Author: Ekko Church

When we are united, marriage has the potential to preach and plant the seeds of the gospel in the world. But the problem is we often dissolve unity due to a lack of love and a lack of respect.

So how do we stay unified?

Paul writes to the church of Ephesus, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ… each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.”

Respect is often communicated in our tone and the way we talk to our spouse. We can disrespect our spouses with criticism and contempt.

Criticism attacks your spouse’s character and assumes the worst of the person.

Examples of criticism (adapted from Dr. John Gottman):

• “You’re always talking about yourself! You never care about what I have to say!”
  This communicates: “You’re narcissistic, a bad wife/husband. You are not caring.”

• “You said you’d wash the dishes, but there’s still a pile in the sink. You never do what you say you will.”
  This communicates: “You are lazy, You are irresponsible.”

• “Come on, we’re going to be late! Are you just being slow on purpose?”
  This says, “This act or misbehavior shows that your intentions are bad, hence you are not loving, thoughtful…”

Criticism is the leap from observation to judgment about the person.

Criticism makes the person defend their character and intentions.

The other way we disrespect our spouses and cause disunity is through contempt. (According to Dr. Gottman, the presence of contempt is the top indicator that a marriage is heading toward disaster)

Contempt assumes a position of moral superiority over your spouse.

Examples of contempt (adapted from Dr. John Gottman):

• “Look, I learned how to tell time when I was five years old. When are you ever gonna learn?”
  This communicates, “You are frustrating and stupid.”

• “We haven’t had sex in months. What, are you too busy flirting with that guy at work? Why don’t you just marry him instead?”
  What this actually says, “You are unloving, maybe unfaithful, you have that potential more than I do, you should be ashamed of yourself. I love better than you. I am too good for you.”

• “You’re ‘tired?’ Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic video games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid. Could you be any more pathetic?”
  What this says, “You are lazy and definitely not as diligent as me. You don’t deserve rest as I do, I am a harder worker, a better parent, than you. And my work is more important than yours.
  This act or misbehavior shows that I am better than you, smarter than you, more skilled than you.”

A contemptuous spirit communicates: “Why aren’t you as good as me? Don’t I deserve better?”

Contempt makes the person defend their worth and value.

“We have grown so used to each other that some think they are free to say anything… at any time. They expect others to bear with their unkindness. Why not first try to hold your tongue? You know what you can do, but you do not know how much the other can bear.”
— Mother Teresa

How do we start talking with loving compassion and respect? We can take a page from the sisters at the Mount St. Scholastica:

Before you open your mouth to speak, ask yourself:

1. Is it True? (Facts, truth and what is observed. Leave out assumptions or interpretations)
2. Is it Kind? (How is your tone, attitude and posture? Is it kind and healing?)
3. Is it Necessary? (Say only what helps. Let everything you say be good and helpful – Eph. 4:29)

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The question we might be asking is, “Why does all of this matter anyway?” Why does unity in our marriages matter? Why should we treat our spouses with respect and with love?

Because this was God’s dream from the beginning.

Redemption isn’t just about our salvation, but about God getting what He has always wanted: His creation to become whole.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.

“And God saw that it was good.”

— Genesis 1

What was good? God created by separating and joining back together. Light and darkness, land and water, man and woman. Two opposites being united in Him, for Him.

Creation’s unity in Him, for Him.

In separation, there is formation; in unity, we fulfill our purpose and bring glory to God.

But sin fractured creation and separated us from God and from each other.

It is only in and through Christ that we are united again and are able to give God His dream of a whole and united creation.

Because… In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

– Ephesians 1:7-10 ESV

Hence, unity in marriage is giving God what He always wanted from the beginning. Something we couldn’t do until we lived into the redemption given to us by Jesus.

It is with this backdrop Paul uses unity as a signpost to the new creation in God through Christ! He is basically saying, “Creation, it’s happening again! And Christ is the glue that will help us stay together for the glory of God!” 

A unified marriage is a signpost to the renewal of all things.

“Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.” – Ephesians 4:3

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You can listen to the sermon Becoming and Staying One Pt. III from the Ephesians series that inspired this post here.

