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This podcast is a production of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, USA. Watermark exists to be and make more fully devoted followers of Christ, looking to God's Word as our only authority, conscience and guide.
Good morning, Watermark. How are we doing today? Good to see you. I hope summer is off to a good start for you. If this is your first time ever with us on a Sunday, I just want to say "Welcome." I'm glad you made it. Thanks for trusting us with your time, and I hope this place can feel like home for you very quickly.
I want to make sure you know where we're headed, not just today but over the course of the month of June. If you've been tracking along with us in the Year of the Word, then you know we just finished the book of Job yesterday, which means we're starting the book of Psalms tomorrow, and it's going to be incredible.
So, all throughout the week, as a church, we're going to be reading through the Psalms, but here on Sunday mornings in the month of June, we are going to be talking about issues that are relational in nature. The elders and I feel like there are some really important things we need to discuss. For example, today we're talking about marriage, next week we're going to be talking about divorce and remarriage, and in a few more weeks we're going to be talking about singleness. So, that gives you an idea of where we're headed.
Now that I've said that, many of you are feeling a lot less good about being at church today or in the coming weeks, but here's the deal. These topics are so incredibly important, and we feel strongly that it is really good and healthy for us to take a few weeks in the midst of the Year of the Word to speak to some of these issues.
Now, here's what I know. When I just told you we're talking about marriage today, divorce and marriage next week, and then singleness coming up, the reason you might feel the way you do is because these subjects might be attached to serious pain and heartache for you. Just think. Out of the roughly 3,000 people in the room, we have people all over the map.
There are some people here who love marriage. You and your spouse are in a really sweet season of marriage. Others of you don't know if you can stay married for one more day. We have single people in the room who long to be married. We have married people in the room who long to be single. We have people all over the map.
There are those who have been abandoned or abused, those who have cheated, and those who have been cheated on. We have people in their first year of marriage who, when people ask them, "How's the first year of marriage?" assuming a positive response, something in them is like, "Do I lie or do I tell the truth?"
I tell you that just to say my hope for everyone, every single person, no matter what your relationship status is, is that every single person over the month of June would experience a mixture of hope, encouragement, and conviction, that we would each first be convinced of and convicted by God's calling while at the same exact time experiencing his grace. That's the plan.
Before we jump in to talking about marriage, let me just say this. I have 45 minutes, and there is absolutely no way I can give enough caveats or take enough off-ramps to address every single situation that has been experienced in marriage in this room, so I'm going to stay high level. That is why it is so helpful to be living life in community. This is the type of message that it might be really helpful for you to process and wrestle through with your Community Group, because they do know your individual story and can help you process through it in a very helpful and biblical way.
Before we jump into marriage, I just want to give you a chance to take a moment and pray. So, would you just pray and say, "God, would you speak to me this morning?" Then, would you pray for the people around you and ask God to speak to them? Then, would you pray for me and ask God to speak through me to you?
Lord, I thank you that you're with us, and, Lord, my hope and prayer is that every one of us would experience a mixture of hope and encouragement as well as conviction. Lord, where healing is needed, would you bring it? Where hope is needed, would you provide it, God? We love you, and we trust you. In Jesus' name, amen.
My wife Kathryn and I have been married 18-1/2 years. I've showed you this picture before, but I'll just put a picture in your mind of our wedding day. That's us on October 14, 2006. Now, here's what you need to know. The first time Kathyrn heard me say the words "I love you" was on the night I proposed to her, because I didn't want her to hear me say it until I could put a ring on it. So that was my plan. And I made it. I made it all the way to our proposal before she heard me say the words "I love you," but that wasn't the first time I had said "I love you" to Kat; it was just the first time she heard it.
Four months into our dating relationship, we were having this magical moment. I'll never forget it. We were standing outside this massive fountain. It was just magical. I was experiencing all of the feels. It was like, "I think I love this girl." Blissful love was blossoming right there in front of that fountain. As we're standing there, I'm like, "I don't know that I can hold it in anymore. I think I love this girl. I think I need to say it," but I had already made a decision "I'm not going to allow her to hear me say it until I can put a ring on it."
The fountain was providing enough noise covering, so as I was standing next to Kathryn…she was right _here_…this is what I did. I turned my head _this_ way and went, "I love you." How creepy is that? I just had to get it out of my system. I think about that, and I really do think I loved Kathryn at that moment. When people ask, "Hey, when did you first know you loved Kathryn?" that's the moment I point to.
