forgotten. Please don't tell Mr. Lechner that. Your fifth grade teacher? Yes. Now I remember our son and I were talking about how far away the moon is, and he reminded me that it's like 240,000 miles from Earth. That's a seriously long way. Yeah. Well, when we travel to see family out west, we go about a thousand miles, and it just about wears me out every time we do that. And 240,000 miles seems like a long way until our son reminded me that our nearest star, the sun, is 93 million miles away. I can't even begin to grasp that. Just like I really can't begin to understand the way that God thinks, the creator of this universe. His thoughts aren't just higher than our thoughts, they are totally beyond our comprehension. But the same God that designed the universe, David, also designed our marriage. Think about that for a second. It's awesome. First Corinthians 2 9 reminds us that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those that love him. God's blessings to you aren't just in your past. They're not just in that honeymoon phase of your love. No, he's got things prepared for you and your spouse, and they will be revealed to you as you love him and you just continue to follow him. So

Love God By Obeying

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how do we love God? First John 5 3 explains this to us very simply. It says, loving God means keeping his commandments. In his great love for us as his creation, he makes his commandments not only for our good, but he makes them understandable, very applicable in our marriages. Sometimes I know it doesn't feel that way, but first John 5 3 continues in saying this. It says his commandments are not burdensome. And I think that defies most of our logic. When you think about the word commandments, two things are going to come to mind. Number one, the great commandment, and number two, the ten commandments. One of the very first things that most of us children, if we grew up in church, learned was the great commandment. That's from Matthew 22. It says, Jesus was asked, teacher, which of these is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? And Jesus replies, Well, you must love your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all of your mind. And this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commands. So today on Vows to Keep Radio, we're going to continue in our Bible for marriage series. We're glad you're here with us today. We're going to tie together those two things that David just read: the great commandment from Matthew and the Ten Commandments from Exodus that we're going to be studying here in just a few minutes. God has so much to teach us as we look at them in a new light, putting these life-giving commandments into practical application in the context of our marriage. Now I grew

Why Loving A Spouse Is Hard

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up in Sunday school, Sunday morning church service. My family was the kind of family that was there Sunday night, Wednesday night as well. So I learned the Great Commandment and the Ten Commandments really early in life. David, you probably did as well. Yes. Maybe you, as a listener today, know them by heart too, since we know them so well. They can roll off the tongue easily. And these tidy summations of God's expectations of us are simple, really, yet they are so complex. When we try to apply you must love your neighbor as yourself to you must love your husband as yourself, you must love your wife as yourself. That's our nearest neighbor, right? We recognize it's not as easy as it looks. I think it's a whole lot easier to walk into a church service on a Sunday morning and greet a friend with love than it is to live under the same roof with someone who has purposely hurt us this week. We'd rather respond to a rude coworker with Christ's love than offer a loving response to a husband or a wife who has lied or manipulated a situation for their own selfish gain.

Commands You Cannot Pick Apart

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Some of our listeners know that I am a diehard car guy. And I love to go to the pick and pull junkyards where you can literally hunt through hundreds of cars and find just the perfect part you're looking for for that project. And I usually have several projects going on. So I think about God's commandments in a very different way, though. You don't get to just read through the Bible and pull out the pieces and parts that you want that are going to serve you in the way that you want them to. They are not at your disposal just to grab what suits you. No, God's commandments are an all or a nothing. But if we can look at them through the lens that they should be, instead, we need to realize that they are something which gives us freedom to live truly as Christ in a way that would allow us to obey Him. And in the same way, believe it or not, they are not burdensome. We don't log God's commandments around our back like it's a heavy sack of expectations. The God who designed the universe, placing the earth in the exact position from the sun that it needed to be, the God who made the moon to guide us by night, the God who designed our union, our vows in marriage are also designed his commandments to bless and lead us. And at the same time, he gives us the power to obey him. His ways are higher than ours. His understanding is unsearchable. But it's really a matter of whether we will trust him enough to walk in obedience to his word. Now he stands at the ready to give us the faith to follow him. He's the one who gives us the endurance to run the race and to finish strong. He's there when you need power to love someone who seems very hard to love. His commands help you to realign your priorities, to put him and then your spouse first, ahead of yourself, when we'd rather just serve me. He's the one that helps us to honor our marriage covenant by saying no to sin and yes to his commandments. So pop

