Colossians: Marriage Advice from Paul
Pastor Fletcher preaches through the “spicy” verses on marriage from Colossians 3:18-19. Discussion points: Marriage is meant to be fueled by God’s great love for us, Biblical submission is willingly seeking the good of another over oneself, marriage points us forward to when we’ll be fully united with God in heaven.
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Scripture reader: [Colossians 3:18-19] Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Good morning. My name is Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor of the church. Glad to be here and, and be able to preach God's word to you this morning. Last week, if you were with us, you would have noticed that we actually finished our study on the Book of Colossians. We did that part at the very end with all the names and the greetings, and I think Michael did a wonderful job explaining that for us this morning.
Today, though, we, you might see that we're still in Colossians, and there's a reason for that because as, my brother and fellow elder, Mark explained a few weeks, we skipped the spicy parts of Colossians, and so today we get to go back to some of those spicy parts of Colossians and see what the Lord has for us. And so we have 3 more weeks in our series on Colossians because we have 4 verses left. We're doing 2 of those verses today and then next week we're going to take a short detour.
It's actually kind of Colossians. We're gonna call it Colossians. We're gonna do singleness next week. This week is all about marriage. Next week we're going to be talking about singleness and maybe a little bit of dating in there as well. And then the following week, we're going to be talking about parenting. And so we have this little kind of relationships family section, series on our book of Colossians.
And so today, we're just handling these two verses, Colossians chapter 3, verses 19, verses 18 and 19. So, I'm gonna read it one more time. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
I do a lot of premarital counseling. It's something that I, I do as a big part of my job, and I usually am doing kind of two different sessions of premarital counseling all the time. I meet with couples like 5 times and, and we work through some, premarital issues. And so, I just want you to imagine for a moment that. You are able to watch a premarital session that I might have and the new couple, they come in and they've got that puppy dog love in their eyes. They're just so in love with each other, but they're also coming in with all these wounds, you know, relational wounds that they've experienced. They're coming in with this baggage of like what their parents' marriage was like. They're coming in with disagreements that they've had from one with one another. They love one another, but you don't enter into marriage just ready to, to love one another every single day. There's so much work that's involved in marriage.
And so they sit down across from me. I always make the, the new couple sit on the couch because I wanna read their body language as they're, whether they're turned away from one another, turned toward one another, and so I make them sit on the couch while I sit in my big, big green chair on the other side and I just opened up, I turned to my Bible, Colossians chapter 3, and I read our text. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with her. And I say, That's it. You submit, you love her and don't be harsh. I don't think I would get very many premarital counseling referrals from that couple.
And so as I read Colossians and I get to this, and I see this is all Paul has to say to married couples in particular. Now he has a lot of different things to say to all different Christians. We've been encouraged by this entire book. Set your eyes on things above, not on heaven, not on earthly things. There's all kinds of stuff that Paul has to say that's encouraging to each and every one of us, but to married couples, this is all he has to say. And if you're anything like me, you read it and you just say. That's it. Seems a little overly simplistic, my brother.
And yet I do think there's a great amount to be gained from this passage. I think that if we truly digest what the Lord has to say to us in this two verses that we've studied, that our marriages have the potential to be revolutionized. That really there's so much that we can gain here. The big truth of this passage is marriage is so much more than two people who love one another. But that our marriages are meant to reflect and be fueled by God's great love for us. Our marriages are meant to reflect and be fueled by God's great love for us.
And look, I know you're coming in here. You're coming in here with your, your baggage from marriage, from relationships, you're coming in here as if you were coming into my premarital office with the baggage of your past, your broken relationships. Your rough breakups, your separation, divorce, whatever it might be. Not only that, but you're coming in with the baggage of whatever your parents did. My parents got divorced when I was 5 years old. I know that baggage well. The, the examples that were set before you in your home as you're growing up, not all of us have wonderful preconceived notions of what marriage is, and some of us are currently living in marriages that are marked by a lack of intimacy and emotional distance. And if that's you, I just want you to know that you're in good company, that all of us are coming, all of us have baggage, all of us have issues, and marriage is not easy. It's difficult, but there is a great truth to be found.
