Marriage as Ministry Power - New Podcast Preview
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Today we're sharing the first episode from our new marriage podcast series, Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller. This short podcast series features the messages from the most popular sermon series of Dr. Keller's time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Preached in 1991, this series was the basis for the best-selling book by Tim and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage. Whether you're single, married, widowed, or divorced, you'll learn how to apply God's wisdom about marriage to your life.

In this series, listeners will work through tough questions like, how can I honestly address my self-centeredness? How can we learn to serve each other out of love? What do we need to reconcile when we hit rough patches in our relationship?

Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller is a great resource for anyone wanting to have more loving relationships, someone considering marriage, or any couple who wants to make their marriage stronger. We'd love for you to listen to and share this series with your friends. To listen and subscribe, visit gospelonlife.com slash marriage or search Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller wherever you listen to podcasts. ♪

I preached in a little sermon series on marriage and we did Immortal Invisible, God Only Wives at our wedding. That was our hymn on the way in. On the way out it was nobody knows the trouble I've seen. So anyway, but on the way in we sang Immortal, oh a stand, Immortal Invisible, God Only Wives. So as you know, we're going through the book of Ephesians and instead of

Instead of really a series of sermons, I don't know when I started these, but instead of a series of sermons on Ephesians, what it really is is a series of series

on Ephesians because you get to a particular set of verses and you see it's on a new subject. And what we try to do is something we're not doing, obviously, in the morning services because the morning services have a slightly different focus. What I'm doing is I'm trying to show you, when you take a look at a small number of verses on a subject, that there's a tremendous amount that can be drawn out of there. So we try to go through in a more, not a totally, but a more comprehensive and exhaustive way

way looking at that subject. Now we come to the classic, maybe the locus classicus, the classic passage in the whole Bible on marriage. It's Ephesians chapter 5, and I'm going to start reading from verses 21 down to verse 32. It's maybe the most famous, it's certainly probably the longest and the meatiest passage there is in the scripture on how God understands marriage. We're

kind of give an overview of some basic principles as we often do when we begin and then we're going to go to the Lord's table and ask him to meet with us and you don't have to worry about covering all the territory on the first night because as you know I never ever do. Let's take a look at Ephesians 5 though and I'll read verses 21 to 32. Familiar, famous, it's well deserved. I'm going to start with verse 21 though. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church. The church is his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason...

A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the Church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." This is God's Word and what a lot there is to look at. And lots of explosive, controversial issues too, none of which, as usual, we will touch on immediately, not least tonight.

What I do want to suggest to you, though, is a thought or two about why we're covering the subject of marriage when such a good number of you are not. Why do that? Isn't that kind of dangerous? You know, you want to go out and immediately apply the text to your life on Monday. And in many of your cases, that would be rash.

The answer is here's some reasons why we study this even though such a large number of you aren't married number one You know you're supposed to study God's Word and you're supposed to learn what he says because it's there It's always a danger to go to what you consider the relevant parts of Scripture But are you so wise as to know what's the relevant parts of Scripture? That's why you need to just read the Bible systematically instead of going after those parts that you think relate to you How do you know it relates to you?

Unless you read the whole thing. The Bible is wiser than you are. So filter your life through its wisdom rather than filtering it through yours. So we're studying because you come to it. But two, from what I can understand, there's plenty of you who are single who would consider marriage and are considering it and would like to be. Frankly, inordinate fears of marriage, inordinate longing for marriage, and therefore inordinate resentment over not being married, or inordinate romanticizing marriage.

of marriage are all things that cloud your understanding and therefore when you try to think about the future when you try to look at a person to say I want to marry this person unless you are able to think clearly about what marriage is unless you're able to look at people through the lens of the scripture and so the lens of your own fears and your own romanticism and your own anger

you're not going to be able to make intelligent decisions about your future regarding marriage at all. It's very, very critical. I guess what I'm trying to say is you can apply this teaching on Monday. You can begin to apply it immediately, not by getting married.

But by beginning to think about your future through the lens of the scripture instead of through your own past, through your own experiences. Thirdly, a lot of you have been divorced. You're not married, but you've been divorced. Here's a greater danger. You may have a more distorted understanding of marriage. I'm sure you agree with this. You may have a more distorted understanding of marriage than people who never have been married.