Ten Commandments Pop Quiz

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quiz. How many of the ten commandments can you say right now? Is this a test for me? Yes. Okay, this is also a test for our listeners, too. I think if you gave me about 20 seconds, David, I could probably name like maybe eight or so. Uh but I'm probably about five. Well, I did a little research on this. 60% of Americans cannot name five out of the ten. So, David, you fall in that 60% category. But you know what? If that is you today, there's no need for alarm, but it can change. So let's study God's commands, let's learn them. And here they are in really brief terms, the Ten Commandments. I'll take the first five, David. Sure. Okay. Number one, you shall have no other gods before me. Number two, you shall not make idols. Three, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And by the way, those are the three that we're going to be talking about today. Well, number four is remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Number five, honor your father and your mother. Number six, don't murder. Number seven, don't commit adultery. Number eight, don't steal. Number nine, don't bear false witness against your neighbor. And number ten, don't covet. So as we begin to study these first three commandments today on Vows to Keep Radio, I want you to keep in mind that as you keep the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself and to love the Lord your God with everything you have, you're going to be keeping these as well. So

No Other Gods In Marriage

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let's take a look at the first one, and it's a biggie, and that's probably why it's number one. God says, You shall have no other gods before me. I want you to look at this in the context of who this was originally written to, the Israelites. They lived in a polytheistic environment. What that means is worshiping many gods, lower G, was the norm for people. And that made it popular, that made it attractive. The biggest lie that we buy into as Christians and non-Christians alike is that we can have life apart from God. But like the Israelites, we worship the creation rather than the creator, like it talks about in Romans chapter one. We exchange the truth of God for a lie. And it really is such an easy swap to make, David. We repeat to ourselves the very first lie ever told from Satan's lips. You don't need God, He's holding you back. You'd be so much better off following your own way. And we tell ourselves that's where true happiness is. But for a Christian to buy into this lie, there has to be a little bit of truth in it. And Satan knows that. So he says that we can keep God, but just knock him down a few levels. You know, it's not like you're never gonna go to church again and you're still gonna pray at the dinner table, but you can be in charge and not him. And the enemy tells us that it's for our good. If we do that, we're gonna be so much better off. Just do what you want to do and keep God in your back pocket for those really hard times. So how are you doing on this commandment? You shall have no other gods before me. This is a commandment that we need to hear today. Is Jesus the only God that you serve? Is he the only one that your family serves? Is he the only one that your husband serves? In what areas are you tempted to serve a false God? In what areas is your spouse tempted to worship something other than the Lord our Creator? This is a commandment that the children of Israel needed to hear right before God gives us command. He says in Exodus 20, verse 1, I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. He reminds them of three important things who he is, who they are, his treasured people, called to be set apart, and then he prompts them to remember what he has done for them to be rescued. He's calling them to stay true to him, to be reminded that he is their creator, that he loves them, that none of their false gods, none of the things that they've put in a place above him will do anything to act on their behalf like he has. And if you continue to read the account of the Israelites going through the Old Testament, you're gonna find time after time of their unfaithfulness. Yet what does God do? He continues to be faithful. They gave in to the temptation of worshiping false gods repeatedly, and you know what? So do we. Satan would not try to convince most Christians that they don't need God at all, because most of us wouldn't fall for that lie directly. But like Tracy said, if God can be removed from the top of the list and and may possibly be made second or third or fifth or ninth, as long as he's somewhere on that list, we feel like that is okay. Well, that is not. This command applies so well to marriage because as a couple, we can help each other. We're able to watch and see whether as a couple or as individuals we are failing or succeeding at this. Don't have a relationship with God that is just for emergency situations, and don't let your spouse either. So is God your God or is he a God who's on speed dial like 911 just when you need him? That hits a little close to home, doesn't it? We can so easily believe that as long as we've got him somewhere on the list, we're good. I have daily practiced that in my life. The world I've created for myself sometimes supports that. And you know what? Satan's okay with it. He knows that after I'm a Christian, he can't change that, he can't take that away. So his options are limited, but that doesn't stop him. He utilizes the same methods he employed with Jesus when he tempted him in the desert. Do you remember that story? He shows us all that's sparkly and fun, all that's attractive and appealing, clever facimiles that appear true at first glance. And the enemy of your marriage says, Go ahead, take a bite. It won't hurt to dabble with a little of this and a little of that. You'll be fine if you don't follow all of God's commandments. Just trust me, he says. And before we know it, we're on our knees in worship of all that Satan has to offer. And