All images and materials are copyright protected and are the property of EKKO Church unless otherwise noted and credited to their maker. Please do not copy or distribute without permission.

(You can find Part I to this series, here.)

Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:3, “Make every effort to keep yourselves unified in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

When we are united, marriage has the potential to preach and plant seeds of the gospel in the world.

The world will know that we are Christ followers by the way we are unified in our marriages and by our love for one another. This is the greatest gift that we can offer our children.

So why is it so hard to stay unified?

The problem is: Unity in marriage is jeopardized by a lack of respect and a lack of love.

In the first part of this mini-series, we delved into submission.

The second way we stay unified is to love one another.

So what is love?

And how do we love?

“Love is patient and kind…”

— 1 Corinthians 13:4

Patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

Apostle Paul says it like this: “Love… is not easily angered.”

How do you know if you are loving to your spouse? You can ask yourself, “How easily do I get annoyed and angered by my spouse?”

Love is willfully tolerating and enduring (and overlooking) your spouse’s annoying attributes or mistakes.

Love is the practice of long-suffering.

— Pastor Bryan

In a painting by Stanley Spencer, we see the image of Christ holding scorpions in His hands. We are reminded when we look at this painting of Christ, of His swollen hand and of His compassionate eyes. Even when stung, He doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t withhold His presence.

He still offers His embrace.

This is the model of love that we can follow.

Love never says, “I give up. You’re hopeless.”

Because, love never gives up.

Instead, love says, “Let’s try that again.”

But this is often harder said than done. We often get impatient because we keep records of wrongs. We have a habit of holding onto mistakes, sins or shortcomings – especially those of our spouse – and hold it against them.

“Love… it keeps no record of wrongs.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:5

How do we know we keep records of wrongs? We often say things like:

• “You always…”
• “You never…”
• “How come every time…”
• “When will you stop…”
• “I’m so tired of your….”

But love is having a bad memory of your partner’s mistakes.

Love is being patient like God, who doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve.

“God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins.” (Psalm 103:8-12 MSG)

Our spouses need us to be like artists, not accountants.

Artists help to chip away at what doesn’t belong, to allow the real you emerge. They edit and edify you.

Accountants are critical. They catch errors and expose. They correct.

Love is being like an artist.

Unity is an art, not a science.

Love, “puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:7 MSG

The world’s most famous statue was made from a rejected block of marble.

It was first commissioned in 1464. The first artist abandoned the project. In 1476 another artist was hired to take over the project. But he backed out of the project due to him deeming the marble to be of poor quality! It wasn’t until 1501, a young 26-year-old sculptor was hired to do something with the marble.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

— Michelangelo

Michelangelo saw the treasure, David, in the poor quality marble and set it free.

Marriage is like this: It’s seeing the treasure in the person.

Love is practicing the art of patience towards your spouse, chipping away at all that does not belong and helping the person emerge out of stone.

It is seeing and believing what God sees in the person and lovingly walking alongside and working with our spouse.

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Homework Assignment for married couples:

When sisters at Mount St. Scholastica begin their workday together, they face the other assigned to work with them that day and bow to one another.

And then they would say, “As Jesus would want it, have patience with me.”

Every morning this week, face each other, bow and ask for patience from your spouse. 

Prayer of the week:

May I be patient, 

May I be kind, 

May I be forgetful of mistakes. 

As You have been patient with me.

As You have shown kindness to me. 

As You have forgotten my mistakes. 

May I love

As You have loved me. 

Amen. 

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You can listen to the sermon Becoming and Staying One Pt. II from the Ephesians series that inspired this post here.

All images and materials are copyright protected and are the property of EKKO Church unless otherwise noted and credited to their maker. Please do not copy or distribute without permission.

Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:3 to “make every effort to keep united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

This applies to marriage as well.

Because when we are united in marriage, it has the potential to preach the gospel and plant the seeds of the gospel in the world. It’s sown through the ways we love our spouses, the way we treat one another at home and in the world, and pours into how we relate to creation, others, and the church at large.

