This Momentary Marriage - Week 3

Some notes from this week's study of This Momentary Marriage, chapters 4 & 5:

• Chapter 4: Forgiving and Forbearing
  • Scripture – Colossians 3:12-19
  • Questions
    • How important is forgiveness in a marriage? How can a lack of forgiveness affect a marriage?
    • What is the foundation of marriage and all of life?
    • How does Paul describe Christians in Colossians 3:12?
    • How can reflecting on the gospel affect you and your marriage?
    • How do you handle issues in your marriage – conflict, idiosyncrasies, annoying habits, sins, flaws, etc.?
  • Notes & Quotes
    • Review: Marriage is a pointer to Christ and the church that will vanish into the perfection of that glory
    • Review: Marriage is based on grace – receiving grace from Christ through his death on the cross, and bending that grace out to our spouse
    • Review: 3 reasons to emphasize forgiving & forbearing from chapter 3
      • 1) “because there is going to be conflict based on sin and strangeness (and you won’t be able even to agree with each other about what is simply strange about each other and what is sin)” (p. 48)
      • 2) “because the hard, rugged work of enduring and forgiving is what makes it possible for affections to flourish when they seem to have died” (p. 48)
      • 3) “because God gets glory when two very different and very imperfect people forge a life of faithfulness in the furnace of affliction by relying on Christ.” (p. 48)
    • There are things/sins that could/should lead to a redemptive separation, but we'll discuss day to day forgiveness and forbearance with a view to preventing such a separation
    • Foundation of marriage and all of life: the person & work of Christ on the cross
    • 3 descriptions of believers from Colossians 3:12:
      • 1) Chosen – we are God's elect, invincibly loved
        • “If you resist the truth of election, you resist being loved in the fullness and the sweetness of God’s love.” (p. 54)
      • 2) Holy – set apart for God – he chose us to become holy, not common or unclean
        • “This is first a position and a destiny before it is a pattern of behavior. That is why he is telling us the kind of behavior to “put on.” He knows we are not there yet, practically. He is calling us to become holy in life because we are holy in Christ. Dress to fit who you are. Wear holiness.” (p. 54)
      • 3) Loved – God is for us and not against us
        • Romans 5:8
      • “This is the beginning of how husbands and wives forbear and forgive. They are blown away by being chosen, set apart, and loved by God. Husbands, devote yourselves to seeing and savoring this. Wives, do the same. Get your life from this. Get your joy from this. Get your hope from this—that you are chosen, set apart, and loved by God. Plead with the Lord that this would be the heartbeat of your life and your marriage.” (p. 55)
    • After these descriptions, Paul tells us what kind of attitude and behavior fits with and flows from this identity as God's chosen, holy, and loved people
    • 3 inward conditions that lead to 3 outward demeanors:
      • 1) From bowels of mercy (compassionate hearts) to kindness
        • “Be merciful in your inmost being, and then out of that good ground grows the fruit of kindness.” (p. 55)
        • “So husbands, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until you become a more merciful person. Wives, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until you become a more merciful person. And then treat each other out of this tender mercy with kindness. The battle is with our own unmerciful inner person. Fight that battle by faith, through the gospel, in prayer. Be stunned and broken and built up and made glad and merciful because you are chosen, holy, loved.” (p. 56)
      • 2) From humility/lowliness to meekness
        • “People whose hearts are lowly, instead of proud, will act more meekly toward others. The meek count others above themselves and serve them. That happens when the heart is lowly, or humble.” (p. 56)
        • “So, husbands, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until you become more lowly and humble. Wives, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until you become more lowly and humble. The gospel of Christ’s painful death on our behalf has a way of breaking our pride and our sense of rightful demands and our frustration at not getting our way. It works lowliness into our souls. Then we treat each other with meekness flowing out of that lowliness. The battle is with our own proud, self-centered inner person. Fight that battle by faith, through the gospel, in prayer. Be stunned and broken and built up and made glad and humble because you are chosen, holy, loved.” (p. 56)
      • 3) From long-suffering (patience) to forbearance and forgiveness
        • Forbearance and forgiveness cannot exist biblically without each other
        • “become the kind of person who does not have a short fuse but a long one” (p. 57)
        • “These three inner conditions I have mentioned connect with each other and affect each other. “Bowels of mercy” and “lowliness” lead to being “long-suffering.” If you are quick to anger, instead of being long-suffering, the root is probably lack of mercy and lack of lowliness. In other words, being chosen, holy, and loved has not broken your heart and brought you down from self- centeredness and pride.” (p. 57)
        • “So, husbands, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until your heart is formed by these inner conditions of compassion and lowliness and patience. Fight for inner change—making you more merciful and more lowly and, in that way, more long-suffering. In the same way, wives, sink your roots by faith into Christ through the gospel until you become more merciful and more lowly and more long-suffering.” (p. 57)
    • Forbear – bear with – endure – become long-suffering people who endure each other
    • Forgive – freely & graciously give – do not exact payment – treat people better than they deserve
      • “So in this sense, you forgive when someone has wronged you, and therefore they are in debt to you, and sheer justice says you have the right to exact some suffering from them in payment for the suffering they caused you. You not only don’t demand the payment, but you “freely give” good for evil.” (p. 58)
    • “Forgiveness says: I will not treat you badly because of your sins against me or your annoying habits.” (p. 58)
    • “forbearance acknowledges (usually to itself): Those sins against me and those annoying habits really bother me or hurt me! If there were nothing in the other person that really bothered us or hurt us, there would be no need for saying “endure one another.”” (p. 58)
    • “When you marry a person, you don’t know what they are going to be like in thirty years.” (p. 58)
    • Compost pile – don't let issues cloud your view of your spouse; give them the benefit of the doubt, show them grace, and address the issues at appropriate, agreed on times
    • Do not pitch your tent by the compost pile
    • “we are forty years into this glorious and maddening thing called marriage, and we are not naive. These two redeemed sinners will go to our graves imperfect and annoying. We are very comforted that Paul does not say, “Endure one another for the first ten years of your marriage till you have all the problems solved and all the sins overcome, then enjoy the green pastures of the last forty years of your marriage without the need for enduring each other.” Sorry to pop any bubbles out there. Well, actually, we’re not sorry. We would rather pop the bubble of naiveté and give you a possible way to endure and enjoy.” (p. 60)

