Marriage

This weekend we talked about a very difficult topic. It’s one that pretty much all of us have deep-seated opinions about. But we usually keep those opinions to ourselves.

Let me just share with you the proverb that I preached from this weekend. I think this will explain it.

Proverbs 6:27-29 

²⁷ Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? ²⁸ Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? ²⁹ So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.

This passage was written from the perspective of a father to his son. But it’s true for mothers and daughters as well. It’s something that every single person and married couple need to come to grips with. Sexual faithfulness.

At least, that’s the application here. Sleeping around is like shoveling hot coals in your lap. That’s not a picture that you’ll soon forget. And when you see someone in danger – especially your child – you will do anything to stop them, right?

Although sexual faithfulness is the application, there is more underneath it all. There is more to being faithful to your spouse than just not sleeping with someone else. Although it may seem like affairs are rampant everywhere, there’s more to faithfulness than just staying true in the bedroom.

How else do we stray from the covenant we made with our spouse? Well, we can cheat on them with our jobs, our hobbies, even other family members. When we put any of those things or those people ahead of our relationship with our spouse, we are being unfaithful.

Most counseling articles you read on faithfulness in marriage are about sexual purity. And though that’s important, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. To ignore the other issues is just as dangerous.

But another thing we tend to ignore is the reason and motive behind our faithfulness. Sexual cheating can lead to STDs, unwanted pregnancies, or worse. So there is a prescriptive and protective element to our faithfulness. “Stay true to your spouse or deal with all of these consequences!”

What if we looked at it differently? What if, instead of just putting a negative stamp on unfaithfulness we celebrated the overwhelming joy and positivity of faithfulness? What if we made that the standard of every marriage?

Faithfulness is not a prescription to stay healthy. It is the pattern to remain happy in your marriage. It is really the only way to keep your marriage what it is. As Catherin Wallace points out in her book For Fidelity, without faithfulness you don’t have a marriage, you aren’t a husband or wife. You are something else. An individual.

Marriage is about two becoming one. It’s not one plus one equals two…who happen to share the same bed and same house and maybe the same bank account. It’s two individuals entering into a covenant that binds them together. Without faithfulness, there is now binding. Without a covenant, you have a transaction. You’re doing business. You have a partnership, not a marriage.

Faithfulness it he root of happiness in marriage. It’s not something we grudgingly do because a pastor told us, because it would be dangerous not to, or because we think about the kids. It’s something that is intrinsic to the marriage relationship.

And because it’s so important, it’s something we should practice. Like a musical talent or an athletic ability, you have to keep doing it to get better at it. You may never be perfect at it. In fact, you won’t. But you can always improve. It’s about living out that “US-ness” that defines the marriage covenant. It’s about putting ourselves last and others first in how we live. It’s putting into action ways that we can serve our spouse rather then be served.

Marriage is incredible, but it’s also hard. Sometimes it’s incredibly hard. But it’s always worth it.