We've been married now 18-1/2 years, and I tell Kat I love her most days. When I say, "I love you" now, it has such a richer meaning than it did standing in front of that fountain. I would even say the love I have with Kat now would make _that_ love look like it's not real love in that moment, because it's just so much deeper, so much richer.
One of the reasons it's so much richer now is Kat and I, now 18-1/2 years into it, have a much better understanding of what God intended for marriage and for biblical love. We've been in it long enough to know that love certainly is a feeling a lot of the time, and we still feel in love a lot of the time in marriage, yet there are plenty of times in marriage where our marriage is a choice, where we choose to love one another because of the commitment we made on October 14, 2006.
Sometimes it's easy and feels good, and other times it is difficult and we do it because that's what we've committed to do. I tell you that just to say the reason our marriage is still intact is I believe, by the power of God's Spirit living inside of us, he is allowing us to see more and more what God meant for love in marriage. So, that's what I want to talk about with you today. I want to unpack biblical love.
If you have a Bible, I want to invite you to turn with me to the book of Song of Solomon. Remember, in the Year of the Word we're in Wisdom Literature. We'll actually read Song of Solomon in the month of July. The reason we're going to look at Song of Solomon today is because it is God's instruction manual, eight chapters devoted to finding love, making love, and maintaining love. That's how kind God is. He hasn't just given us marriage and said, "Figure it out. I wish you the best." He has actually given us an instruction manual for it.
Now, here's what you need to know about the book. This is probably the most debated book in the entire Bible. If you were to go read the top 10 commentaries on Song of Solomon, you would get 10 different opinions. People debate who wrote the book. People debate who the characters are in the book. I don't have time to go into all that today.
Here's the important thing. Whoever the characters are in the story… It's the story of a husband and a wife journeying through life together. Whoever those characters are, they are meant to be a picture of God's ideal marriage in this world. This is what I believe is the famous love passage. People read 1 Corinthians 13 at weddings, but 1 Corinthians 13 is about love within the body of Christ. Song of Solomon 8 is love within a marriage.
Listen to what it says. This is the wife speaking to the husband, and here's what she says. Verse 6: **"Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."**
This passage is going to show us four things about biblical love. First, it's going to show us that _love must be irreversible_; secondly, _love must be exclusive_; thirdly, _love must be unquenchable_; and fourthly, _love must be unconditional_. I want to be clear. God has a very high standard for love, and because God has a high standard for love, you need to know God has a very high standard for marriage.
If you want to know how highly God thinks of marriage, just look at where he placed it in the Bible. Where did God create marriage? He created it and put it on page 2 of his entire story. That's how important it is to him. Now, I do want to make a clarification. While marriage is important, it isn't ultimate. If you're single here, let me just say the church in general is guilty of idolizing marriage, yet Jesus never got married. Paul never got married.
Marriage is important, but it is not ultimate. The reason marriage is important, though, is that God has given marriage as a way to point to an even greater marriage. So, God gives love between a husband and his wife to be on mission for their love to point to an even greater love, and that is the love Jesus Christ has for his bride, the church.
So, I just want to walk you through and make sure we are all operating with the same understanding of what biblical love looks like. Here at Watermark, if you're just visiting, we take this Word very seriously. We believe God has gone to great lengths to speak to us, so we submit our lives under God's truth. Whatever he says, that's how we will live.
Listen to what the text says. The woman says in verse 6, **"Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm…"** Here's what that means. A seal was an engraved stone or a signet ring that had an image on it. That stone or that ring would be pressed in wax and then put on something as a way to mark it as a possession. It was to indicate ownership.
So, think of what she's saying. She's saying, "Set me as a seal upon your heart and your arm." This is her way of saying, "Look. Let's let our love only be for one another. I am viewing you as mine, and I am yours. We belong only to each other." If you think about it, your heart is internal, your arm is external. She's saying, "May we belong only to each other. May we have each other's hearts, and may it be evident to the world."
Now, even though this was written in the ancient Near East and we are a long way away from that, we have similar customs in our culture. We have a sealing ceremony. It's called a _wedding_. I just want you to think about it. I've performed a lot of weddings over the years. Do you know how the most common wedding vows begin? The husband goes first, and he says, "I \[so-and-so\] take you \[so-and-so\] to be my wife," and then the wife says, "And I \[so-and-so\] take you \[so-and-so\] to be my husband."
