How to Have a Marriage That Magnifies God

This episode contains portions from the following episodes:

"The Beauty of Forgiveness"

"The Beauty of God's Design"

"Honoring the Covenant of Marriage"

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Dannah Gresh: Do you love a good proposal story? I sure do! I think I had one of the best. Bob Gresh asked me to marry him . . . in front of two thousand people. He literally walked right out on stage at Cedarville University, started talking to our friend about me. Then, she asked, “Bob, it’s time to pop the question. How would you ask Dannah to marry you?”

That’s when he said, “Well, first, I’d search for her in the audience.”

Be. Still. My. Heart!

And you know, he found me!!

Hi, I’m MRS. Dannah Gresh, your host here on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. Thanks for being with me today as we explore how to have a marriage that magnifies the Lord!

Psalm 34, verse 3, which says:

Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together."

That verse, though it’s not about marriage, is engraved on the inside of a lot of wedding rings.

What’s it mean? Well, to magnify is to make something visible. The love between a husband and wife, the Bible tells us, is a picture of the love of Christ. Today we want to encourage you to paint a beautiful picture with your marriage or future marriage.

(So, if you’re single, keep listening!)

Now, how are a husband and wife supposed to magnify God in their marriage? How can we reflect His greatness to a watching world? Because, truth be told, marriage is hard! 

Today I want to give you three golden nuggets of wisdom to take with you on how your marriage can showcase the love of Christ. The first one: get really good at forgiving. Here’s something I shared with women in South Africa a few years back.

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Your job is not vengeance, it’s God’s. Forgiveness acknowledges God’s job. Let Him do His job. He’s much better at His job description than you can ever be.

Forgiveness (here’s a big one for the married ladies) is accepting that the person who hurt you has no ability to heal you. Ladies, it drives our husbands crazy when we ask them to be our healers.

Do you know what I spent the first year of marriage doing? (Did I mention high-conflict couple?) We are also a high-fun couple, a high-love couple, a high-adventure couple. We did everything high. (laughter) I remember in that first year . . . You know how you have a fight with your husband, so you leave him in the bedroom, in the dark, to be miserable.

You go into the other room, and you lay there wide awake, waiting for him to come on his white horse, like a hero. (laughter) Oh, you’ve done it, too! (laughter) And he doesn’t. You wait fifteen minutes. You wait thirty minutes. You wait forty-five minutes. You wait an hour.

And then you think, Oh, I’ll just go in the room, and I’ll help him. If I’m in there, then he’ll say, “I’m so sorry, Honey.” (laughter) And you go in the room to the melodious sound of snoring. (laughter) Right?

I started to grow up one day. Instead of walking into the other bedroom, I said, “Jesus, I hurt right now. I don’t think my husband is supposed to be my healer, but can You help heal us? Will You be our Healer?”

I am my husband’s forgiver. He is my forgiver. But I am not his healer, and he is not mine.

Forgiveness is accepting that the damage is 100% my damage to deal with.

Okay, do you see those doors back there at the back of the building? Let’s say that you’re standing on the outside of the door. And I am so excited about what God’s doing in here that I want to run out there and shout and tell everyone.

So I slam through the door, and your beautiful face is right there to meet the metal. Your nose is bleeding. Your eye is watering. And you looked so cute right before I hit you. And I apologize, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” And you forgive me.

Is your nose still bleeding? Is your eye still watering and maybe going to be black and blue tomorrow? Is maybe your nose broken? I can’t go to the hospital for you. As sorry as I am, the damage—even though I feel really bad about it—is your responsibility to fix.

The person that you need to forgive can’t fix the damage in your heart. Who can? Who can?

Isaiah 53:5, “By His wounds we are healed. By His stripes we are healed.”

Married women, let your husband off the hook. Don’t make him your healer. Don’t make him fix your damage. He may be a part of it in the right time, but unless you start with Jesus, it will never work.

Dannah: That was me, Dannah Gresh, of course. I was speaking at a Revive Our Hearts conference in Pretoria, in the Republic of South Africa. Forgiveness. It’s essential in a God-glorifying marriage. 

Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, once said, “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” That is so true.

On to golden nugget of wisdom number two!