And the reason for that is because, as we're going to see in a moment, one of the principles of marriage is marriage was a way that God invented for us to deal with our loneliness. A lot of people say, "You shouldn't get married just because you're lonely." Adam did.

We'll see. That's why Adam got married. It's not good that Adam should be lonely, God said. And so he got him married. Now, marriage is supposed to be actually a deep consolation for loneliness. But many of you know that you're far more lonely in a bad marriage than you are in a no marriage. And because of that, you may actually have a more distorted understanding of what marriage is even than somebody who never has been married.

And you may, too, be thinking of your own future through the lens of your memories rather than the lens of the Scripture. Therefore, it really is important, though it may seem to be painful, to saturate your thinking in what the Scripture says about it. And, of course, there are plenty of you who are married and can apply this in the most obvious and most practical ways immediately. So now let's take a look at it. And tonight what I want to do is lay out, you think here, four things.

I don't know, that might be a little bit over, I may be overreaching myself. Four things, four basic principles for marriage that you do see here, that are laid out here, that I'd like to talk about as being very critical to our understanding of what God says marriage is. Marriage, contrary to what a lot of people say, is not something that a bunch of people around a cave fire in the late Bronze Age suddenly thought up. They didn't say, "I got an idea."

According to the scripture, marriage is a divine invention. There's basically three human institutions that stand completely apart from others because they didn't evolve out of human thinking. They're not anthropological actually in their sources. They're theological. That's the family, that's the church, and that's the state. There's nothing in the Bible about schools.

Or how schools ought to run. There's nothing in the Bible about community centers. There's nothing in the Bible about art galleries. There's nothing in the Bible. There's all sorts of great human institutions that the Bible doesn't say anything about. Why? The Bible doesn't regulate them. Why? Because you see, God didn't invent them. But God invented marriage. And when you enter into marriage, you enter in underneath his authority, whether you will or not.

So let's take a look and see these basic four principles and then we're going to go to the Lord's table and say, "Oh Lord, help me!" Okay, number one. The first principle is actually in the verse that we see it because of the verse 21 and how it stands in proximity to the rest of the passage.

Verse 21 says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." You remember that the passage before this passage on marriage was about how to be filled with the Spirit. We spent a number of weeks on that. And then it tells us a person who's filled with the Spirit has these certain characteristics. And the last of the characteristics mentioned is in verse 21.

There's many things that are going to be the characteristics of a person filled with the Spirit. This is the last one. Now, almost any commentator on the Ephesians will tell you it's very clear that Paul is not artificially, but very organically moving from this phrase, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, into these next examples of relationships.

In marriage, between husband and wife. In the family, between parent and child. And then lastly, in the workplace, between employer and employee. All of them are outworkings of this principle. The principle is submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And you can't overlook that Paul is saying that this is an assumption. Paul assumes if you're going to have a marriage that sings, that there is already a spirit-generated ability.

for you to serve, to take yourself out of the center, to put the needs of other people ahead of yours. The first principle is self-centeredness is the main problem in any marriage. Self-centeredness is the main enemy of any marriage. The ability to submit to another person takes the Holy Spirit of God. It is impossible for somebody who's not Spirit-filled. And Paul is assuming a Spirit-filled humility and ability to serve another person

and get out of being absorbed by your own problems and needs, he's assuming that as a basis for everything else he says about marriage. Now think of that. So the first principle, give me a moment here to elaborate it, but I'm just telling you what it is. The first principle is that self-centeredness is the main cancer, the main enemy, the main problem in any marriage. It's the most foundational problem because it's the foundation for any kind of decent marriage.

You know, there's a number of, I've had a number of experiences to remind myself of this lately. A lot of people say, "Hi, you had a great vacation." Right, right. I just tell them I had a great vacation because I did. I don't want to tell you what I actually did because they won't understand why it was such a great vacation. And it goes to show you that a change is as good as a rest. I spent one week at a beach on Lake Erie in a beach cottage with my wife's family, 12 children.

12 children. I spent an entire week in North Carolina with another family all in one beach garage with six children under the same roof. Somebody says, that's a vacation. It's a change as good as a rest, you see. But during that time, I learned this.

That the ability to give yourself to another person, the ability to give up your rights, the ability to serve others' interests ahead of your own, the ability to submit your own concerns for the good of somebody else, the ability to defer your desires to help another person reach their desires is not instinctive. There's nothing more unnatural than that.