And there is a great reality to marriage, of what Paul understands marriage to be and how our marriages can thrive. That God does not want these bad examples, bad experiences, emotional distance, lack of intimacy. He does not want these things to define us. He wants to renovate our marriage and our idea of what marriage is, if you aren't married. Your marriage can reflect God's great love for you when your marriage is fueled by God's great love for you.
Today we're gonna be answering a lot of questions. First, like what does Paul think about when he thinks about marriage? Second, we're going to be talking about, I'm not gonna avoid the text, we're gonna be talking about what does it mean when he says wives submit to your own husbands. What does it mean when he says husbands love your wives and don't be harsh with them? Is, are these just antiquated relics of a foregone society, or are they something that's true for us today? And how do we do this?
And so first, let's dive into this. What is in Paul's, and I'm gonna end talking about my own home, OK? So I, I, I take these things personally as well, but let, let's dive in. What is in Paul's mind when he is talking about marriage? Now, in this book, we don't actually have a lot of details from Paul about what he thinks marriage is, but when you go deeper into some of the other letters written by Paul, we find in The book of Ephesians, which is very much a sister letter to Colossians, and Ephesians, in fact, it's just 6 chapters. If you haven't read it, highly suggest you read the the letter to the Ephesians, and he has a whole bigger breakdown on what marriage is all about.
And he gives us this quote, and he says this, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that refers to Christ and the church. And so what Paul is saying is that marriage is like a window into the eternal. That the way that a husband loves his wife and the wife loves his husband is meant to represent this divine attribute of God's love for us. That when you see a marriage as it's meant to be, you see a sliver, a piece of the love of God. It's meant to reflect the love of God. Even when you see a marriage that is broken. The fact that it's broken and you can tell it's broken, reflects the fact that there is an ultimate picture that this is meant to point toward, which is God's love for us, His people.
I've oftentimes said that it, that marriage is like a travel brochure for the place of heaven where we get to enjoy the love of God forever, that you see a piece of it today, but one day you will get to experience the real thing. If we wanna modernize this, this is marriage is like an Instagram influencer. Telling you about a place that you want to go. It's not the same as being there. You, it's just a picture. But it, to actually go to the place one day you look forward to that day. Marriage points us forward to the day that we will be made at one with God and experience full intimacy with the one who loves us, who cares for us. This is the whole idea of what marriage is meant to be. It's a common grace given to all people, as we, all those who, who would be married, and we get to see it observed in every culture.
And so what does it mean when Paul is going through his descriptions of what a healthy marriage looks like, and he starts simply with wives submit to your husbands. What does this word mean? I know that the word submit feels a lot like nails on a chalkboard, doesn't it? Any, any amens in there on that one? maybe not yet, OK? What, what comes to our mind when we think of, of submission is oftentimes the picture of the 1950s housewife who stays at home with her children and her vacuum cleaner and does all of the work necessary there.
And lest we think that this is a really antiquated idea, I stumbled across something that was somewhat new to me recently. And it's the trad-wife trend. Anybody familiar with this? If you're not familiar, this is not part of my algorithm, OK? So I had to go and, and look this up. I know it's snuck into a few of your algorithms though. If, if you're not familiar with it, I, I had to look it up. It says this trad-wives or traditional wives as they might be called, trad-wives often depict themselves as stay at home moms of numerous children, and I just wanna add, and chicken. Dedicated to homeschooling, homemaking, and self-sufficiency. They raise their chickens, plant gardens, can their homegrown fruits and vegetables, grow their own sourdough, cook and bake everything from scratch, make their household cleaning products, and maintain an immaculate home.
And so, is this what Paul has in mind? When he is speaking to wives in this passage. I hope not. Because I don't have one of these. There's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. my wife did stay home for the little years of our first two children. but I don't think the scripture requires that. You see a lot of examples in scripture of women who are actually independently wealthy. You see examples of women who work in the workplace, and in fact, the highest example that we have of women in the scripture, Proverbs 31, is a woman who goes out and she's working, she's selling stuff, and she's not just doing an MLM exercise. She's doing all kinds of stuff. She's got her business going.