Do you know what that is? That is setting your seal on each other's hearts. You're saying, "Look. From this day forward, you belong to me, and I belong to you." Then, right after the exchange of vows, you turn and face one another, and the officiant says, "And if you'll take this ring and place it on her left hand and in doing so repeat after me." Then you take that ring and put it on her finger, and then she takes it and puts it on _your_ fat finger.
When you do that, do you know what happens? That seal upon the heart through the vow is now coupled with a seal upon the hand. You have a seal upon the heart. It's a seal upon the hand. So, if you're married and are wearing your wedding ring, just look at that wedding ring really quickly. That's a seal. You have been sealed. That is an indication of possession, ownership. You belong to someone else. You are not yours.
When you exchanged vows, when you exchanged rings, what you were communicating was "I belong to you and only you, and now you belong to me and only me for the rest of our lives." Now, here's the thing. Vows are really easy to say and really difficult to live out. Another way of saying that is it's really easy to have an amazing wedding, and it takes a lot of work to have an amazing marriage that represents what happened at the wedding. So, the question I want to answer with the rest of the text is…_What kind of love must support the seals you have placed on each other's hearts and hands?_
1\. _Love must be irreversible_. Look at what she goes on to say. The reason she wants the seals… She says, **"…for love is strong as death…"** It was a common practice in the ancient world to compare feelings to death to convey the intensity of the feeling. If you think about death, death is final. No one dies and changes their mind. No one dies and is like, "Nah, I should have picked a different way. Let's run it back." That's not an option. That's not a thing. Death, at least from this physical life, is final. It's irreversible.
So, that's what she's communicating. Love is as strong as death. Love is a commitment that is never to be reversed. Let's go back to the most commonly used vows in a wedding. What do people say? This might be what _you_ said. You say, "I \[so-and-so\] take you \[so-and-so\] to be my \[so-and-so\], to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part."
Just think about what that's communicating. We just view that as a ceremony. It's just a routine. Every wedding needs it. You're like, "Eh, I don't know. Just the most common one. Yeah, we'll do _that_ one." People don't really think about it, but it's like, what you're about to say, you're about to say in front of God. God is like, "Okay. Yeah, I'm listening. What are you committing to do? Okay, great. For richer or poorer? Okay. Sickness and in health? Great. For better or for worse? Good to know. 'Until death do us part.' Great. Got it."
So, I'm clear and God is clear…you say it in front of people, and they're like "I'm clear"…that this is a commitment where you are establishing on day one, "In the highest points, the lowest points, and everything in between, I'm guaranteeing you my love until death. My love is a commitment. It is irreversible."
See, we have to understand. If you look back in Genesis 2:24, it says, "For a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." That's marriage: two becoming one flesh. It's like a broken bone that's in two pieces that then fuses back together into one. It's not supposed to become two again.
If a bone that was in two pieces gets fused back into one and it becomes two again, you would say, "That's a problem." There's pain associated with it becoming two because that's the wrong direction. That's God's vision, that two would become one. Jesus says, "What God has joined together let not man separate." The thought is the only one to separate two becoming one is God at death when the husband and wife are no longer physically together.
But here's the reality. Those vows can be easy to say and hard to live out in marriage. Why will they be hard to live out in marriage? Because there are going to be times where it would just be easier to not be married. There are going to be times in your marriage where it would be so much easier to not be married. That's a reality. It would be so much easier.
In those moments where marriage is tougher than you ever dreamed it would be, you might even begin to rationalize, and you might even begin to tell yourself, "You know what? I think we can actually honor God better if we're separate, because I don't think we're honoring God in the way that we're together. So, I think God will actually be most glorified if we split up and do this thing separately."
But here's what you have to realize. We most reflect Christ in marriage when we choose to love our spouse during their most unlovable moments. I mean, think about the gospel. Kyle Thompson just read this earlier. Romans 5:8: **"…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners…"** That's at the height of being unlovable. **"…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."**
See, our love is to point to a greater love. That greater love is a love that is as strong as death. We know that because a savior went to the cross, and on that cross he made payment for sinners, for enemies. Why? To secure intimacy for eternity. We are most like Jesus and most reflect Christ in our marriage when we choose to love our spouse during their most unlovable moments.
