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Part I: The Foundation of a Kingdom Marriage
Origin
When God established marriage, He established it to last. It is only when we have removed ourselves from His purpose for our relationships that we face the untimely unraveling of what was meant to be permanently satisfying.
Kingdom couples share a purpose, not just passion. Emotions change, but the purpose remains and is what can tie two people together until death do they part.
Our marriages today are crumbling at such a high rate not because we no longer get along but because we have lost sight of the blessing tied to biblical marriage. Marriage is not merely a social contract; it is a sacred covenant.
Kingdom marriage is defined as “a covenantal union between a man and a woman who commit themselves to function in unison under divine authority in order to replicate God’s image and expand His rule in the world through both their individual and joint callings.” The unifying, central theme throughout the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom.
The closer God and His rule are tied to the definition of marriage, the more order, productivity, and fulfillment are experienced in our marriages. The further away God and His rule are, the more chaos occurs in the home.
Any kingdom consists of three crucial components:
- A ruler;
- A realm of subjects who fall underneath this rule; and
- The rules of governance.
The foundation of civilization is the family, and the foundation of the family is marriage. Therefore the destruction of marriage naturally results in the destruction of civilization, which is why it is critical that we make strengthening marriages and families an integral part of the church’s mission.
The number one way to bring God glory is by surrendering to His sovereign rule. The reason so many of us are struggling as believers is that instead of fulfilling His agenda, we want God to bless our agendas for our marriages. Happiness is to be a benefit of a strong marriage but not the goal. The goal of marriage is to reflect God through the advancement of His kingdom on earth. Happiness occurs as an organic outgrowth when this goal is pursued.
From the outset, Adam and Eve were to reflect the triune image of God—unity in the midst of diversity. Humankind, and the institution of marriage, was specially created for people to have a relationship with God and each other that would result in a demonstration of God’s greater glory and the superiority of His kingdom through humanity.
Conflict, struggle, challenge, and differences shouldn’t destroy our union; they should show the power of Christ within us. Jesus never asks you as a married couple to do what He has not already given you the ability to do (Philippians 4: 13). Marriage is one of the greatest ways you can show the difference that Jesus Christ makes.
Order
Without order there is chaos, which is why Satan continually tries to stir things up in our marriages. Whatever Satan can divide, he can control. That’s especially true in our marriages. This is exactly the approach he took when dividing Adam and Eve from each other and removing them from God’s blessings.
Paul spoke into this chaos with a principle to set things straight:
In this one verse we find the spiritual key to covering and authority that, when followed, can save any marriage.
Husbands, if you want your wives to call you “lord,” then they need to see you calling Jesus Christ “Lord” and modeling Him. Last, we read in 1 Corinthians that “the man is the head of a woman” (11:3). The wife is to look to the husband (her head) and follow the husband’s lead as her husband follows Christ’s lead. This is the divine order.
One final thought on this passage. A man doesn’t have absolute authority over a woman. She is to come under him only as his authority aligns underneath the lordship of Christ.
Opposition
When we fight in our marriages, we assume that our spouses are the problem. And that’s exactly what the Devil wants. But your spouse is not the problem. The problem is a spiritual one brought on by your own sinful flesh or by a rebellious and clever enemy of God.
Satan wants to destroy your marriage not just because he wants to destroy your marriage but because he knows that in doing so, he’ll also destroy your legacy. He’ll mess up the future of your children and their children. Whoever owns the family owns the future.
How often do you pray for your marriage? It should be daily, if not several times throughout the day. Do you worship together? Go to church together? Talk about the messages together? Read God’s Word together?
Victory in your marriage requires your personal relationship with Jesus Christ to be close.
Life is busy, but if you want the ability to go through this life together “till death do us part,” then the spiritual component of life must be an integral part of who you are as a couple.
Oaths
The main reason the concept of covenants is such a prevalent theme in the Bible is that a covenant is the means by which God administers or governs His kingdom. Marriage is a supreme covenantal union designed by God to allow both partners to fully maximize their potential in Christ.
A covenant involves far more than a contract. In a biblical covenant, you do more than enter a business partnership. There are three distinctions that set a covenant apart from a contract:
- You enter into an intimate relationship with the other person or persons in the covenant.
- Covenants are designed to bring blessings to the parties involved in the relationship.
- Covenants are ratified in blood. For example, God took His relational commitment to bless Israel so seriously that He sealed the covenant in blood by offering a sacrifice (Exodus 29: 16–46).
Here are five characteristics that define a covenant created by God:
- Transcendence. This refers to God being in charge. The term sovereignty means the same thing. God is distinct. He is not a part of His creation.
- Hierarchy. God’s covenants are administered through a chain of command, or hierarchy, that functions under His ultimate authority.
- Ethics. God’s covenants contain specific rules (or ethics), stipulations, and guidelines that govern the relationship of blessing with the covenant partners.
- Sanctions. God’s covenants contain an oath, a sanction, or a pledge that the covenant partner must make. This oath outlines the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience that are binding upon the covenant partner.
- Inheritance. Each of God’s covenants also contains long-term repercussions or generational inheritance implications for obedience and disobedience.