At the same time, I'm not willing to throw away this idea of submission. Because it's not merely a relic of the culture of the time, but it says submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. It's not as is fitting in the culture, but it's as is fitting in the Lord. This means that it's not merely cultural idea, it's a godly idea. It models the way that we're called to love Jesus. But let's emphasize who we're submitting to first before I go into what that looks like. You're submitting to your own husband.
I went to a very conservative seminary. And one of my seminary professors wrote a very provocative blog one time, and it was just titled Husband or it was titled, Women Stop Submitting to Men. And it caused a big kerfuffle, and I love that it caused a kerfluffle because people were upset about this, but his point was exactly right, that the scripture never tells women to submit to men. The the scripture says wives submit to your very own husbands. And so as a woman, that idea of submission to every man should not be what we think of when we think about submission.
When we think about the word submit, we have to recognize that it has been greatly abused throughout generations. That men have used the word submit throughout scripture. For their own selfish purposes to get their way in fights when they really should be caring for and sacrificing for their wives. Submission is not about inferiority. In fact, it's something that is expected of every single Christian. I'm always shocked when people quote the Ephesians 5 version of this verse, and they they emphasize wives submit to your husbands, but they don't read the verse right before that because in Ephesians 5, that's 5:22 where it talks about wives submitting to husbands, and 5:21, it says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. That's not somewhere else completely in the Bible, that's the verse before the one talking about wives submitting to their husbands.
We're all called to this idea of submission. It's not a bad word. We're called to submit ourselves to the Lord and to one another. It is one of the ways that we become Christ-like. As Christ submitted to the Father, we submit to one another. Theologian John Frame, he puts it like this, just in case you I think I'm making this stuff up. This is one of the most respected theologians in the world. He says, subordination and the sense of serving others in love is clearly a divine attribute, and one that serves an explicit model for our behavior. Such service does not compromise the full deity of sun and spirit, it manifests their deity.
And so, friends, submission is not a blind obedience. It is not staying in an abusive marriage. Biblical submission is the willing use of your strength, gifts, and freedom to seek the good of another rather than insisting on your own way. One more time. Biblical submission is the willing use of your strength, gifts, and freedom to seek the good of another rather than insisting on your own way.
Another thing that I'm shocked whenever we talk about these passages, another thing that shocks me is how often we quote these verses about submission and we forget everything after that. Because every time Paul tells women or wives, excuse me, wives to submit to their very own husbands, he has way more to say to the husbands. He has more to say to them about how they're to love their wives. And so here we have, it's double the length, but it's still just one verse. He says this, husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Now Paul's speaking into a culture where love is not necessarily expected for marriage. this is an ancient culture and so he, he's thinking about marriage, and the culture that he's speaking into. Marriage is usually understood in terms of family, status, property, producing heirs. Paul Veyne, a French historian and expert in Roman culture, he said love and marriage was a stroke of good fortune. It was not the basis of the institution. And so when Paul tells husbands to love their wives, what he's encouraging them to do is something that is counter-cultural. He's not just telling them, go along with the culture, he's telling them, actually, you need to love your wives and, and serve them. You need to be sacrificing your preferences for her preferences. He's flipping cultural norms right here.
And what does it mean to love your wife? But it means that you lay down your life for your wife, that it means that you care about her preferences and her opinions. It means that you die to yourself daily, that you're willing to take on the difficult tasks, that you make personal sacrifices for her good. Jesus never used his position for selfish purposes. And husbands are never called to use their position for selfish purposes, but they are to go like Christ and say, not my will be done, but yours be done in heaven. And it says, do not be harsh with her.
Now there's two temptations that face husbands, and they're both an an outworking of harshness. And the 11 of them is passivity. And the other one is dominance. Husbands are tempted to fall into one of these two categories in their leadership. Instead of strongly leading their families as Christ loved the church, and instead of laying down their lives for the good of their bride, they are tempted toward passivity or dominance. With passivity, you see a refusal to do the hard work to love and sacrifice. You let her do all the work. It's it's harshness by neglect.