Paul is saying that it is impossible unless the Spirit of God generates and helps you into a non-self-centered life for you to have a happy marriage. And it doesn't mean, by the way, this doesn't mean, by the way, this doesn't mean that only Christians can have happy marriages. That's another subject. But what it is saying is if a person who's not a Christian has a happy marriage, they're being helped by God. They just may not know it. Because it's impossible for you to live a non-self-centered life apart from his help.

And therefore, at the root of any marriage problems, you better look for self-centeredness to be the key. The ability to submit in verse 21 is from the Spirit because the word submit is very strong. Right now, I'm not talking at all about wives submitting to their husbands, which is what it says in the next verse. I'll cross that bridge and fall on that grenade when I come to it. But tonight, what I'm talking about in verse 21 is

The word submit is a military word and it really, it was usually used in Greek to talk about submitting to an officer. A soldier submitting to an officer. Why? Because when you join the military, you lose a tremendous amount of control over your schedule. You lose a tremendous amount of control over when you're going to take a holiday and when you're going to eat and what you're going to eat. Why? Because in order to be part of a whole, in order to be in concert, in order to become part of a greater unity, in order to act as a body, you have to defer.

A whole lot of your decisions and a whole lot of your wishes and a whole lot of your desires, you have to. Paul actually, don't forget, Paul is not talking only about marriage. He is saying that this ability to enter into a body and no longer choose your own rights first, to serve and put the good of the whole over your own good is not something that is instinctive. It's not something that's natural. And it's something that is absolutely assumed as the foundation, Paul says here, of marriage.

Let me put it another way, and this is again, especially those of you who are married right now, you really need to be thinking kind of carefully about this at this point. When we say that marriage is, that self-centeredness is the most fundamental thing, I'm not just talking about marriage. This is a big debate right now. Whenever you talk to someone who's been deeply wounded, and a lot of people have been deeply wounded,

I was just reading about a woman who spent her childhood with a mother. Now, this isn't the most horrible thing you've ever read or heard, but it seemed horrible enough that when her mother wanted to punish her, she would lock her in a closet for two days and feed her and make her sleep in there and make her stay in there and feed her. You know, it wasn't that she deprived her of food, but that was it. Lock her in a closet. That's pretty bad. That's not burning her with cigarette butts or any of those kinds of horror stories. That's pretty bad.

And she grew up a wounded person, and that makes sense. And whenever you talk to someone who's been really wounded by significant others in their lives, you'll notice two things about them. One is they have really been oppressed. They have really been mistreated. They've been treated unjustly. They are victims of that kind of injustice and oppression. And you'll also notice something else.

that they are usually enormously self-centered. That means they're so absorbed in their own problems they really can't think of other people. Or if they do think of other people, they do it in a completely obsessive way so that they're not really meeting the needs of other people, but they're meeting their own needs by burning themselves up meeting other people's needs.

The fact is that people who are wounded are also very absorbed. They don't notice what's going on around them usually. They're too absorbed in their own needs to worry about anybody else. They cannot defer. They cannot submit to others out of reverence. They can't do it. The real question is, and this is a very big issue, what do you do with a person like that? One understanding of humanity assumes that all people are naturally good.

And that if a person is self-centered, it's because they have been wounded. And therefore, you don't challenge them at all. You just figure that these people need to have their self-esteem developed. They shouldn't be challenged. They basically need to have all pressure taken off of them. They need to take care of themselves. They need to be good to themselves. They need to pamper themselves. But that assumes, and there's a lot of books like that, are there not? That assumes that self-centeredness isn't natural.

and that if you're self-centered, you've been abused. That assumes it. That's a religious assumption. Nobody can prove that about human nature. That's a belief. That's an article of faith. And there's actually no religion in the world that teaches that, except the self-made religions of our modern time. Today, we're sharing the first episode from our new marriage podcast series, Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller.

This short podcast series features the messages from the most popular sermon series of Dr. Keller's time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Preached in 1991, this series was the basis for the best-selling book by Tim and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage. Whether you're single, married, widowed, or divorced, you'll learn how to apply God's wisdom about marriage to your life.

We'd love for you to listen to and share this series with your friends. To listen and subscribe, visit gospelonlife.com slash marriage or search Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, here's the remainder of today's teaching.