Spotting Modern Idols At Home

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this all leads God to give the second commandment. You shall not make idols. In this commandment in verse 5, God says, You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who doesn't tolerate your affection for any other gods. I think I can understand that, David, just a little in my finite thinking. If one of your ex-girlfriend's name is even mentioned or dropped, I feel the strong urge to protect our marriage. Just that little name drop can feel like a serious infraction of our union, even though I know it's not. So think about how God must feel. He's in a covenant relationship with me, and when I have something else that I've given even a small fraction of my heart to, well, he gets jealous. Does he have your whole heart? Do you want to give it to him? Let's talk just for a minute about how to identify idols in our lives. Here's a way you can remember it. An idol is something that you give authority to. We give them license to change our priorities, our time, our money, our minds, and our hearts. We bow before them, submitting to their reign over us. Now, we might not bend a physical knee to an idol that's made out of wood or carved stone, but when we let a selfish desire bend our will to choose the wrong action or reaction towards our spouse, the idol that we're giving control to chips away at the firm foundation that we have underneath us, the firm foundation of Christ, and it turns it to sand, and we reap the consequences for that. Well, here's just a few examples of modern idolatry that may have made their way into your life and into your marriage. The first is convenience and comfort, instant gratification, celebrity admiration, consumerism, keeping up with the Joneses. An idol can be even an idea, a dream, our job, maybe a sport we play, or one that we like to watch. So when I think about it, I've made a lot of idols out of a lot of different things, including people too. I let the creation begin to rule me rather than letting the ruler of it all have it all. Earlier we asked you if God was the only one that you serve. If your answer to that is no, then you can safely say you've made idols in your life and they've taken his place. In our culture, in our homes, in our hearts, God's place of honor is replaced with his creation as we attempt to chase down our happiness to find life apart from him. And happiness, having it all, was what Satan was trying to offer Jesus when he tempted him in the desert. In Matthew chapter 4, it says that the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said, I'll give it to you all if you will just kneel down and worship me. And here's what Jesus says: Get out of here, Satan, for the scriptures say you must worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus knew scripture and it helped him to say, No. Satan tempts us with the lure of glory and fame, materialism, temporary bandages that we think are going to fix our heart. So we have to recognize what is he luring us with and what's our response gonna be? What is he luring your spouse with? And how can you walk beside them to help them stand strong against temptation? Are you in the word every day enough so that you are able to see when something of temptation is put into place that God should be in your life? Do you know enough about the truth of God's word that you're able to act on it? Are you are you and your spouse able to talk about scripture, talk about what's tripping you up, and not have a conversation that's just about condemnation of each other, but about how do we obey God's commands together? How can I help you to do that? Sometimes when we hear the word commandment, we translate it to command, of course, or demand. And I think we can pull back and really hesitate, thinking that if we obey, we're just simply giving up our freedoms. And that's the very lie Satan tries to sell us. Well, let's remember the verse from 1 John. His commands are not burdensome. What is burdensome is when we don't obey. It's not God's commands that are heavy, it's our idols that are weighing our life down all the while, promising freedom they can never deliver. But this commandment to not have any idols in our lives is a loving directive from God. It's meant to protect you and your marriage. What would have happened if Jesus would have knelt down before Satan when Satan said, Hey, I'll give you everything. All you have to do is kneel. Well, he would have handed him the authority. Then Satan would be in charge now and not God. And can you imagine what that world would look like? Can you imagine what your marriage would look like when you do the same thing? Jesus had that opportunity to give in, but he didn't. He didn't kneel. He didn't bow. He made a choice based on truth. That's what we are compelling you toward today. What is bowing down to your idol in your life costing you? It has a price, and it's also probably costing your marriage something. And let me just tell you if you want to go a little bit deeper into this topic of idols, go to our website, vowstokeep.com, and listen to the broadcast Idols of the Heart. The good news is though, David, when we both recognize, okay, I have idols in my life, but I don't want it to stay that way. I want to serve God and serve Him only. When we both have our eyes in the same place, we can head in a really great direction. Now, if you're still not sure what might be an idol in your life, I want you to ask yourself what you couldn't live without, or better yet, ask your spouse to answer that for you. And of course, if they come to you and ask you the same thing, answer with gentleness, knowing that your marriage is in a healthy place. If you have the humility to approach your spouse with questions like these, statements like this shout humility. They say surrender, and they talk very loudly about the submission that you have to the God who rules your life. So true.