On the other hand, on the other hand, you have domination, which is trying to control another person. This can be loud through anger, volume, or size, but it can also be quiet. Men can emotionally manipulate their wives to be in their place. And it's all a a repudiation of what Jesus and what the Bible, what Paul is teaching that prayer that that marriage is all about. Husbands You're called to love your wives as Christ loved the church. What is your view of the way that Christ is loved his bride?
And I, I think that this actually is the crux of the issue, that many of us have this view of the love of God that is harsh. That we view God as a record keeper and not a grace giver. That we view God as someone who is waiting for us to mess up so that we can get in trouble, and not as someone who reaches out and pursues and loves and adores us as his own children, as his own bride. And when this is your idea of who God is and His love, that he is record keeper, not grace giver. Your marriage is going to be marked by record keeping and not grace-giving. Your marriage is gonna be marked by harshness, hardness, and not gentle and kindness that we know that that is who God is. You need to be reintroduced to who God is. If you want to be a good husband, you need to be reintroduced to our good God. Our marriages are meant to reflect the love of God, as they are fueled by the love of God.
If you're having marriage problems in your marriage, go back to God. Return to him over and over again. If you've experienced the relentless pursuit of your savior, you can have energy to pursue with the same kind of love.
If you've been at the church for any amount of time, you know that I have a patron saint, a personal patron saint, by the name of Tim Keller, who gets quoted quite often, and Tim and his wife Kathy, Tim is, is now with the Lord, and, he, he died a few years ago. He was a pastor in New York City for, for many decades, and him, him and his wife, Kathy, they wrote a book called Meaning of Marriage, and At the end of the book, OK, so the whole book is wonderful. #1 book recommended on marriage, but at the end of the book, he has an appendix, she has an appendix. Kathy wrote this section where she lists 5 principles for submission. And I read the appendix 16 times, and I swear to you, she only has 4 principles for submission.
So, Kathy Keller's 4 principles of submission and authority. And I just wanna present them cause I just think they're really helpful for us. The husband's authority, like the son's over us, is never used to please himself, but only serve the interests of his wife. Headship and submission does not mean that the husband simply gets to make all the decisions or gets his way in every disagreement. Why? Because Jesus never did that. He never did anything to please himself. He sacrificed his wants and needs to build up those he loves, and that is the purpose of what marriage is to look like.
Second, a wife is never to be merely compliant, but is to use her resources to empower. This is the idea that husbands and wives need to hear one another out. That you don't just have an argument and then you go with his opinion on the situation, that wives, you were to bring every gift and resource that you have in your marriage and your discussions. This is not gonna be a shocker to anyone who knows us well, but my my wife and I, we disagree about things from time to time. and sometimes she's right. She's like, that's news to me. I didn't know that. Sometimes she is, and I need her to be right. I, I need to have discussions. I need to hear someone say, hey, you're wrong sometimes. And I need my wife to do that. As a person who knows me the best, as my best friend, I need her to be able to express her opinion.
Third, a wife is not to give her husband unconditional obedience. This feels like common sense, but it needs to be said that your ultimate allegiance is to Christ, not to your husband. And so, if your husband, as Kathy said, is doing something that is wrong to Christ, as, as she quoted, like selling drugs or abusing you, then. You do not support him in those things. It is never loving to support someone as they sin. That is never a loving thing to do.
Assuming the role of headship, fourth, assuming the role of headship is only done for purposes of ministering to your wife and family. I think this one's the most important. Men, you should never use your position to lead your wife selfishly. Because you were called to lead your wife selflessly. If it's about preference, you choose to lose. If it's about preference, you choose to lose. When it comes down to what we watch on TV. You might choose to both be laying down your, your preferences for one another. You have this big argument like, oh no, I want to watch what you want to watch, and you want, and then eventually you might have to just make a decision, but it's, it's about preference you choose to lose, color of the car, what you watch on TV, these things, they just don't matter. We make a bigger deal than they need to about these things.
