There are experiences we have in the Lord which leads us to the solid foundation.
2 Timothy 2:19. You cannot limit the foundation of God. He has the foundation of doctrine, Christian life, revelation and truth, for the marriage and family. What foundation should someone thinking about marriage have?
1. Personal Salvation in Christ (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 1 Corinthians 7:39)
If you are thinking about marriage, brother and sister, parents, if you are thinking of marriage for your children, you must understand that the number one thing for your child to have a good home is for unequal yoke to be avoided. But if your child is an unbeliever, you cannot say that he or she should marry a member of the church who is converted. You are saying your own child should go and bring a believer, wait a minute, if your own is not a believer, that is an unequal yoke. And if your child is a real born again Christian and you allow him or her to marry an unbeliever, it is an unequal yoke.
To the marriage committee members, as we help our young people, we must know that personal salvation Christ is number one priority so that we are not joining people together unequally.
2. Purifying Sanctification with Consecration (Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)
“Husbands, love your your wives as Christ loved…” A self-centered member of the church cannot do this. We need sanctification before we can obey this command from God. It is love that forgives, gives, thinks of the good of the other person, selfless, and sacrificial just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.
As you or our young people pray for the will of God, is it all selfish? “I want a wife that will do this and that for me, that will give me this and that”. The man is looking for a workaholic who will work and work to meet only his needs. “When I have that kind of wife, I will love her as Christ loved the church…” We must understand that a purifying, sanctifying experience with consecration to God, His work, Christ and the partner when they eventually get married is very important.
Sanctification will help you give the best of what you have every time, not only during the courtship, on the day of the wedding but throughout the marriage completely to the spouse. Christ paid the price to make the church glorious, so everyone in the family with the sanctifying experience will want to do everything to make the marriage glorious.
3. Purposeful Supplication With Conviction (Proverbs 18:22; 19:14; Jeremiah 29:11-13)
We cannot walk or choose by sight. The best of us and the most intelligent of us will make the wrong choice because we do not know the future or the heart of the person we want to get married to. All we can see is the external smile and excited expressions of love. But if we are going to have God’s choice, a choice that will be helpful and profitable, a choice that help us both in life and help us cross to eternity, we must have the Lord Himself making the choice for us.
Proverbs 18:22 “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” We do not find wives or the internet by checking on the Facebook or any other platform but we get them from the Lord. How did we get the favour of salvation? By supplication, by prayer. Therefore, to get a good spouse from the Lord, you must supplicate (ch 19:14) A prudent, proper, caring, supportive wife, the one that will fulfill God’s ordained purpose in your life is from the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11. God is willing to give you an expected end but you have to pray for it (vs 12) You pray in faith, trust and conviction. The prayer for a good, helpful wife, providing and protecting husband is not a prayer we pray half-heartedly, but we seek the Lord with the whole of our hearts.
4. Proper Separation from Old Companions (Ezekiel 14:2-4,7-10; James 4:2-4)
For our young people, widow and widowers, if you are really going to have the will of God, there must not be any link, relationship or connection with old companions. Your old school mates: Yes, you cannot be isolated when in school, but now that you want to get married, you cannot be telling the Lord that you want to marry that person. If you were married and your wife is gone to glory, you want to pray and get married again, not allowing someone to come to the house and be taking care of you, and you think of choosing that person, all that must be put away from your mind.
When you pray sincerely without an idol in your heart, the Lord will hear you. But when you already have someone in your heart, the picture of the person will always be before you, and your prayer will just be to fulfill all righteousness. This must not be when you are asking for life partners that will do you good. God said He will set His face against people with such action. You need to clear all idols away from your heart.
5. Profitable Skill And Craftsmanship (2 Thessalonians 3:10; 1 Timothy 5:8; Genesis 2:15-24)
After the wedding, you need to take care of the family. This means that before instituting or contracting the marriage, you ought to have a job or profession in your hands. You ought to have completed your education and have your hand in a particular profession or craft that will supply your needs and that of the family. If you cannot provide for yourself as an individual, how will you provide for two, three people? That is, you, your wife, a child and more.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” It is bad enough that a man cannot feed himself but worse for a man and a woman to not be able to feed themselves and they have to depend on hand-outs and charity. Give me this, give me that, I can’t pay house rents, I don’t have food at home, etc. Charity is good on the part of those giving it but charity is bad on the part of those who have families and become beggars, and cannot provide for their family.