Now, when I say that, that can cause some fear in some people, so I want to be really clear. What I am not saying right now is to tolerate abuse. Please hear me. This is for a few people in the room. If you or your kids are not safe, it is crucial that you and your kids get to safety immediately. We, as a church, feel a responsibility. We want to help you get safe today, and we want to play a part in confronting the abuser. But right now, I am speaking to the majority of marriages where marriage is just harder than you want it to be. That's what I'm speaking to right now.
See, in the hardest moments of marriage, you have to remember something very important: God didn't bring you and your spouse together in marriage first and foremost for your happiness. I'm going to say some things right now that you don't want to hear. When marriage is at its toughest moment, this is going to be the hardest thing to hear and to believe, but you have to remember why God brought the two of you together.
He didn't bring you together first and foremost for your happiness. He didn't bring you together first and foremost for companionship so that you would always have plans and someone to do stuff with. Ultimately, God brought you together, first and foremost, to be on mission and to display his love to the rest of the world. That is why God brought you together. It's to show Christ to each other, and in doing so, you show Christ to the world.
So, let me just say this. What does it take for you to love your spouse at the most unlovable moment? Well, here's what I'll tell you. It's so hard to understand this before you get married when it's just all blissful love, when it's all the feels. What you and I have to understand is we will have to die in order to love our spouse until death. Do you understand what I'm saying? You'll have to die. You'll have to die to yourself in order to love your spouse until death. You can't keep your life and keep your marriage. Let me explain it this way.
For Kat and me, our first year of marriage was easy. Our honeymoon period was longer than most people's. The first year, we were like, "Look. If this is as tough as it gets, we can start doing people's marriage counseling tomorrow. We get it." But then year two came, and year two was harder. We began to fight more. Do you know what some of our biggest fights were about? This is going to feel like such a small thing, but our conflict was big.
Our biggest fights were about where we were going to spend the holidays. The reason those fights would drag out was because I would say, "Well, this is what my family does," and Kat would say, "Well, this is what my family does." What's the problem with that? The problem is Genesis 2 says a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. What does that mean? My immediate family became my extended family, and Kat and I started a new family.
So, _my_ had to die. _Our_ had to be born. That's just a small microcosm of marriage. _My_ has to die. It's no longer _my_ money. The other day, we were checking out, and one of my boys was like, "You're spending Mom's money." I was like, "Hey, man, don't you ever say…" No. I just said, "Hey, man, what's mine is hers, and what's hers is mine." It's not my money. It's not her money. It's our money.
It's no longer _my_ weekend to do what I want. It's no longer _my_ vacation time. It's no longer _my_ dreams or _my_ career. It's no longer _my_ apartment or _my_ house. It's no longer _my_ church. It's no longer _my_ happiness. Everything is _ours_, and you will have to die to yourself in order to love until death. In order to show Christ to one another, you will have to die to yourself.
So, let me just say this. If you always have to get your way in marriage, you are probably a very difficult person to be married to, because you refuse to die to yourself. Before I move on, let me just say this. I think it's a good question to ask yourself. What _are_ you willing to die for right now? Are you working like you're willing to die for your job? People might look and say, "I think you're killing yourself by the amount that you're working."
Would you die for your physical health? Some of you almost died doing the Murph last Monday, but you're like, "It was so good." Then you get home, and you don't want to do anything for your spouse. You'll kill yourself for a workout. You'll kill yourself to make sure it's all natural ingredients, so you're going to spend two hours… But when it comes to marriage… "I don't have time for that."
You're killing yourself for a hobby, running up a bill, chasing some hobby that you honestly can't afford. Here's the thing. Maybe that's why it's so hard to love your spouse to death: you're already dying for something else. Love must be irreversible, as strong as death. You made a commitment.
2\. _Love must be exclusive_. She says, **"…for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave."** _Jealousy_ here is not talking about feelings of envy. _Jealousy_ here is referring to an intense, protective, and exclusive passion. If you think about it, it says, "Jealousy is fierce as the grave." The grave doesn't share with anyone. When a body is put in the grave, only the grave enjoys it. The grave doesn't share. That's what _jealousy_ means here. It's passionately protective and exclusive.
