Marriage between a man and a woman is a happy occasion. It calls for celebration and huge rejoicing. However, as most know it, the initial happiness is like a vapour that goes away shortly. A 10/10 happy marriage can easily drop to 1/10 during honeymoon or shortly after.
The needless criticism, the petty arguments, the upsets, the nonsensical responses, the childish behaviours often make one’s marriage unpleasant. Bad experiences within marriage are no stranger to many. Even Christians are not spared from them.
Perhaps we have forgotten God’s instructions for marriage to our detriment. So, we need to remind ourselves of God’s instructions. And the topic tonight is God’s recipe for a happy marriage. Our Scripture text is taken from Colossians 3:18–19. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”
Tonight, the two points I like to draw our attention to are the nature of the recipe and the instructions themselves.
1a. The nature of the recipe is rigid
When we think of recipes, we think of recipes in cooking to make a delicious dish. Usually, it is not a must to follow closely a cooking recipe. Dependent upon whether you get can those ingredients, you can use close substitutes for what you cannot find. As you become more experienced as a cook, you can tweak, modify, adjust according to your taste or your desired flavour or style. However, for God’s marriage recipe, it is rigid. It is authoritative, it is timeless, and always relevant, it does not change.
1b. The nature of the recipe is exclusive
Exclusive in what sense? What’s exclusive for the wives are for the wives. What’s exclusive for the husbands are for the husbands. And what belongs to the wives belongs to the wives. What belongs to the husbands belongs to the husbands.
Exclusivity is not just to the role of the husband and the role of the wife, it is also to be confined within the marriage union. The duty of the wife does not belong to other men. Neither the duty of the husband belongs to other women. It does not matter whether others are gentler, more attractive and understanding to you.
1c. The nature of the recipe is not transactional
Transactional can be understood in two types of relationships—between husbands and wives, and between you and God. Being transactional within your marriage means that you do things to get what you want in return. If you make your husband happy, you want to get things out of your husband. If you make your wife happy, you want to get things out of your wife.
You may have heard of Happy Wife, Happy Life? (a happy wife leads to a happy life.) There is some truth in it that kindness begets kindness, love begets love. But, what happens when your love is not well-received? Will you respond in kind? If we repay favour for favour, evil for evil, then we are living transactionally with our spouses.
The next transactional relationship is between you and God. That means that by obeying God, you expect God to bless you, usually the way you want Him to bless you, and the time you want Him to bless you, or change your spouse. It is like using obedience to put God in debt, that God owes you because you obeyed. It is easy for us to live in this manner, “I make you happy to get that. If I don’t get what I want, I get upset,” whether towards God or towards your spouse. How wrong we are if we think like this.
Is this the way to live as married couples? Is this the way to live as Christians? Does God want us to live in this way? Transactional living reveals that you are self-serving and that you are just a trader, a manipulator. But God does not want you to live in such a way. God wants the best for you. It is the way of love in contrast to the way of the trader. God wants you to experience marriage the way He intended it to be.
Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:” God does not ask you for what He has not first given. Now, we move on to specific instructions.
2a. Instructions for the wives.
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.” Two words you need to pay attention to. The first word is “yourselves”. “Submit yourselves,” not your maid, your domestic helper, not your money. These are not substitutes for you yourself. You cannot buy your way out of submission. You are to submit yourself.
Another word is “own”. “Unto your own husbands,” and not to other men or husbands of other women. On the one hand, we are told to submit to one another in the church, to love one another generally as fellow God’s image bearers in society. On the other hand, within marriage, this submission and love is special, is particular, is focused for the wife on her husband, and for the husband on his wife.
Not Inferior. By submitting to your own husband, it does not mean that you are inferior in value in any way to your husband. Submission is not about value, rather, it is about orderliness.
Order of Nature. Our text provides a reason to submit to your own husbands. It is because it is “fit in the Lord.” 1 Tim 2:13 tells us that Adam was first formed, then Eve. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul says that the head of the woman is the man. With the words of Matthew Henry, it is fitting or proper as it is according to the order of nature.1
The Lord is pleased with your submission to your own husband. Do you not want to please God? It begins at home.