According to Mary Kassian and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, another key ingredient in a marriage that magnifies God is making sure you’re following God’s blueprints for your marriage. Mary and Nancy have written two books together, True Woman 101 and True Woman 201. Both books are intended to help you get back to the basics of what it means to be a woman who follows God’s good design. Here’s what they have to say about God’s blueprint for marriage.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think it’s interesting as you go back to the book of Genesis that the creation account has two bookends. In Genesis 1:27, you have “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” So very early on in the creation there is this distinction between male and female. There’s a whole issue of gender.

Then as you come to the end of the creation account at the end of chapter 2, God makes the woman for the man in the retelling of that creation of woman. And then the man says, “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” That’s gender differences there. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (vv. 23–25)

So there you have the whole issue of sexuality within marriage. It’s just interesting how important God believed gender and sexuality to be. And isn’t that two huge pillars in our culture that are being torn down?

Mary Kassian: Very much so. 

If it is true that God created gender and sexuality and male and female and created us in His image—we’re created in His image, to put His glory on display—then is it any wonder? I mean, is it any wonder that Satan is attacking us at that very point, on that very issue that displays the glory of God and that is who we are as male and female and marriage.

Nancy: . . . and what constitutes marriage. Therefore we just remember that this whole issue of should marriage be only man and woman—this is not a political issue. This is a theological issue. It’s at the very heart of God’s whole created order. So yes, we have the enemy launching an attack against this—not only in the culture, but sometimes, sadly, within the church.

When there are days I think, “Oh, can I just get off this subject? Is it so important? We are so swimming upstream, and there’s so much push back on it." And you think, you know, just do we need to keep talking about it?” And I go back to God’s Word, and I say, “Yes, it is important, not only because it’s part of the creation story but because it’s the way that God first gave whispers of the redemption story that was to unfold through the rest of Scripture.”

Mary: And whispers of the story of what will happen at the end of time. So really, when God created male and female, He was giving whispers and glimpses into His whole plan from beginning to end and His whole plan of sending Christ to redeem us—the plan of redemption and then the plan of us, one day, seeing Jesus face to face and experiencing the consummation of that relationship and being one with Him.

That’s one of the things that I love about Genesis. As you were reading it there, it’s one of the things that I picked up on again. There’s the holding fast and becoming one flesh. So there’s that unity. Then they’re both naked, and they’re not ashamed, so there’s intimacy. And so you have the differences, but the differences aren’t the point of it. The point of it, the whole overriding point of it is this unity—this union and this oneness and really the differences being superseded by the greater relationship and just becoming just this thing of beauty.

Nancy: Yet you wouldn’t have that unity and that intimacy if it weren’t for the fact that there are differences.

Mary: That’s right.

Nancy: I mean, just the very physical relationship between male and females, there are differences that make that possible and beautiful and intimate—there’s giving; there’s receiving. And I think of that quote that I’ve seen you use on your blog from C.S. Lewis that says, “When we turn from role sameness” which would be the egalitarian position “to role distinction” which is that there are complementary differences, he said “it’s like turning from a march to a dance.” Help us understand what he meant by that.

Mary: It’s a great analogy because what’s he’s saying is that if we’re all doing, functioning the same or interchangeable, that if we’re all interchangeable pieces then it’s like we’re just lined up and all doing the same thing like marching together. But when you begin to understand that God created male and female as complementary parts, it’s like a dance with one another. There’s more beauty there, and there’s more unity there. There’s more harmony there than is possible if you’re just lined up side by side.

If we are living out who God created us to be, if husbands are loving their wives as Christ loved the Church and wives are respecting and responding to their husbands as the Church would to Christ, there is more oneness and unity and intimacy and back-and-forth in that relationship.

Nancy: That’s not to say that there aren’t those who abuse the biblical teaching of complementarity and male and female roles and take that to apply it in ways that are really contrary to Scripture.

Mary: Oh, that’s for sure, and I see that all the time. We’re sinners. Men are sinners. Women are sinners. I have seen men, and actually I have walked through relationships with girlfriends of mine who have had husbands who claim the name of Christ to put down their wives or to abuse their wives. That is such a tragedy.

Nancy: Or to give women no sense of value and service in the context of the local church.

Mary: Or not to listen to women or not to validate their concerns. Or to really come in with just a real sexist attitude.

Nancy: We are not saying that that is the way Scripture intends it to be.

Mary: Not at all. Not at all. 

But we are saying that even though there is sin and even though sometimes it’s hard to work this out—it’s hard to work this out in a marriage . . . It isn’t always easy, and it’s not simplistic. I think we make a mistake when we make it sound simple. It isn’t always simple.

Nancy: And it doesn’t always look the same.