The Bible describes God as a jealous God, and people have major problems with that, because they think God sometimes becomes like an immature, insecure teenager. That's not what it's talking about. For God to be jealous, it means God knows who _he_ is and he knows who _we_ are. Who is God? He is God alone, which means he is the only one worthy of worship. Who are we? We are worshipers. God refuses to share what only belongs to him with anyone or anything else.
Worship is what belongs to God. He refuses to share what is only rightfully his. Marriage is the same way. Your love only rightfully belongs to your spouse, and your spouse's love only rightfully belongs to you. If you think about it, Jesus didn't come, live, die for the sins of the world, and rise from the dead so we could spread our love out. He did it to secure a jealous love, an exclusive love between you and your Maker. The same must be true in marriage. It's an exclusive love.
So, let me just jump straight to it. What does it look like, then, to share your love outside of the marriage? Well, there are obvious ways. There are the things that are naturally going to come to mind. You are sharing your love outside of the marriage by looking at pornography or hiring a prostitute or going to a strip club or having an affair because you don't feel your spouse is meeting your needs. That is opening your marriage up. That is taking your love outside of the marriage. It is sharing your love.
It can also look like experimenting with a polyamorous or an open marriage, where you and your spouse actually are in agreement together to decide to invite more sex partners into your marriage, but it can be more subtle. It can also look like emotionally connecting with someone at work because you feel something with them you haven't felt with your spouse in a while.
Even more subtle than that, it can look like scrolling on Instagram or Facebook and fantasizing about being married to someone else. Most subtle of all, it's pouring yourself so much into work that if you were honest, you would rather be working than be with your spouse. I want to speak as clearly as possible right now. There are zero valid or God-glorifying reasons to share your love outside of the marriage. _Zero_. There are zero God-glorifying reasons or excuses to share your love outside of your marriage.
You might sit there and try to make an excuse about your spouse. "Well, if he just did this more…" or "You know what? He just doesn't do this for me." Because of that, you feel like you have some freedom to go find someone who _will_ do those things for you. In the end, if I just described you in any way, let me be as blunt as possible. You are living in sin. God is not okay with what you are doing. God will never excuse unholiness for the sake of your happiness. _Never_. So, if that's you, I hope you have heard me clearly. Your best next step is to repent.
To play this game of, "You know what? I'm going to do this, and I know God doesn't like it, but I know in the end he'll just forgive me…" Do you know how little of an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is you are demonstrating? He's not just Savior; he's King. When you say that, you're saying, "Jesus, I'll be king today. I'll get back to you some other time, but thank you for that forgiveness. I'm grateful you're my Savior; I'm just not okay with you being King right now. I'll take it from here."
Let me just say this to all married couples here. Maybe I didn't describe you in any of those things, but we have to remember that we have an enemy, Satan, who hates our marriages. We have a real enemy. Don't make the Enemy out to be nothing. We have an enemy who hates our marriages, so we have to vigilantly guard and protect our marriages. Let me explain it this way.
Every single night, I have a routine where I walk around and check the locks on all three doors that lead to the exterior of our house. Sometimes I do it more than once. There's some OCD creeping in. I check all three doors, and Kat knows that's my responsibility. There are times where I'll be in bed, and I'm like, "Did I lock the front door?" She'll be like, "I don't know. That's your job." I'm like, "Okay." No, she doesn't say that, but anyway, I will get up and go check it, because that's my responsibility. I'll check it every night, every single night.
I remember a friend telling me that growing up… She lived in a neighborhood that many people from this church live in. She said, "We never locked our front door. Never. Even when we would leave on vacation, we never locked the front door." I remember hearing that and being like, "You're crazy!"
I don't know if they ever got robbed, but here's what I _do_ know. We have an enemy who is consistently walking around the perimeter of our marriage just checking the doors to see if there is anything unlocked. Front door not open? Okay, that's fine. You've got a side door. You've got a back door. He's going to check the locks. So, let me encourage you in your marriage. Be careful what you normalize.
Be careful not to normalize comparison, where you look at your spouse and look at other people's spouses. I've heard people put it this way. Other pastors will say, "Don't compare your spouse's behind-the-scenes footage to someone else's highlight reel." You have to be really careful with that. When you compare your spouse to someone else, you're comparing the worst of your spouse to the best of someone else's spouse. You don't see behind their closed doors. Your spouse will always lose. Don't normalize that.
