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Last week I sat down at the table in the morning to have breakfast. I saw a book on the table that Annie had been reading titled “Dictionary Of Word Origins.” So with a mouth full of oatmeal I opened it up to the very first entry: A-1. It read like this:
“Why do we use “A-1” to mean “the very best”? Because when the Marine insurance companies of London started the association later to become known as “Lloyds,” they also started a register of ships and shipping in which the condition of the ships and their cargo was noted. The ships were graded by their letter; the cargoes by number. “A” meant the ship was itself perfect; “1” meant that the cargo was likewise perfect.”
Fascinating. With oatmeal spilling out of my mouth I said, “That’s going in my sermon!” Why? Because we are ships, and the way we live our lives is the cargo. “Live lives worthy of the calling you have received” Paul said to the Ephesians. We are made into brand new “A” grade ships through our faith in Jesus Christ. But, we are to fill our lives with cargo that is worthy of Him, cargo that spiritually would be graded as “1”
Our marriages are part of our cargo. What is the quality of our marriage – the quality of this cargo in our lives? What does Proverbs teach us about marriage? How does Proverbs teach us to have WISE MARRIAGES?
Let me add a thought from last week to this. When Scott Domont was teaching from Matthew 9 he explained what a disciple was and it hit home with me. He said, “A disciple is someone who puts themselves under the discipline of their master.” As a Christian my life is in ongoing submission to Jesus as He disciplines me into increasing spiritual maturity.
Here’s where I’m going with this: we Christians need to see our marriage as part of our discipleship. Not separate. Jesus is our Master, and we are submitted to His discipline, yielding everything in our lives to Him, His authority. Everyone of us needs to see that we are disciples of Jesus in our approach to marriage. Today, Proverbs is going to give us wisdom to live by.
I have 10 points to a wise marriage. Today we are getting through three! 1) See each other as God’s good to you, 2) Praise each other, 3) Forgive each other.
#1: SEE EACH OTHER AS GOD’S GOOD TO YOU
This is probably the best point to start with because it is so foundational. See each other as God’s good to you. Turn to Proverbs 18:22 with me, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.” Turn over to 19:14, which offers some clarification, “Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.”
As a foundational rule of human existence, marriage is a good thing. Seeing your spouse as God’s good to you is a foundational rule of how to look at your marriage. It is God’s good design for man. Think about Genesis 2 where God said about Adam, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” This helper, this woman, this wife for Adam was God’s good solution to Adam’s aloneness. You see this in Proverbs 31, where it says of the wife, “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.” And that’s how her husband saw her, as God’s good to her. Which is why in verse 28 it says, “her husband also praises her.”
This attitude does not mean you’re not going to get annoyed, angry, disappointed, hurt, frustrated with each other. But when you make your foundational outlook of your spouse that they are God’s good to you then you are on much more solid ground to work through marital problems.
Its when spouses see – as a rule – that their spouse is no good that a real problem exists. Sometimes that is the case that spouses are not very good. Sometimes a person can very understandably think their spouse is more from the devil than God. Eve eating the fruit, Adam passively letting it happen; Sarai when she led Abraham astray with Hagar, then Abraham when he was weak in Egypt; Job’s faithless wife; Abigail putting up with Nabal’s foolishness; Jezebel’s evil influence on Ahab and Ahab’s own evil and foolishness; Delilah’s deception and betrayal of Samson, and on and on. The Bible is full of examples of spouses who did not bring good to their spouse, but brought bad things – either in one big way or in ongoing ways.
Proverbs talks about the foolish woman who tears down her house with her own hands (14:31), or the quarrelsome wife that Proverbs says “Its better to live on the corner of your roof than live under the same roof with her” (25:25). It talks about the foolish man who brings ruin on his family and the punishment God will bring on him for it (11:29).
Those are certainly difficult and understandable situations. And they need help, and they need repentance and discipleship. Why? Because they need to course correct to get where all of us should be: having as the first rule of our marriages that we see our spouse as God’s good to me. Whoever finds a wife finds favor from the Lord.
#2: PRAISE EACH OTHER
Praise your spouse. Proverbs 31:28 says, “Her children arise and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her.” Then the final verse in the whole book of Proverbs, verse 31, says, “Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gates.”
First, in the vast majority of marriages there is much about spouses to be praised. Recognize and appreciate, intentionally, those praiseworthy things. Don’t let faults blind you to strengths. The sinful flesh in us makes us tend to close our eyes to their strengths and keep both eyes wide open with their faults.
APPLICATION: Practice praising your spouse in prayer, thanking God for specific ways they are a blessing to you and your home. Verbalize to them your praise, point out how they are praiseworthy and how they are a blessing. I was told when I first was married by a godly man in the faith, “Do not dishonor your wife to yourself.” In other words, do not degrade, be sinfully critical, judgmental, and dishonoring of your wife. I understood his point: how you think about your spouse in your head when you’re alone is very important. Do not allow your mind to be a field for such wicked thorns and thistles to grow up in.
APPLICATION: Realize that there is more about your spouse to praise than you have been willing to admit. This speaks to the tendency we have to be overly negative and critical. Humbly, we need to step back and let the Lord open our eyes and expand our view to the ways our spouse is a blessing.
