Dim Glass Gospel Glimpses

Building the Marriage House

written by Rachel Dube

When the wedding day arrives, it feels like the day all your dreams come true, the first day of the rest of your life. It is a day to celebrate, to bask in the warm glow of love, to revel in the excitement of a new journey with the man God has intended you to spend the rest of your days with. Your heart swells with all the dreams you share, your mind floods with all the possibilities… As you begin to record the first page of your lives together, what is the moral of this story of marriage? What is the purpose?

Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, says in Matthew 7:24-27 ESV, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the Rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the Rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

As Christians, our call to the beautiful covenant of marriage is not to satisfy a longing or fill an empty space; not simply to have a person to coexist or survive life with. You are committing to a much more significant task. You are building something. And not just building a family or making the four walls of your home more aesthetically pleasing or learning how to better please your spouse. It is something even more beautiful and extraordinary, of eternal value.

You are taking the gospel that you have been entrusted with and putting it on display for all eyes to see. You are building a house on a rock to stand firm in the storms of life when all the houses around you are falling. You are beginning construction of a safe haven for those to run to, whose walls, which they thought were secure, have crashed around them, and are now left out helpless in the rising waters. The purpose of this house is to be an embassy of the King, as you are ambassadors of His kingdom, reflecting the purpose and character of the King himself.

In this scripture, Jesus is not calling you to pack up your moving truck and relocate to a house “over there” on the Rock that is complete and move-in ready. Instead, He gave you a blueprint for a house that is solid and sure. You build that life one piece at a time. Will you choose bitterness and revenge OR unconditional forgiveness and sacrificial love when your spouse hurts you and disregards you? If you choose love and forgiveness, it is another board nailed into the house on the Rock. Will you choose to make decisions based on fear of want or need or fear of man or fear of self-sacrifice or on God’s kingdom? If you choose His Kingdom, yet another wall goes up in the Rock solid house. With each decision, each action, each time you yield to God, you help build a grounded kingdom marriage that will withstand the storms of life.

Today you may look up and see clear skies. No storm on the horizon. No cloud in sight. Maybe today is your wedding day and it seems like an odd time to talk about storms and violent winds and destruction. True, your wedding day is a day to celebrate. And I hope that you enjoy many days of sun before you have to weather a storm.

But if you have been married for some time, you know that the storm will come. And what is the use of a builder constructing a beautiful and, at face value, a well-equipped house, if it will be destroyed in the first storm? A strong and secure foundation and walls cannot be built in the midst of a storm. It will be torn apart as quickly as it can be thrown together. It is built now and in the days ahead when the sun is shining, the ground is dry and there is no threat of a storm. When life is relatively easy.

It is built in the everyday choices you make - of how to set your priorities, to what you will assign value, how you spend your time, the words you choose to use (and choose not to use), in setting your mind on the things of God rather than on the things of man, in letting the fear of the Lord and His wisdom be the decider of your everyday decisions and even of your emotions, in praying without ceasing, in abiding in Christ, in meditating on His Word, in forgiving the little things, in loving your wife as Christ loves the church and in submitting to your husband as you submit to Christ…

Decide both of you on your own and together, in every circumstance of life, in every option you are presented with, where you will go together and on who you will depend.

Psalm 127:1 ESV “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it in labor in vain.”

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16 ESV