Be careful with how much you're using your phone. Kat and I have this joke. If one of us is too sucked into our phone or too distracted, one of us will look at the other and be like, "Man, I sure wish I was your phone." Like, "I wish you would hold me like you hold your…" No. We joke about that, but it brings up a good point. Be careful with your phone.
Let me just speak to a few things about this. First, beware of your phone cultivating discontentment with your spouse. Secondly, beware of your phone replacing your spouse. I'm just going to make an observation. Take it for what it's worth. The bed is meant for sleep and physical intimacy with your spouse. Those are the two primary functions of the bed.
Your kids might jump on it, but the primary purpose is sleep, and then that's the place for physical intimacy. I'm not just talking about sex; I'm talking about affection in general. When you let your phone into your bed, don't be surprised if your sleep and intimacy with your spouse take a hit. Why? Because your phone is replacing your spouse.
Then, I just want to share this with you. I was with a group of pastors, and a pastor sent this article to all of us just because of the number of pastors who are falling out of ministry due to moral failure in marriage. It was a _New York Times_ article, and it was written by a woman who had both cheated on her spouse and also experienced a spouse cheating on her. What she says… I have thought about this for years, and I want to share it with you, because if there's any reason to let your love be exclusive, this is it. Listen to what she says.
"I look at my parents and at how much simpler their lives are at the age of 75, mostly because they haven't marred the landscape with grand-scale deceit. They have this marriage of 50-some years behind them, and it is a monument to success. A few weeks or months of illicit passion could not hold a candle to it.
If you imagine yourself in such a situation, where would you fit an affair in neatly? If you were 75, which would you rather have: years of steady if occasionally strained devotion, or something that looks a little bit like the Iraqi city of Fallujah, cratered with spent artillery? From where I stand now, it all just looks like a cheap hotel room, whether you're in that room to have an affair or to escape from the discovery of one. And despite the sex and the excitement, or the drama and the fix of everyone's empathetic attention, there is no view from this room that is worth having."
I share that with you. Some of you know what that wreckage is like. Some of you guys are considering cheating because you think it'll be better, and others of you are in a place where you're like, "That'll never be me," yet you need to hear this: love must be exclusive. To my single friends in the room, this is why you need to deal with pornography now. This is why you need to deal with a flirtatious personality now. This is why you should deal with a need for approval from people of the opposite sex now. And if you have a habit of cheating in dating relationships, don't expect marriage to fix that.
3\. _Love must be unquenchable_. He says, **"Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."** Do you get the picture? What a picture. Imagine turning on the news or getting on social media and seeing reels of major, massive flooding, where floods are rolling through the streets destroying things, but then right there, a news camera picks up a fire pit, and there's water flooding over the fire pit, but you see this flame that is still aglow even in the midst of the floods. He's saying that's biblical love.
Do you know why that would catch your attention? It would catch your attention because it isn't normal. A love that is unquenchable is abnormal in our world. But here's the reality: floods in marriage will come. They _will_ come. Floods in marriage will absolutely come. Financial tensions will come. Conflict in parenting will come. Unexpected health issues will come. Tragedies will come. The floods will come.
That was 2019 for Kat and me. The floods came in our marriage, and we found ourselves in a place where we were consistently disconnected. Our marriage felt consistently strained, and bitterness was growing in both of us toward one another. The floods came. Yet what did we do? We chose to fight. We called some friends. We invited friends in to counsel us with what we were wrestling through. We ended up going to see a professional marriage counselor, and we spent weeks with her just processing some of the things going on in our marriage.
The reason our marriage is still intact today, and the reason we're in a good place today is, first, we were clear that love must be unquenchable, but honestly, do you know what it is? It's the fact that the Spirit of the living God lives inside of both of us. If you were to go and read the Scriptures, do you know what you would see? We're talking about fires. The Spirit is related to fire, and the Spirit lives inside of us.
So, it's not just Kat and me tending the fires on our own. It's like a fire that we must work on, yet there is a perpetual propane tank attached that is constantly breathing new fuel into the marriage. It's the Spirit of the living God. That is the greatest benefit of knowing Christ Jesus. The God of the universe comes to live inside of you so you don't have to ever do one day of marriage on your own. Love must be unquenchable.
