Marriage: A Journey of Faith

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua 24:15

If you are here reading this today and you are not already married, my guess is that you probably would like to be at some point in the future. If that is you, my goal in writing this blog post today is to challenge your reasoning for wanting to get married. If you want to get married simply because you don’t like the idea of spending the rest of your life alone, my friend, marriage is not the answer to loneliness. No. Marriage is first and foremost a journey of faith—two people coming together to serve God together in a way that they never could apart from one another.

In the beginning, when God created the first marriage, He said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:8, emphasis added). Notice there that God said that he would make for Adam a helper; He didn’t say lover. Most people today fall in love over moonlight and roses and think, “Oh, we’ll get married, and everything will be just hunky-dory.” However, once they get married, they find out that everything isn’t hunk-dory at all. That’s because that’s not how marriage works, folks. Marriage is when a man and a woman come together with the purpose of serving God and each other every day for as long as they both shall live.

Having said all that, you may be thinking, “Well, how do they do that”? First of all, they do it by illustrating the love of Christ for His church, the husband representing Christ and the wife representing the church. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Likewise, Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” That’s what marriage is. It is a reminder to the world of how much God loves His people and how we are to honor Him as our Heavenly Father. It is for this reason alone that God hates divorce.

Secondly, God calls husbands and wives to train up the next generation. Not only did God tell Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply,” but He instructs us in Proverbs 22:6 to “train up a child in the way he should go, [that] when he is old he will not depart from it.” This is why I will always believe that becoming a parent is so much more than a biological process. Simply put, parenthood is a calling. When God gives you a child, He expects you to bring up that child in His Word. If you don’t do that, you have failed as a parent.

Adrian & Joyce Rogers

Lastly, when God brings a man and woman together in marriage, He creates a ministry. Those two people are to minister to one another, growing closer to each other as they grow closer to the Lord. They are to pray together, study God’s word together, and serve others together. If you are married, you ought to be thinking of ways that you as a couple can reach this world for Christ. I will never forget hearing Adrian Rogers tell how he and his wife, Joyce, got down on their knees together on their wedding night and committed their marriage to the Lord. When God brings two people together in marriage, He brings them together for a purpose. It is up to you to find out what that purpose is and start working to fulfill it.

Maybe you are here today, and nothing I have said makes sense to you because you have never acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. If that is you, it is my earnest prayer that you will give your heart and your life to Him before it is eternally too late for you. Simply turn from all sin and trust Christ alone to save you. If you will do that, He will save you today and keep you saved forever.