The problem is, unity is jeopardized in marriage due to disrespect and a lack of love.

So how do we stay unified in Christ?

Paul writes the plan in Ephesians 5:21, 33: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ… each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

According to Richard and Nathan Foster, submission is…

• Submission is giving way to the will of the other. It’s holding our interests lightly and holding the other person’s interest above our own.
• It’s the art of resisting the everlasting burden of always needing to get our own way.

Pastor Bryan says it like this: Submission is the belief that my spouse’s positions, plans and perspectives are good ideas and made with good intentions because my spouse is a good person.

How do you know if you’re a submissive person? You can ask yourself these two questions:

1. When was the last time I listened, obeyed, and responded positively without making comments or criticisms and simply and willingly did what my spouse wanted?
2. When was the last time I jumped to give the benefit of the doubt (charitable explanations) rather than jump to conclusions, assuming the worst of my spouse’s intentions?

So how do we practice the art of submission?

We give up our ways once in a while.

We give way for our spouse’s interests and perspectives

We give them the B. O. D. (benefit of the doubt)

We give of ourselves – our minds, bodies and souls.

This week let’s try something with our spouses to practice submission: Just say “yes” to everything they ask.

Let’s see what happens. See how their hearts soften.

(Advanced assignment for those who want a bit of a challenge: anticipate what they will ask for, and do it beforehand.)

This is how we practice submission.

Submission says to our spouse,

“I can give you the benefit of the doubt because there is no doubt that you are good, smart, kind, and loving. I believe in what God sees in you.”

Another way to practice submission is giving yourself to your spouse—all of you.

Last sermon, we talked about how the biblical view of self includes your body, mind, and soul. So submission also looks like giving all of you (emotionally and physically) to your spouse daily, weekly and yearly.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, “The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality – the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to ‘stand up for
your rights.’ Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it’s for the purposes of prayer and fasting – but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it.”

Sex takes discipline. Just as communication and emotional connection.

All of these take discipline in order to grow a loving an respectful marriage.

Withholding your body exposes the fact that there are parts of you that are either hurt, offended or bothered… but we must seek forgiveness, reconciliation and connection.

The real problem is that we don’t want sex enough!

The reality is: Your spouse wants sex all day.

Because as Dr. John Gottman says, “Everything is sex… Just getting up in the morning and telling your wife that she smells good. It’s all foreplay. I can make the coffee and empty the dishwasher — I can look at the kitchen the way she looks at it so that when she comes in, and thinks, ‘Geez, I have to clean this all up.’ She’ll be working very sleepily and I’ll say, ‘Are you ready for your coffee?’ And she goes, ‘Yeah,’ and here’s the coffee. So you’re always making love. You’re always connecting emotionally in some way, whether you mean to or not.”

We can’t just want to make love to our spouse’s body, we must make love to his or her mind and soul as well. Hence, he or she wants sex all day, and we must give that to our spouses in loving submission.

In the largest study ever done on sex (70,000 people from 24 different countries by the University of Washington), researchers asked those who said they had a great sex life and found several things in common.

Those who had a vibrant and healthy sex life all did these things:

• They say, “I love you” every day, and mean it.
• They give their partner compliments.
• They have weekly romantic dates.
• They have romantic getaways.
• They make time for each other.
• They cuddle. Even if they’re watching TV on the couch, they’re touching each other.
• They express affection in public.

Submission is asking your spouse: How would he/she like to be touched? How would he/she like to spend time? And how would he/she want to talk?

Submission says this to our spouse, “You are good and valuable, inside and out, and you are worth giving my trust, heart, and body, over and over again.”

Let’s re-offer our bodies to God by promising it to our spouse. Pray this prayer with your spouse this week.

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You can listen to the sermon Becoming and Staying One Pt. I from the Ephesians series that inspired this post here.

All images and materials are copyright protected and are the property of EKKO Church unless otherwise noted and credited to their maker. Please do not copy or distribute without permission.

Further resources:

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd, Experts on Expert: John Gottman

The Making of an Ordinary Saint, by Nathan Foster