How to submit? 1 Tim. 2:12 says that women are not to usurp authority over the man. In application to the marriage union, it teaches wives to respect their husbands, to regard the authority of their husbands have over them. Titus 2:4 speaks of loving your husbands, and 2:5 speaks of being obedient to your husbands. So, you are to submit lovingly, you are to submit by obeying to your husband.
Submission requires faith in God. Since it is God’s commandment, you are to trust God to be in control over the final decisions your husband makes. You can offer suggestions, but your husband will finally decide and be responsible. God will measure you according to your submission, not according to the end results. Likewise, God will measure your husband according to his loving care, protection, provision, and leading of you.
It is a common for wives to say that they can let the husband be the head, but they are the neck. And the neck controls where the head turns. But God ordains out of His perfect wisdom for husbands to be the head.
2b. Instructions for the Husbands.
“Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.” Husbands, besides duty to God, your first duty is to love your wife. You are to love your own wife and not other women. You are to love your wife in a way that assures her of your being a provider and protector. Though your wife is to submit to you, you are not to treat her as your child, subject or slave. A queen is no subject to the king, though she submits to the king. Husbands, your wife is your queen. Therefore, delight in her, and love her as a king ought to love and delight in his queen.
Husbands, to love your wife requires initiative and effort. It requires the exercise of the will, and making sacrifices. You are not to be a passive recipient in the relationship. You are to make your wife a priority. This requires being responsible at work so that you can make time for your wife. Cut down demanding hobbies to make time for your wife.
Love requires communication to know your wife. You must know her wants, needs, likes and dislikes to not only show that you love her, but to actually love her. Not to show her your love to get something out of her (like the mindset of a trader), but to love her for her benefit. And loving her without showing you love her isn’t enough. You have to make her feel loved and not lonely or deserted. You are to show a genuine interest in her.
It is also appropriate for love within the marriage union to be understood as a romantic interest. You are to maintain and continue to develop romantic interest with your wife. It is sad that the pursuit of romantic interest often dies shortly after marriage.
Husbands, you are not to be bitter, but to be forgiving. Matthew Henry says, “not use them unkindly, with harsh language or severe treatment, but be kind and obliging to them in all things.”2 Keep short accounts with the Lord every day. Keep short accounts with your wife every day. Also be humble to apologise without reservations. This is not to say that everything is your fault, but when the specific fault lies with you, apologise without excuses.
Think of the creation of woman. Why would you want to be bitter against your own flesh, against your helper to discourage her from helping you? While God did not give us an explanation why He made woman out of the rib of man, Matthew Henry offers a possible explanation which becomes a classic.
That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.3
These are God’s design for a happy marriage. Husbands to love, wives to submit. We begin to see that love is not conditioned upon your personal preference, whether you feel like it or not, whether you feel your spouse deserves it or not. Since it is God’s commandment, it is your spouse’s entitlement. Wives need not earn their husbands’ love. Husbands need not earn their wives’ submission. This is a God-given blessing to your spouse. Wives and husbands are to love one another, rather than trade with one another.
Think about it, how joyous is it for a wife to have her husband’s love without needing to trade for it? She can be at rest. The same goes for the husbands, what joy there is to have a wife’s submission without needing to trade for it? Husbands can be at rest too. God wants you to rest in Him and fret not, worry not. This is His good design.
Perhaps it looks easy. But, truth be told, everything spiritual is difficult, if not impossible apart from God’s grace. Read through who God is, who Christ is, what God has done for you.
Colossians 1:13, God has delivered us from the power of darkness. 1:16, Christ created all things. 1:18, Christ is the head of the body… in all things he might have the preeminence. 2:9–10, in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and He is the head of all principality and power. Depend on Christ the Lord your saviour, you can do it. You need not be transactional. Because you need not earn your spouse’s favour, you can focus on becoming the “dream” spouse to serve your spouse.
If successful people provide us with a recipe to succeed in life, we would want to pay close attention to it and replicate it as closely as possible. Why? because we want to be successful like them. Now God has provided us the recipe to a happy marriage. God wants our marriages to be happy, to the praise of the glory of His name. Would you also not pay close attention to it and experience the happiness God has intended marriage to be?