The other approach, and this is the Christian approach, is to say that as badly wounded as that person has been, their self-centeredness has been aggravated by their mistreatment. It's been aggravated terribly. It has reached up like a cloud to smoke them and choke them. It's like a cloud of smoke that chokes them. And yet their self-centeredness was prior to their woundedness.

And therefore, though they have to be dealt with extremely gently, they also have to be challenged to see that their self-centeredness is not something that has been caused by people outside of them. It's just been aggravated. They have to do something about it. Otherwise, they're going to be miserable forever. There's really only a...

Most of you know this scenario. When you first get married, you're generally because you like the other person. I mean, you know, unless it was an arranged marriage or something like that. Or the person's a billionaire and 98 years old, you know, but by and large, you marry somebody because you just think they're wonderful. But as soon as you get married, within a year or two, you begin to find this process going on. You begin to see how selfish they really are.

You see more and more of it, you see more and more of it, and the same... Here's another thing happens at the same time. They begin to tell you about how selfish they think you are. And there's a third thing that happens, and that is that you don't see that your own selfishness is anywhere near as bad as the other person's. And the reason for that is you sit there and you say, "Well, yeah, that's true. I do that. I know I do that." But you just don't understand.

And so both of you, this is inevitable, what will happen is you'll both see the other person's selfishness and you'll be hearing about your own selfishness and you're sure the other person's selfishness is worse than yours. That's going to happen. What happens when it happens? Well, you can go two ways. One is you can decide that your woundedness is more fundamental than your self-centeredness and decide unless this person sees the problems I have and takes care of me in all this way, nothing is going to work. And of course, they're not going to do that if they're thinking the same way about you.

And so what usually happens, or at least in many marriages, is an emotional distance starts to develop. What you do is you bargain with the other person and you say, I'll tell you what. Now, you don't do this out loud, but you basically say, you don't bug me about that and I won't bug you about that. And you don't bug me about that and I won't bug you about that. And they may be actually looking pretty happily married after 40 years, but when you have the anniversary and they have to kiss for the photographer, it'll be forced. Now, there's the other thing you can do, and that is you can decide as a Christian that verse 21 is there.

And you can decide, as this process begins, that you are going to determine to see your own selfishness as more important, as more serious than the other person. That you are going to treat your own flaws as more serious. That you are going to act upon the selfishness that's revealed to you or reported to you, regardless of what the other person is doing. You're going to treat your own self-centeredness as more important

more serious and you're going to treat the needs of the other person as more important and you make that determination. And when two people do that at once, you have the possibility of a truly great marriage. A truly great marriage. Two people who see self-centeredness, my self-centeredness is the main problem in this marriage. Now frankly, there's actually a third possibility.

One is to refuse to see that. The second is to both do it. The third is that one of you does it and one of you doesn't. And, you know, ordinarily what that means is as time goes on, there's not an immediate response from the other person. If you are the only one that decides my selfishness is the thing I'm going to work on, you will find as time goes on, the other person will soften. And the other person will, it will be easier for that other person to admit their faults because you're not always talking about them, especially if it's the man.

Because it's very, very difficult for men to admit, you know, even when they, even when you know you got your red hand in, you're just not going to say. So the point is, even if only one person decides to do that, even if one person says self-centeredness is the problem, the main problem of my marriage, not my past, not how, not my wounds, not my needs, and not this other person, what they're doing to me, I am going to work on my selfishness. If both of you do that, the possibilities are endless. If one of you does that, possibilities are very great.

Do you understand that? Do you see that? In passing, all I can say is,

that I get very uncomfortable with, with both the kind of, well, I can't get into that tonight. The conservative, there's a conservative approach to marriage that says the basic problem in bad marriages is that the two people need to submit to their roles. Husbands need to be head. Wives need to submit. That's the basic problem. And that can be a problem, by the way. We'll talk about that later. But if the main problem is self-centeredness, then pushing the roles first might actually encourage self-centeredness.

may encourage people to take advantage of each other, may encourage it. Isn't that right? But then there's another side, there's a secular approach to marriage that says the real problem in marriages is that you have to get that other person to see, you've got to get that other person to recognize your potential, to develop your potential. You can't let that other person trample all over you. You have got to realize yourself. You've got to develop yourself in this marriage. If that other person won't do it, you've got to negotiate. And if that other person won't negotiate, you've got to get out.