1 Timothy 5:8 “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” This is when someone dives, and hurriedly goes into marriage and the people who are helping to counsel and lead did not check up if the man has profitable skills and craftsmanship and capable of providing for the family.
Look at what the scriptures says, the Spirit of God and the Lord says such a person who cannot provide for his family has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
Therefore, you must ensure that you can provide for the one you are bringing into your house.
6. Pivotal Stability Of Christlike Charity (1 Corinthians 13:1–7; Acts 24:16; 1 Timothy 1:5-6)
My brother and sister, after the wedding, the central thing is going to be charity, that is, love. But if we are self centered, self controlled and self willed, if we are thoughtlessly selfish and self centered that we do not think about the other person, we have not allowed love to reign in our family.
We need the pivotal stability of Christlike charity before and during the marriage. Establish the love in your heart before you get married because afterwards, it will be difficult to achieve (I Corinthians 13:1-7) It is not enough to claim to be saved, sanctified and baptized in the Holy Ghost, you can even speak in tongues, without love, the marriage will not be able to stand. Charity is above every other gift for the family.
You can be fanatically religious and have no charity. Love is the central thing that binds the family together one year after wedding, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years after. After the excitement of how he or she looks, or carries or comport self wears off, and the good looks vanish, love will continue to keep the family going for years.
Love is kind, and is able to ward off interference from outside the family, including the in laws from both sides.
vs 4. Love is not puffed off, is not proud. Someone who is proud and looks down on everyone on getting married will continue and he or she will belittle the spouse.
vs 5. There is consideration for the feelings of the spouse before doing anything, thus, he does not behave unseemly. Some people are easily provoked, they flare up at the slightest provocation, they threaten to break their courtships as soon as they are provoked, please, allow him or her to break it up now than when you get married. Charity must circle and keep everything together.
vs 7. We must bear in mind that everything will not be rosy in marriage, it will not be a bed of roses. Suspicion, accusations from one partner to the other will not keep the marriage together. There should be the ability to hope and believe strongly in the union.
7. Powerful Spirit, Our Comforter (Romans 8:14; John 16:13; Exodus 15:13; Romans 8:26-27,34)
You are led into marriage by the spirit of God and you have the conviction, not confusion that this is the will of God, so when different thoughts come, it will still be in your mind that you were led by the spirit of God. You will not be led by what the man possesses, the job he has, the tribe he comes from, the encouragement of both parents, or the brethren in the church, you are to be led clearly by the spirit of God so that you can continue to have confidence in the marriage.
If you allow all these pivotal foundation stones to be laid before the wedding is contracted, you can go on and have a successful marriage. Examine yourselves and leaders, examine the unions you are giving consent to, either with our children or members of the church.
B. PURPOSEFUL EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE IN A CHRIST-CENTERED FAMILY (Ephesians 5:25-28)
After the wedding, do not forget that the central thing in marriage is love, not just love to satisfy the flesh, but love in all its ramifications.
Apostle Paul by the spirit of God had no Christian family to use as example for the Ephesians to follow in their family life because Ephesus was a gentile nation given wholly to the worship of dumb idols and the kind of marriages they had were mostly polygamous, and based on enquiries and sacrifices to idols. So, he could not say, love your wife as your father loved your mother, the only example he could refer to was “as Christ loved the church”.
My brothers and sisters, we make a great and unscriptural mistake when we refer our spouses to our father and mother as examples to follow. Maybe our parents did well, but our perfect and ultimate model or pattern is Christ the Lord. Husbands and wives must love themselves whether they are together or apart (for example, whether one is at work, and the other is in another place). Whether one is promoted to a high position or not, the love is still there. Even though Christ has gone to heaven and is on the right hand of God, He still loves the church. It is an ongoing, eternal and unbreakable love.