• Chapter 5: Pursuing Conformity to Christ in the Covenant
  • Scripture – Ephesians 5:21-33
  • Questions
    • How amazing is grace? How does God treat us better than we deserve?
    • Are we resigned to simply forgiving and forbearing in our marriage? Can we expect (or should we seek) change, either in ourselves or our spouse?
    • Who's the bigger problem in your marriage, you or your spouse? (consider Psalm 51; 1 Timothy 1:15)
    • How does change happen in a marriage? Does it grow from conflict and argument and nagging? Or does it grow from gracious forgiving & forbearing?
    • Husbands, how do we love & lead our wives? When we lead her or even, if necessary, confront her, are we self-exalting or self-denying? Is there contempt or compassion?
  • Notes & Quotes
    • Marriage is a model of Christ and the church because it is based on grace
    • “Christ pursues his bride by grace, obtains her for his own by grace, sustains her by grace, and will perfect her for himself by grace. We deserve none of this. We deserve judgment. It is all by grace.” (p. 63)
    • “this grace empowers husbands and wives to keep their covenant by means of forgiveness and forbearance. That emphasis is at the heart of what grace is: treating people better than they deserve.” (p 64)
    • Grace “not only gives power to endure being sinned against, it also gives power to stop sinning.” (p. 64)
    • “God gives grace not only to forgive and to forbear, but also to change, so that less forgiving and forbearing is needed.” (p. 64)
    • “Grace makes you want to change for the glory of Christ and for the joy of your spouse. And grace is the power to do it.” (p. 64)
    • Focus on changing yourself by the grace of God; if you focus on changing your spouse, it's probably not going to happen
    • Forgiveness & forbearance provides a foundation where change can happen
    • “rugged covenant- keeping commitment based on grace gives security and hope so the call for change can be heard without feeling like a threat. Only when a wife or husband feels that the other is totally committed—even if he or she doesn’t change—can the call for change feel like grace rather than an ultimatum.” (p. 65)
    • “In Christ’s relationship to the church, he is clearly seeking the transformation of his bride into something morally and spiritually beautiful. And he is seeking it at the cost of his life.” (p. 66)
    • Although a husband is called to love like Christ, bearing a responsibility for the moral and spiritual growth of his wife, he is not called to control every facet and aspect of his wife's life
    • 3 observations on Ephesians 5:25-27:
      • 1) the husband is not Christ
        • he is like Christ
        • “The husband is finite in strength, not omnipotent like Christ. The husband is finite and fallible in wisdom, not all-wise like Christ. The husband is sinful, not perfect like Christ. Therefore, we husbands dare not assume we are infallible. We sometimes err in what we would like to see changed in our wives.” (p. 67)
      • 2) conformity to Christ, not the husband
        • a godly husband doesn't want his wife to become like him, but to become like Christ
        • “These words—sanctify, splendor, holy—imply that our desires for our wives are measured by God’s standard of holiness, not our standard of personal preferences.” (p. 67)
      • 3) dying for the wife (most important of the three observations)
        • Christ pursues his bride's transformation by dying for her
        • “This is the most radical thing that could ever be said to a husband about the way he leads his wife into conformity to Christ in the covenant of marriage.” (p. 67)
        • “If a husband is loving and wise like Christ in all these ways, his desire for his wife’s change will feel, to a humble wife, like she is being served, not humiliated. Christ clearly desires for his bride to grow in holiness. But he died to bring it about. So we husbands should govern our desire for our wife’s change by the self-denying death of Christ. May God give us the humility and the courage to measure our methods by the sufferings of Christ. (See Titus 2:14; Rev. 19:7.)” (p. 67-68)
    • As a husband's headship is not identical to Christ's, so a wife's submission is not identical to her submission to Christ
    • “Christ is supreme; the husband is not. Her allegiance is first to Christ, not first to her husband. The analogy only works if the woman submits to Christ absolutely, not to the husband absolutely. Then she will be in a position to submit to the husband without committing treason or idolatry.” (p. 68)
    • Analogy of prayer – as we ask Christ to change things (not Himself, but situations), the wife may/should ask her husband to change things (even in himself)
    • All husbands (& wives) need to change
    • Wives are also loving sisters to their husbands – brothers & sisters in Christ help point out sin and call each other to repentance in a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1)
    • Wives should seek wisdom & discernment to know when to say something and when to lovingly, graciously live in forbearance and forgiveness with their husband (see 1 Peter 3:1)
    • “It isn’t only wives who seek to win their spouses by their behavior. This is the primary means by which Christ won the church. He died for her. So wives win their husbands mainly by their lives of sacrificial love, and husbands win their wives mainly by lives of sacrificial love.” (p. 70)
    • “forgiving and forbearing ... turns out to be not merely a means of enduring what will not change, but also a means of changing by means of sacrificial, loving endurance. Few things have a greater transforming impact on a husband or a wife than the long-suffering, forgiving sacrifices of love in the spouse.” (p. 70)
    • “Life is not all forgiveness and forbearance. Real change can happen. Real change ought to happen. Christ died to make it happen. And he calls us, husbands and wives, to love like that.” (p. 70)