And if the basic problem in marriage is self-centeredness, that actually may be a problem. And that may, see, as we can talk later on, divorce is something that God allows in circumstances that he outlines. And yet, if the main problem is self-centeredness, don't you think that all that emphasis on self-development can actually play into the hands of it? No, frankly, the Christian principle here is that spirit-generated marriage

Selflessness. You know, we've talked about this before. Not thinking less of yourself or more of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. You know, taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ, your needs are going to be met and are being met so that you don't look to the other person as God and your Savior. A person who has the gospel in their blood can turn around and say, my selfishness is the main problem here. I'm going to work on that. And that's the key to everything. Now,

Let me tell you what the other three principles are, but I'm going to have to be even more brief because I really do want to bring you to the table. You see already you've got things to work on. If you're married, the self-absorption, the self-centeredness, the self-pity, that when somebody points out, when your spouse points out your selfishness and you say, but you don't understand. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. You see, that...

That's a cancer. I said that before. It reminds me of the place where God looks at Cain, who's full of self-pity in Genesis 4. And he says, Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it. There's a principle of self in your life that's crouching at the door. It wants to have you. It wants to pounce on you. It wants to devour you. It's up to you to do something about it, God says. Deny yourself to find yourself.

Lose yourself to find yourself. The heart of the Gospel. I'll just tell you what these other three principles are, and we're going to be opening them up. What's great is that near the end of the chapter, Paul grounds what he tells us about marriage into Genesis. And there's the locus classicus of Genesis, the classical text on marriage in Genesis, is, "He made them male and female, and for this reason a man shall leave his father and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Now a lot of you are going to be going to weddings soon. There's a lot of weddings going on and some of them I'm able to get to and do and some of them I can't. I'm very sorry about that. The glory of a growing and burgeoning ministry is...

has got a dark side to it as well, and that's part of it. But if you get around, you're going to hear me say things like this in the weddings. This little Locus Classicus text tells you three things about marriage that I'll just name right now. The first thing is that the essence of marriage is a covenant. The essence of marriage is a contract. A man shall cleave to his wife. The word cleave literally means to be glued to, and it means to take a vow.

What's the essence of marriage? Some people say feelings. You know, feelings of affection. Just on TV the other night I saw somebody say, "Come on honey, let's get married." She says, "I don't need a piece of paper to tell you that I love you. I love you. Who needs marriage?" She completely misunderstands what the essence of marriage is.

What do you mean feelings can't be the essence of marriage? My dog can love you, have wonderful feelings. They're not married to you. Some people say, well, having children is the essence of marriage. You know, rats and mice and rabbits do a wonderful job of that, and they don't need marriage either. Some people say sex is the essence of marriage. It's not. Because you see, if sex was the essence of marriage, or feelings the essence of marriage, or having babies the essence of marriage, then marriage could come and go. It would be a moment-to-moment thing. The essence of marriage is a promise.

And when somebody says, "I don't need a piece of paper to declare my love for you. I don't need to be married." You don't know what you're talking about. Because you see, when you get married, you're not saying how you feel now. Listen to the marriage vows. You're not saying anything about your present. You're not saying anything about your feeling state.

What do you say when you get married? You say, "I promise..." You don't say, "I love you. I cherish you. I want to give myself to you." You don't say that. You say, "I promise to be loving. I promise to be tender. I promise to be affectionate. I promise to be caring. I promise to be loyal. I promise to be faithful under any conditions till we die." You're not saying anything about your present. You're not saying anything about your feelings. You're talking about the future. The essence of marriage is a promise.

and a promise means you make an appointment with yourself in the future and you say 10 years from now i'll be there 20 years from now i'll be there i'll arrange my schedule so i'll be there that's what it means you make an appointment with yourself in the future the essence of marriage is a promise okay secondly the purpose of marriage is companionship you notice it leaves it out in his quote when he quotes from genesis 2 he says for this reason a man shall cleave to his

you know, leave his father, mother and cleave to his wife. What is, for this reason, what reason? Well, if you go back to Genesis 2, you'll see that the reason is that he made them male and female. And this gets in to a subject we'll go into greater detail later. But when Adam was made a male, everything that Adam touches and looks at is good. And then you get to this strange spot in Genesis 2 where it says that Adam could not find a companion.

And that's where God says, "It is not good." You know, everything else in the book of Genesis is benediction. It was good, and it was good, and it was good, all the way through the early parts of the verses. And then suddenly, it was not good malediction. A bad word. It was not good that Adam would be alone. It's clear that God created us with design deficits. He created us to need companionship, and to need a particular kind of companionship that can only be generated between two different genders.