– Imagine Christ loving us and not giving us any word of promise, saying He does not want to commit Himself to us…
– Imagine Him not giving us any word of encouragement, saying we should encourage ourselves since we have the Bible…
– Imagine Him not giving us any encouragement with His presence and power,
– But He kept giving and giving. He gave Himself to the church because of love and this is the pattern, model and example we should follow.
vs 28. Men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. This is another level of love. No one wants any pain to come to any part of the body, or tolerate hunger, thirst and sickness. Anytime there is any need in your body, you quickly supply it. The same way the husband must love his wife, and the wife must love her husband as her own body. If he does not love his wife, he does not love his own joy, happiness, progress, he does not please God and get to heaven.
You might love a thousand and million people outside your home, serving and making sacrifices for them here and there, if you do not love your spouse, you do not love yourself. After loving your spouse, you can now go and love people outside for salvation or service.
1. Proper Expression Of Love In The Family (Ephesians 5:2,32; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 1 John 4:11-12, 17-18,21; Philippians 2:1–5)
This is not theoretical or mental love. It is not theological or doctrinal love but practical to the point that the person living with you can tell through your actions and body languages. No one ever hates his own flesh, no matter the flaws or shortcomings. You may even wound any part of your body, yet you will never exchange such part for another. The more the pain and challenge you have, the more love and care you have for your body. This is exactly how to love your spouse.
vs 31. Married people should not have the habit of running to the parents, leaders and pastors in the church, discussing their family. They should be able to manage their families with all situations by themselves. A level of maturity comes with being married. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his own wife, and they two shall be one flesh”. The word join, cleave, glued to is like when you glue two things together, separating them will be to destroy one, the other or both. This is the kind of union and togetherness we ought to have in the family.
vs 32. If you tear the family apart, you are tearing the mystery of Christ apart from the church. Husband and wife in particular – forget about other people and family, forget about a book you read – love your spouse as commanded by God.
2. Permanent Existence Of Love In The Family (Ephesians 5:30-31; Matthew 19:4–6; Malachi 2:14–16; Song of Solomon 8:6-7)
Husbands and wives must love one another as Christ loved the church. They must be joined and glued together, there is no separation, divorce, or living apart. This is the scriptural teaching of the scriptures. They are joined together and must live together in love until death does them part.
Matthew 19:4. The Pharisees came to ask Jesus about the issue of divorce in marriage. Jesus did not ask them about what any ruler in the synagogue, philosophers, approved and elevated present day authors wrote about marriage but what the scriptures wrote. Just as you cannot have two mother and fathers, so you cannot have two wives or two husbands at the same time. One man and one woman will come together and be one flesh. They are no more two but one flesh, they are no more going in different directions. They should do things together, love and think alike.
3. Pleasant Edification Through Love In The Family (Ephesians 4:16; Deuteronomy 11:21; Romans 14:19–21; Ephesians 4:29–32)
As we bring the family together, bond and exercise love as we ought to in the family, with the husband and wife playing their different parts to make every joint stay together, we have fulfilled the will of God and there will be edification in the family. This also helps us to be well groomed in love and edification in the family because every part is supplied adequate nourishment.
We will have a home as heaven on earth. How? The grace and goodness of God from heaven will make our lives to be as if we have already crossed over to heaven. Our marriages will not be like the ones in this polluted and evil world. Our days and those of our children will be multiplied in the home which He gives us as heavens on earth (Deuteronomy 11:21) All grace have been supplied to us already.
C. THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF LOVE IN FELLOWSHIP (Ephesians 5:2)
Fellowship here between husband and wife, parents and children and members of Christ’s fellowship is a relationship that goes on from here to eternity.
Walk, act, talk, think, plan in love. Purge from your system of anything that is not of love. If the marriage is going to be as God ordained and Christ exemplified by loving the church, we must walk in love.
1. Christ’s Sacrificial Love in Our Fellowship (Ephesians 5:2,32; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 1 John 4:11-12, 17-18,21; Philippians 2:1–5)
To make our marriages work, we must not always think about