You should both make the goal to lay down your preferences for one another, like Christ, not my will be done, but yours, oh God, that is love. Men, your wives should never feel like they're kicking and screaming as you are making a decision that leads them, leads you in a direction. That you, that they don't wanna go. You need to lead them, and you don't just lead by saying this is what we're doing. You care for the person. You lay you, if, if your wife can see that you are laying down your preferences for the good of the family. She will follow you. Because it's not a selfish kind of love, it's a selfless kind of love.
In our marriage, what does this look like? my wife is, my very best friend. I love my wife very much. I'm gonna be very honest that I have a great marriage. Very thankful for that. that's not the case. It shouldn't be a given. my parents, as, as I mentioned earlier, my parents got divorced when I was 5. I never saw a good example of a husband in the home. I don't have many good examples to run with. And so I am the man that I am because of the grace of God. And, because I got into a church when I was early, young, and I did see some men who loved their wives and I'm thankful for that, but it's mainly been just the Lord working on my heart and in my life.
And in our marriage, there's a few things that are really important to emphasize is that my wife has a life and that life is just as important as mine. That my wife has a career, and I view her career as just as important as mine. And not because I'm the man and she's the wife with my career, but I'm a pastor. I still view her career as just as important as mine. I don't make preferences for myself in that. Her thriving is more important to me than my role as a pastor. My wife's thriving is more important to me than my role as a pastor.
And in fact, there have been some days, when we were in the throes of early kids, when our kids were real little, Megan was struggling with like postpartum anxiety and depression, and I, at one point, we were, we were traveling. I was starting my doctoral seminars, and I was in the seminar, and I came home one day and it was just like. You can't do this. Like it was really clear as day from her and from the Lord that like I just shouldn't be doing this. It's not a good way to love my wife, that she needed more of me at that time. And so I had to go to the school and be like, look, I just gotta defer everything. I'm, I, I can't do this right now. And, the professors were very gracious, but yeah, I have to make home my, my priority. And at that time, like I had to put everything on the table. It was like. OK, maybe I just need to like find a different type of job so that I can be around more often and support her more because her thriving as my wife is more important than my calling to pastoring. Her thriving as my wife is my number one earthly responsibility and goal.
Megan is not inferior to me in any way. In many ways she's stronger than I am, she's smarter than I am. And my goal should and can never be to keep her in her place. I want my wife to flourish. I want her to, to make decisions and guide our family. I, I, I have to make decisions and guide our family so that she can flourish, but I'm still called to sacrificially love and lead her. And so it looks like there's big decisions, like I said earlier, but also just like small ones.
Historically, my wife and I have been married for almost 16 years now, and historically we've been very bad about like praying together, honestly, and I'm a pastor, OK, I'm confessing that. We've been really bad about praying together and reading our Bible together, and I'm not looking at that as a 50/50, like that's part of her problem, part of my problem, like, that's on me. Like I need to own that. And one thing I've recently done to try to change that is I just put a Bible on my nightstand right by the bed, so that in the evenings when we're going to bed, I can just pick up the Bible, read a paragraph, and pray with her. Like that's that's one of the ways that I have to say, you know what, I need to take responsibility in this.
I need to love my wife, not be harsh with her, not be judgmental. When we think about that harshness, it's like this judgmental attitude that we have towards her. I need to be as Christ is to us. Sometimes we're both at an impasse for a decision, and it's in those moments where I'm called to seek the Lord and make the decision that neither of us want to make. And this should always feel like a service to Megan, not a chore.
Well, as I share all this, many of us need to really take some time to consider the way that we're viewing marriage. Do you see your marriage as primarily a way to fulfill and satisfy yourself? Or do you see the potential of marriage as a primarily a way to complete yourself, to satisfy yourself, to fulfill yourself? Or are you viewing marriage as a way to get what you want? Do you see your marriage as an opportunity to enjoy the love of God more? Does your marriage reflect the way Jesus and the church love one another?
I think that some of us, honestly, we're coming in with all these wounds, and we need to just go to the Lord with the wounds. Some of us really need to consider, and if you never have, I'm just gonna encourage you, consider how the marriages that you observed in your childhood have affected the way that you are in your relationships with others. If you're not married, this is the best time to do that, to get yourself prepared if you do seek to be married one day. And next week we're talking about singleness, and I think there's a calling to singleness for some people and not, not trying to say that marriage is, is an ideal in that way, but.