Okay, now I know I'm opening lots of doors, but I'm not going into them tonight. The key thing is, the key thing is marriage was built for companionship. Marriage was built for companionship. And that means the essence of what it means to be married. We said was the vow, the purpose of what it means to be married. The purpose of the vow is that this person be your best friend.

Listen, technically, if you're married and you have committed sexual adultery with somebody else, you've technically broken your marriage vow. But listen to me, if you've got somebody else of a different gender who is a better friend than your spouse, to whom you can talk and share and speak and open and feel like I can pour myself out to that person, they understand me, I feel supported and lifted up and understood,

If you enter into that kind of relationship, if somebody else of a different gender becomes a better friend than your spouse, you substantially frustrated the very purpose of your marriage. That's essential, that substantial intimacy.

That's substantial unfaithfulness, by the way, if you actually go ahead and cultivate that kind of relationship. My wife and I know that right now. We know that adultery, of course, is technically the grounds for divorce, and adultery would be the technical breaking of our covenant. But we also know that if some other person of the opposite gender became a better friend than our spouse, at that point we would already be unfaithful to ourselves. We know that. Everybody knows that.

Instinctively, though you may not know it intellectually. Now it's serious of course, because a lot of times you don't get married for companionship. The way you choose who you're going to date isn't for companionship. You walk into a room, you see ten people of the other gender, seven of them don't look nice.

You go for the three most attractive ones and then it'll be, you know, they're the ones that attract you. And if one of them will date you and you get into an involved, eventually see if you could turn them into a friend. It could be the people who are most likely to be your best friends you've already ruled out of your life because they're too tall or too short or too fat or too skinny. If the purpose of marriage, if the thing that really makes a marriage a marriage, if the thing that really is really sensual is that somebody who understands you.

who looks into the center of your life and doesn't yawn or laugh, but says, wow, you're going about your dating anyway all wrong. And as a result of that, you get into a marriage and this person isn't somebody that's really going to be your best friend. What happens in most situations, it's not dastardly. What you do is you find somebody of the same gender who's a far better friend than your spouse. Even that's kind of dangerous, but it's not the same thing.

Because you don't look for that. The purpose, the essence of marriage is a promise, but the purpose of marriage is companionship. For this reason, because we need companionship, because we're alone, because we need this kind of deep sharing and deep intimacy and deep communication. A man shall leave his father, mother, and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. And the last principle is the priority of marriage. This says, a man shall leave everything else and cleave to his wife.

No one else, not your father, not your mother, no one else can have a higher priority over your spouse. Marriage has got to be number one. Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. Marriage is the vortex of your life. It has that power. If everything around you, you've heard me say this if you come to a wedding, if everything around you is a mess and weakness and yet your marriage is strong, it doesn't matter, you move out into the world in strength.

And if everything around you is strong and successful, but your marriage is a wreck, it doesn't matter. You'll move out into the world in weakness. It has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. It should have priority in your life. Nothing's more important than that relationship. Nothing is more important than that person. God built it that way. And if you get into marriage and you act under any other kind of auspices or principles, you will wreck your life. Now look, whether you're married or not, we're coming to the table and we see that

that it's our pride and our self-centeredness which can only be dealt with through the gospel because the gospel is that you're more wicked than you ever dared believe but you're more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope, right? And that is what does a one-two on your ego. The person who thinks too much of himself, you're more wicked than you ever dared believe. But the person who thinks too little of him or herself,

You're more loved than you ever dared hope. The two kinds of self-centeredness, "I'm so wonderful" or "I'm so awful," both of which make it impossible for you to serve other people, are destroyed at the foot of the cross. You're leveled. You want to deal with the problem? You want to deal with the problem? Come to Him now. Let's pray. Father, we're going to come to the table and we're going to ask that you would enable us, as we confess our sins, to meet you and to hear you say to us, "I will restore you.

I will forgive you. I will renew you. I will turn you in to a friend. I will turn you in to someone who can love and be loved. That's what we ask now. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life today. You can hear more episodes from this series by subscribing to the Cultivating a Healthy Marriage podcast. Visit gospelinlife.com slash marriage. That's gospelinlife.com slash marriage. Or search Cultivating a Healthy Marriage with Tim Keller wherever you listen to podcasts.