Encouraging Sermon on Marriage

Last night I watched a John Piper sermon which dealt with an aspect of marriage. It was rather an encouraging sermon.

I realised that I had a legalistic view of marriage to an extent, where I subscribed to the theory that you have to forgive and forbear. While this is not false, it is however not the whole picture.

John Piper pointed out that a husband and wife have a special relationship in that they know, more than anyone else, the areas where the other person should change in order to be more glorifying to God. (John Piper also pointed out dangers in this area, where the husband and wife can get this concept very wrong).

He then went on to show the way the husband and wife should try to bring about change, in a way that is Biblical based.

For the woman, he showed how not to nag and whine. It kind of goes along the line of saying to the husband, "I really like it when you lead this family.... I'm really battling with this (eg. husband coming home late from work the whole time), can we talk about what we can do about this?"

Then once you've got a mutually agreed upon solution, and the husband comes home late, you now can say to him that he has agreed on something, he isn't keeping to it and it is wreaking havoc on the family plans.Then the wife isn't nagging, she is holding him to his word on something that was mutually agreed.

Grace is what enables the Christian marriage to be a strong marriage in the Biblical form of Christ being the head of the church and the husband the head of the home - in a non-legalistic way.

I could say a lot more about what I learnt, but I think that is enough for now...