God’s Name And Our Words

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We've covered the first two of the Ten Commandments, and we're going to finish today talking about number three, which is you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You might be thinking, okay, David and Tracy, how does that apply to marriage? This commandment goes way beyond not saying, Oh my God, which comes out all the time in today's society. God is actually asking us to be careful with what we say because what we say says a lot about who's our God. It also says a lot about what he's done in our lives. What we say testifies about him or against him. Now I'm going to rabbit trail here for just a minute, but for the purpose of bringing some understanding here, because many men I know think that if they haven't used God or Jesus' name as a swear word, then they must be good, right? But that's why I think it's so important today that we put this commandment into marital terms. Maybe some of you have listened to some past broadcasts where you've heard us talk about the importance of not talking badly about your spouse. This is a little bit like saying, I'm not going to use my spouse's name in vain. If you're going to use their name in a description of love, well, of course they'd be flattered to hear about those kind of things later on. Let's flip this around. What if your spouse hears that you've been complaining about them? Maybe your spouse has been downright derogatory to you. Being offended in a time like this, especially when it's our name that's being used in vain, makes sense to most of us. God's expectation is simply that we would maintain the same kind of respect toward him. I cringe when I hear a Christian throwing around the name of our Lord flippantly, but I feel ashamed when I ruin my testimony of Christ by slandering my husband or complaining about him or judging him. The truth of the matter is we are all Christ's ambassadors. Our lives are being scrutinized by others. People see the evidence of whether or not God is number one in our lives. They notice the idols we bow, our wills to, and they're listening to how we talk. They are looking for glimpses of hope in their dark world. According to 2 Corinthians chapter 2, we've been given the task of reconciling people back to Christ. This is your ministry, this is your job, no matter what your occupation is. And it can be scary, but it is true. Christ speaks through us, through our words and our lives. Yet James 3 says that blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. Yikes. If only I could go through the day and not have to talk. It would take the number of times I sin down to almost zero. My mouth is what gets me in trouble. How about you? One minute we're cursing our spouses who were made in God's image. And then we go to church on Sunday and praise God, or we praise our kids for what they've done right, or we sing along with the praise song on the radio, and then we go and watch a movie full of cursing, or we go and slander our neighbor. James III says, the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark. We've all seen the great injury that our tongue can do to our marriage relationship. There have been many days in my life where I've woken up with a determined goal not to speak unless absolutely necessary, because I knew that I would wind up in a deep pit if I started talking silly, I know, but oh so true and oh so futile, because James 3.2 says, if anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way. Well, I'm not there yet, but I know that my mouth speaks what my heart is full of. So that's where we've got to start. Asking God to make our words fresh streams of an undeniable witness of him by changing our hearts to be holy, just as he is holy. And that, by the way, can only come when first we follow the first two commandments that we've already talked about. So isn't it interesting as we go through these commandments, we're gonna recognize each of them as not just a command to outwardly perform. No, instead, these are commands meant to keep our hearts right with God. That's what he is after. He's not looking for us to try to perform perfectly, uh cross all the T's and dot all the I's in our lives. That is pretty much what the Pharisees did. He's looking for our relationship with him to be pure, to be right, our hearts unquestionably unified with his. And does this sound like the same sort of thing we want to have in our marriage? It sure does. And that's why the Ten Commandments, they're not outdated, they're not antiquated, they are for you and I today. They're for your marriage right now. Well, as we

Next Steps Prayer And Wrap

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wrap up, our intention is to make these commandments into something that you can recognize as relevant and really life-giving within your marriage. Well, that means, of course, that we couldn't tackle all this in one broadcast. But we will invite you to tune in next week as we continue in the Bible for marriage series, looking at the remaining Ten Commandments and the greatest commandment that God has given us in Scripture, and then how to apply these things to our marriage relationship. Tracy, let's close in prayer. Lord God, I thank you that you have given us the directives in your holy word that helps us to know what should be important and what changes need to be made in our hearts and in our lives. I thank you that you've helped us to see the importance of these things, not commandments that corral us, but your commandments that allow us to be free in our lives by putting you first and making sure that there's nothing else that I would put before you. Lord, I pray that we would respect you in our marriages, and I pray that that that same kind of respect would be something we'd be able to take from a relationship with you and put into effect in our marriages as well. Lord, we praise you and we thank you that you've not left us with uncertainty that your word is clear about what will bring success not only in our relationship with you, but what will bring success in our marriages as well. We pray that each listener today would draw you close in their heart and that you would guide their steps and bring us all back together again next week to study your word and how it applies in our marriages. In Jesus' name, amen. Like

Listen More Serve Or Donate

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what you heard today on Vows to Keep Radio. Listen to more life-changing broadcasts at vowstoke.com. 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 Christ-like 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 Vows2Keep financially, visit vowstoke.com and click on the donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows2Keep of Zanesfield, Ohio.