When I think about this, as I mentioned, my parents got divorced when I was 5. My dad, he was passive, he was selfish, he struggled with addiction. He would take our grocery money and go to the back of the gas station to put it into the slot machine that was illegally placed in the back of the gas station. Every once in a while, my mom would take me to the gas station and go pull him out of the gas station casino that's there illegally, and, but more than that, I think that my father, he struggled with feeling loved. I don't think that he ever felt truly loved by others, and he always had that deep insecurity deep within him. And so it prevented him from loving and pursuing his wife and his family.
And I have to say that I feel that deep insecurity from time to time. And that I have to go again and again to the well of the love of God for me, so that I can be reminded of the way that I'm cherished and valued, so that I can pursue my wife, my family. I never saw a healthy marriage modeled in my home. But the Lord is enough. I may not have seen a husband who laid down his life, but I have a savior who's laid down his life for me. And you may not have experienced a love that never gives up, but in Christ you have. Your marriage can reflect the great love of God for you when it is fueled by the great love of God for you.
And so church, as we sit with these words, as we ponder what they mean, and you know, I, I've had just 30 minutes or so to explain them and and that's nowhere near enough to, to really get into all the weeds, and I'd be happy to answer questions after the service and, and talk more about this, but, as we consider. What the Lord is calling us to this morning, how we're called to love, how we're called to sacrifice. I want us to go to God, and I'm gonna lead us in a time of confession and assurance from God, time where we can reflect. And so if you would, before we go to the table, let's take a time where we can talk before God and lay ourselves before him. Would you bow your heads with me?
Whether you're married, single, divorced, widowed, or hoping to marry be married one day, we all have things that we can come to God with this morning. Father, I pray that you would meet each of us. That you would fill up what we're lacking, that you would help us to see your grace and your kindness, that the love of God would change the way that we love others, that our love would reflect the love of God and the way that we lay down our lives for the good of the other. I have a, I have a confession on the screen. I invite you to pray with me, the underlying portions, you speak along with me.
Merciful God, we confess that we have often made marriage and relationships about what we can get rather than what we can give. We've been selfish when you called us to sacrifice. We have been demanding when you've called us to serve. We've been passive when you called us to love. We've been controlling when you called us to trust. We've used silence, anger, manipulation, or withdrawal to get our way.
Forgive us for the ways we have failed to love our spouses, our families, and one another as Christ has loved us. Forgive us for looking to another person to give us what only you can give. Where we have sinned, meet us with your mercy and repentance. Where we've been sinned against, meet us with your compassion and healing. Teach us to love, not because we have received perfect love from others, but because in Christ, we have already received perfect love from you.
And the same Jesus who calls us to love one another is the Jesus who first loved us. He did not wait for us to become worthy of his love. He pursued us in our sin, he met us in our brokenness, he laid down his life for us. The cross is the proof that God's love is not harsh, distant, or merely keeping score. In Christ, our record of sin has been forgiven, our shame has been covered, our failures do not have the final word. And so if you belong to Christ, hear this, you are forgiven, you are pursued, you are loved, and you are not beyond the grace of God. And so as we come to the table, we come not as people who've loved perfectly, but as people who have been loved perfectly.
Each week we practice the sacred meal to be reminded of what Christ has done for us, that his body was broken for us and his blood was shed for us. And as we take this meal, we come as broken people who do not have our lives put together. And being reminded that Christ has done this on our behalf. So would you join me in standing, if you're able, as we prepare our hearts for the table?
Father, as we come to the sacred meal, we pray that you would make our hearts ready for it, that we would confess our sins to you, that we would be the people that you would call us to. With with the strength of our church come from the strength of our marriages? Would you bring healing? Would you bring new realizations? Would you bring joy to these relationships that are often times fraught. But God, we pray that you would really flourish, that there'd be more windows into eternity in this room, that it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a shaded window or a window that is blurry, but would you give us more and more windows into the love that you have for us? We ask this in Christ's name, Amen.