Mary:  It doesn’t always look the same.

But you wrestle with, "Okay here’s the situation and what does it look like in this situation? How do I be a godly woman in this situation?" Even though it’s difficult and it’s not simplistic, what I believe is that Scripture does uphold this as the ideal. Now, many of us are never going to reach that ideal completely in our lifetimes. God helps us to grow.

Nancy: While at the same time there are some common callings and responsibilities that we share alike. And Scripture has a lot to say about those.

Mary: It sure has a lot to say about those. I look at the list of “one anothers” in Scripture, and I just think, “Wow!” If we could all aim for that and keep that at the forefront of what we’re aiming for we would really see our teams flourish. We would see marriages flourish. We would see relationships flourish.

Nancy: There are a lot of those “one anothers” in Scripture that can be applied in marriage and family and the local church.

Mary: Yes. Love one another. That’s a commandment that’s really at the forefront. One that I like is, “Outdo one another in showing honor.”

Nancy: Yes, from Romans 12.

Mary: See who could show more honor to the other. Can you imagine if we just lived in communities where you know a group of girlfriends gets together and each tries to outdo each other in just ministering to the other persons? I mean, that’s a great one. Live in harmony with one another. I have pulled up a list right here in front of me. Serve one another. Or how about this one, be humble with one another? Be gentle with one another.

Nancy: So those apply even where there are relationships of authority and submission whether it’s between parents and children or between husbands and wives. There are those God-ordained roles of leadership and headship and authority, and yet those who have those positions still have the obligation to be humble, to be gentle, to serve one another.

Mary: To be patient, to bear with one another, to be tenderhearted and forgiving.

Nancy: Build one another up.

Mary: Build one another up. Exhort one another.

“Regard the other as more significant than yourself.” And even that little bit there, “regard the other as more significant than yourself.”

Nancy: Boy, if we would just do that.

Mary: If we would just do that. If we would just do that, I think that we would see our relationships just flourish. I think that we would see our marriages flourish. I honestly think that as we become more godly, we become more of who God created us to be. So as a man becomes more godly, he becomes more of who God created him to be as a man. And as I become more godly, as I am moving toward becoming more and more Christlike and towards incorporating more of these directives and these parameters into my life, I become more of whom God created me to be as a woman.

Dannah: Mary Kassian and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth have been showing us the importance of following God’s beautiful design for men, for women, and of course, for marriage. 

So, golden nugget of wisdom number one: get good at forgiveness.

Number two: follow God’s blueprint!

Let’s finish up with a third nugget, another key ingredient of a marriage that honors the Lord. And that’s remembering that marriage means we’re in it for the long haul. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth once again. 

Nancy: I want to talk about some ways that we can honor the sacredness, the purity, and the permanence of the marriage covenant.

I want to give you some suggestions if you’re married, some other suggestions if you’re single, and then some ideas whether you’re married or single.

If you’re married, how can you honor the sacredness, the purity, and the permanence of the marriage covenant? First of all is through a commitment to exclusiveness, sexual purity, as Scripture says in Hebrews, keep “the marriage bed . . . undefiled” (13:4). No one else is to be invited in to that exclusive, intimate relationship.

Adultery can take on many forms. It can be physical, but it can also be emotional or mental. Essentially, it’s having intimacy with a member of the opposite sex outside of your own marriage. That may be mental, emotional, physical. So, commitment to exclusiveness. There is an exclusiveness to marriage.

And then, to honor the sacredness of the marriage covenant, learn to build hedges around your marriage—to set boundaries. Don’t wait until you’re in the middle of the emotions with someone who, at the moment, became more attractive to you than your own mate.

Hedges help to guard our hearts when we get into tough or potentially compromising situations. Just some practical things I’ve challenged women with over the years, and that I’m learning now to practice in my own marriage. 

First is, just don’t talk with members of the opposite sex about difficulties in your marriage. Don’t go there. If you’re going to talk with a pastor or a counselor, do it with another woman. Do it with his wife, so that your heart is not getting drawn to someone who may be very sympathetic, very helpful in a time when you need help. Now I’m not saying this is ironclad, but I’m saying as a rule, don’t talk about problems in your marriage—especially in a complaining way—with another man.

With meals and travel, the workplace is, in many cases, where women are spending more time with another man than they do with their own mate. So that’s where hedges and safeguards need to be established.

The internet is another place that is being used to wreak havoc on marriages today—Facebook, people sharing access, sharing passwords. There needs to be protection; there needs to be accountability; there needs to be care.