4\. _Love_ _must be unconditional._ It says, **"If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised."** He's saying biblical love can't be bought; therefore, it can't be sold. It can't be earned; therefore, it can't be lost. You don't _give_ love for what you _get_, and you don't _get_ love for what you _give_. Biblical love is freely given and freely received. It is unconditional.
That's what God has modeled for us. Aren't you glad that God's love for you is unconditional? Aren't you glad Romans 8:38 is true? **"…that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."** That's what we've experienced; therefore, that should be what we express.
If God's love for us isn't like a gas tank, where sometimes it's full and sometimes it's empty, then it shouldn't be that way in our marriages. If there's nothing we can do to make God love us more, and if there's nothing we can do to make God love us less, it should be the same in our marriages. That's unconditional love.
I remember Kat saying about her parents, "My parents have quirks that should drive the other crazy, but they don't seem to care." That's unconditional love. It can't be bought, can't be sold, can't be earned, can't be lost. It's freely given, freely received. Are you making your spouse earn your love? Are you stingy with your love? If so, just remember that's not what you promised them on your wedding day. Do you want to experience joy today no matter how hard your marriage is? Choose to give your love to your spouse freely. That's when you will be most like Jesus.
So, quickly, what do we do with this? I'll give you several points of application, and you just listen and figure out which one is for you. If you're single, it's possible to think you have found love, but you've actually found something else disguised as love. Let me encourage you. Make sure you haven't just found infatuation or lust disguised as love. I encourage you to go through Merge.
Whether you're married, separated, or divorced, my encouragement to you is to seek forgiveness for the ways you have failed to love your spouse with a biblical love. All you're responsible for is keeping your side of the street clean. If you've given up on your marriage or you're preparing for divorce, let me beg you to choose to fight for your marriage another day. Choose to love.
Song of Solomon uses fire as part of the illustration. Think about it. Fires must be cultivated. Let me give you some practical things to do. Take walks together. Kat and I have started walking together sometimes at night. Do you know what it does? It gives us a chance to make sure we're all caught up and to pray together.
Make it a goal to pray in some way every day. It could just be a short 10-second prayer, but seek to pray in some way every day. Know your spouse's love language and speak it. Sync up about physical intimacy. If you feel like y'all are disconnected, have a kind and patient conversation about it. Get away together. It doesn't have to be big and extravagant, but get time away together.
I'd encourage you to sit this week and ask God this question: "God, what do you think about my spouse?" and just see what God has to say. One of the things I did recently is I just shared with Kat what I think her superpower is. I think God has given everyone superpowers. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. I just told Kat, "This is your superpower." Identifying her superpower made my love for her that much more real, and it brought me joy, like, "Man! I can't believe I get to be married to someone with _this_ superpower."
Next, accept their weaknesses. If you think your spouse has to operate just like you do and that's the best way to operate, they might never get there. One of the best things you can do is stop expecting them to become strong where you're strong. Maybe that's why God put you together. We did this just a few weeks ago. Ask ChatGPT for a list of 100 date night questions. Chatty did a great job for us. Go on a date. Invite community into your marriage to speak into it. Be willing to go to counseling if needed. Don't wait too long to go.
Whether your marriage just needs a tune-up or a complete overhaul, I'd encourage you to check out re|engage. Finally, let me just say maybe God brought you here today not so you could hear about marriage to another person, but God is inviting you into a marriage with him. You just need to know there is an irreversible, exclusive, unquenchable, unconditional love waiting for you in the person of Jesus Christ.
Christianity is not signing up to be in church every Sunday; Christianity is about coming to understand that you have been made to be known by and loved by Jesus Christ. That's why he came, that's why he lived, that's why he died, and that's why he rose from the dead: so you could spend eternity in intimacy with him. And he wants you. Would you come to him today? Would you put your trust in him today? Let's pray.
Lord, as I said at the beginning, it's impossible for me to speak to every experience in marriage in this room, and I would imagine some people so badly want to come up and tell me, "But you don't know my story." My answer is "You're right; I don't," but, God, you know. So, God, I do pray for healing where it's needed. I pray for hope where it's needed, God.
Lord, more than anything, we are thankful for the love that you, Jesus, have for your bride, the church, and I pray, God, that our marriages would flourish, not because they're easy, but because we have been loved by you, we can love one another as you have loved us. So, would you help us to do that? In Jesus' name, amen.