Second, this is not a rule where a spouse can be a complete jerk, bringing only harm and ruin into the relationship, and then sit back and say, “Well, you have to praise me and see me as God’s good to you.” Proverbs 31:31 clarifies that it is not automatic praise: “Let her works bring her praise.” She’s worth the praise. I’ll widen this to apply to husbands too that they need to be worth the praise. Now the previous point explained that for many of us our spouses are worth the praise but we get a little too critical and need to be more honest about how good we’ve got it. But this point is for those spouses who aren’t praiseworthy but expect praise.
So for instance, A man can’t be a negligent, worldly slob of a man, who runs all over his wife and then turns around and says, “You need to honor me.” You’re a manipulating jerk if that’s you. If you’re the kind of hypocrite who acts all serious about God’s word when it says your wife needs to “submit” to you, and you have Ephesians 5:22-24 memorized…BUT… you all of a sudden, can’t seem to find the verses that you need to love her like Christ loves her, provide for her, protect her, cherish her, spiritually lead her, be an example of Christ-likeness to her, be tender with her, then you need to repent from being a manipulating hypocrite. You probably had 1 Corinthians 13 read in your wedding, and you should go back there and memorize verses 4-7 and do love towards your wife the way its described there, and if you do you will find you don’t have to try and manipulate your wife into submitting to you because when you love her like that she will WANT to submit to you. Your manipulating her with Scripture is itself proof of your own failure as a husband. Repent of your sin and your hypocrisy.
The same goes for bad-acting wives: you can’t run your husband down, slander his name, undermine him, disrespect him, manipulate him and try to control and run him and then turn around and demand, “You need to honor me. Give me some praise.” You are a manipulating hypocrite, and you need to repent. Something that’s become more common in recent years is wives abusing the word “abuse.” “I’m abused – my husband abuses me.” More than once I’ve become alarmed at such a claim and then upon further investigation it’s clear this wife isn’t abused, she’s just trying to exaggerate normal problems in a marriage to make herself out to be some martyr who is victimized by her supposedly tyrannical, abusive husband. She needs him to be a villain because her whole identity is that of a righteous victim. It’s a devious sort of pride that is seen in her martyr complex, getting her attention and a sense of righteousness as she constantly finds her value in contrasting her helpless victimhood with her husband’s evil villainy. Its such an entrenched identity, and it completely makes the word “abuse” meaningless and insults women who are actually abused. Women like that are sinful, slanderous, poisonous, self-righteous and hypocritical. The only thing for them is to repent, and find their righteousness not in some false contrast with their evil husband, but in Christ.
My point is this: praise your spouse. A wise marriage is filled with praise for each other.
#3: FORGIVENESS
The last point for today is this: a wise marriage practices forgiveness. Turn to Proverbs 10:12 with me, “Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.” That is a verse for all relationships, but you can see right away how powerful for marriage it is. “Love in marriage will cover all wrongs.” Similarly, Proverbs 17:9 says, “Whoever would foster love covers over an offense…” In marriage, love covers an offense, and covering an offense increases love.
The word “covered” is used in Psalm 32:1, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are COVERED.” When it comes to us and God, our blessing is in God covering our sins – which is equated here with forgiving them. Its seen again in Nehemiah 4:5 where Nehemiah prays, “Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight.” Covering one’s sins means forgiving them, canceling them, blotting them out from God’s sight.
That’s what forgiveness is: removing someone’s offense from your sight. No longer seeing their sin when you see them. This is the same way God describes His forgiveness in Hebrews 10:17, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
This definition of forgiveness is also included in the description of what love is in that most famous wedding passage, 1 Corinthians 13. Read in so many weddings, but is it practiced in as many marriages? “Love is…” The description of love that follows is in direct contradiction to an unforgiving heart. READ
Unforgiveness in marriage is the opposite of all that: “Unforgiveness is impatient towards my spouse, unforgiveness is unkind. It leads to me dishonoring my spouse, it makes me self-seeking at the expense of my spouse, it is very easily angered towards them, it keeps very detailed records of all their wrongs. Unforgiveness makes me enjoy things God says are evil, and makes me repulsed by the truth. Unforgiveness always attacks, never trusts, never hopes, and never perseveres.”
Brothers and sisters, this is how God has forgiven us. God does not – after forgiving us – continue to hold our sins against us and treat us according to our sins. That is the exact opposite of forgiveness. It is a contradiction.
It is unloving to hold a spouses faults against them. This heading is called “Practicing Forgiveness” on purpose – because forgiveness is something you practice. You have to be intentional about. Many spouses hold things against their spouse – some quietly never saying anything, others very verbal about it. Spouses fight, and they don’t resolve their issue, but they add more entries to the list they’re keeping of their spouses offenses, and their fight ends without any progress, and they’re just too tired or annoyed to keep going. So that fight is paused, then the next one comes up and it brings up the previous fight and its issues, along with all other previous fights and previous issues, and nothing is ever forgiven, nothing is ever admitted, nothing is ever worked through.
Marriage is a picture of Jesus Christ and His Church, according to Ephesians 5. The connection here is that forgiveness is the very thing that makes Jesus’ Bride His Bride. Anyone who is part of the true Church and is therefore the Bride of Christ, is so BECUASE they have been forgiven by Jesus for their sins. Forgiveness is the very foundation of this marriage between Jesus and His Church. And since, in the very same passage it declares marriage is a picture of Jesus and His Church, then practicing forgiveness must be foundational within our marriages. Intentional, prayer-led, humble hearted, gracious spirited, forgiveness makes a marriage fill up with love and wisdom.
APPLICATION: What are you holding against your spouse? Forgive your spouse the way the LORD has forgiven you.