Now, you determine with your mate the best way to do that. I’m not saying that the same rules that you put into place in your marriage will be the exact same ones for somebody else’s marriage. But be intentional about it, think about it. If you don’t, you’re going to get caught off-guard potentially at some point, and many people could tell their story of how that happened.

You can’t be best friends with another man who’s not your husband. You can’t do it! There are so many women today, thinking this kind of interaction with other men that’s inappropriate for someone other than their husband, saying, “Oh, we can do this.” It’s not safe. It’s not okay. It’s not affirming the sacredness and the permanence of the marriage covenant.

And another encouragement to those who are married: Get rid of the “nuclear option”—the “D” word—divorce. A commitment to permanence means you are not going to throw this word around. No matter how hurt you are, no matter how hard it is, you are not going to consider divorce an option.

I have a pastor friend who encouraged husbands and wives to affirm their commitment to the permanence of their marriage covenant. And he said, “I want you to say to your mate, ‘I will never divorce you!’”

A few days later a lady came to him, and she was laughing. She had heard this challenge, and she told the pastor, “My husband is a man of few words. Every morning he eats breakfast with the paper in front of him. I never see his face. I just push his breakfast underneath the paper.” (laughter)

And she said, “Yesterday, he said through the paper, ‘Honey, I went ahead and had your name put by mine on the tombstone.’” (laughter) 

Tears welled up in that woman’s eyes as she shared this with her pastor, because she knew that—in his own way—her husband was saying, “I’m in this thing with you 'til death!”

And then, married women, teach your children the meaning of the marriage covenant, that divorce not an option. My dad who had divorce in his family background taught us over and over again, “It’s permanent. Divorce is not an option!” And listen, don’t be afraid to share out of your failures, out of where you’ve blown it, because your children need to hear that, too.

Now if you’re single, just a couple of words here. First of all, if you’re dating, as you date—in your dating standards—ask, “Am I honoring my future husband and our marriage covenant if it turns out to be someone other than who I’m dating now?” In your present dating, are you honoring the marriage covenant with your future husband?

And just another challenge to single Christians today: Get married instead of living together. Living together has become just mainstream and the norm for so many couples in the church today. If you want to honor the marriage covenant, get married! You will make a statement about the covenant-keeping love of God when you do.

Whether you’re married or single, pray for the marriages of others. Don’t take for granted that anybody you know has a marriage that’s home free. Every marriage has attacks, every marriage has difficulties, so pray when you are around other couples—your family, your friends. Pray for them as you hope they do for you.

Encourage, support, and invest in the marriages of others. When they’re struggling, don’t be one of their friends that says to that woman, “I don’t know how you put up with that! You need to get out of that marriage.”

So many friends undermine the permanence and the sacredness of the marriage covenant by counseling their friends—who they’re sympathizing with, they’re concerned for them, they care for them, they’re well-meaning friends—but they’re discouraging them from being faithful to that marriage covenant.

And here's something for all of us: Let’s stop making negative comments and jokes about marriage. It’s holy! Now, there are funny things that happen in marriage. Robert and I love to laugh together, and we laugh about our differences, and we laugh in retrospect about some of the hard things we go through.

So it’s not that there shouldn’t be joy and laughter in marriage, but let’s not mock marriage. Let’s not say as often how hard marriage is. Yes, marriage is hard. Any two people living together—male and female, husband and wife—there are differences that can create challenges. So it is hard; it’s hard work . . . but it’s good work.

Let’s focus on what’s good and beautiful and God-honoring about it. Remember what’s at stake. Marriage is not just about feeling good or feeling loved. It's more than that. It’s about showcasing God’s faithful, persevering, unending love for the Church!

When you think about marriage from God’s perspective, it gets a whole lot more serious.

Dannah: Ah, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been reminding us that marriage is about a lot more than just a man and a woman living together and loving each other. It’s also a picture of something much bigger—the love of God!

One love story in the Bible is the story of Ruth and Boaz. This month, we’d like to send you a copy of our Bible study called Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored. This is part of our series on Women of the Bible. Here’s how you can get it. Contact us with a donation of any amount by going to ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate, and be sure to request the Women of the Bible study on Ruth. 

Well, last week we had encouragement for singles. Today was more about marriage, and next weekend we’ll talk about love—God’s love. I think that fits nicely with Valentine’s Day, don’t you?

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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