Sexual intimacy is far more important and far more powerful than many of us realize. It is to marriage what Communion is to the Cross: revisiting the foundational oath of the covenant. Sexual intimacy not only revisits the vow in a marriage relationship, but it is the ongoing expression of commitment, tenderness, and passion.
The book of Ecclesiastes is filled with powerful wisdom and insightful truths, such as this principle:
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. This is an important key to a successful marriage. When two people enter into a covenant, they enter into it along with a third person, God. Just as the Trinity is made up of three persons who are one—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—marriage is an earthly replica of this divine Trinity—the husband, the wife, and God.
Oneness means working together toward the same goal. People working together toward the same goal will have to, out of necessity, communicate, cooperate, and merge strengths with strengths while overlooking or overcoming each other’s weaknesses. You are on your spouse’s team. The stronger the two of you are together, the stronger you will be as individuals. This not only requires time; it requires an authentic commitment. Marriage is not a solo; it is a duet playing the same song.
Oneness
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Franklin’s words reflect the sentiment that unity must be forged out of a shared commitment to defeat a common enemy.
How do we define unity? In the first six verses of Ephesians 4, the word one is used eight times. In fact, in the Greek the word unity that Paul used here is a variation of the word one. This concept of oneness sounds very much like the prayer Jesus prayed in His last moments with His disciples: “May [they] all be one” (John 17: 21).
The healthiest marriages are those in which both parties maintain separate identities and purposes as they unite under the shared purpose of fulfilling the dominion rule of God in and through their partnership. This understanding of unity offers each person in the marriage the opportunity to experience the maximum freedom that God intended for His creatures to enjoy. Within the boundaries of the marriage relationship, both the husband and wife are to fully pursue their calling under God—utilizing their giftedness to advance the potential of the other in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, so long as biblical priorities of the unity of the family are not being compromised (as illustrated by the Proverbs 31 excellent wife).
The greatest gift you can give your unity is to maintain your individual uniqueness because when two strong and sure people come together under the Lord, utilizing their gifts, minds, and spirits according to His plan, a greater kingdom impact will occur.
Never let unity morph into sameness. Preserve your identities while guarding against division. When we preserve the unity of the Spirit, the outcome is a healthy, balanced marriage in which to fully live out and experience abundant life.
In Ephesians 4:2, Paul listed the primary indicators of this unity: humility, gentleness, patience, and tolerance in love. Here are some good questions to ask about your relationship:
- Humility: Are you willing in the interest of unity to submit your desires, no matter how good, to God’s purpose in your marriage? Are you willing to serve your mate, looking out for his or her interests above your own (see Philippians 2: 3–4)?
- Gentleness: Are you argumentative with your mate? Do you find yourself responding with anger when your agenda is challenged? What is your first, unfiltered response when your mate wrongs you?
- Patience: Are you willing to wait on God’s work through His Spirit in the life of your mate? Do you find yourself impatient with the slowness of change in your mate’s life? Can you wait on the Spirit and the discernment of your marriage partner before making a change or starting a new interest?
- Tolerance: Do you insist on things being done your way? Can you allow for the diversity of ways and means that the Spirit works through other people? Do you work well when your mate’s preferences conflict with your own?
What is this foundational threat to the unity of the Spirit? It is the tendency to elevate our personal agendas over the Spirit’s agenda in our marriages.
We need to adopt three practices that will promote and preserve a spirit of unity:
- Storytelling. One of the key things you can do to encourage unity in your marriage is to point out and celebrate the story of God’s work through His Spirit in both of your lives.
- Discernment. The practice of spiritual discernment within your marriage is a critical skill for preserving unity in the bond of peace. Spiritual discernment is decision making that is guided by the Holy Spirit. It is a consensual practice that is oriented toward waiting on the Spirit’s voice as the deciding vote in every decision.
- Peacemaking. When they first marry, couples often go through a honeymoon phase when conflict is low, and both partners are discovering the roles they will play in their marriage. It doesn’t take long, however, for conflict and disappointed expectations to appear. Conflict is a part of every relationship that exists in this fallen world, and each of us contributes our sinful, broken self to that conflict. The preservation of unity in our marriages will require the ability to be peacemakers (Matthew 5: 9) with the conviction of seeking the rule of God’s kingdom in every conflict.
Part II: The Function of a Kingdom Marriage
Roles
A kingdom man is “a male who places himself underneath God’s rulership and lives his life submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ.” A kingdom woman is “a woman who positions herself under and operates according to the rule of God over every area of her life.”
Husbands, take a look at four key principles that, when applied, will turn your vow into wow in your marriage:
- Loving: A husband’s first role is to love his wife. The area where we fail so often as husbands is selfishness. It’s difficult for most men to give up our wants for our wives. Too many men these days sacrifice their relationship with their wives because of their careers or hobbies, but that is not fulfilling their role in marriage.
- Knowing Your Wife
- Honoring Your Wife
- Praying with Your Wife: Husbands, as leaders, are the spiritual thermostats of their marriages and families, setting the spiritual temperature of the home. The wife, however, is the thermometer, indicating the actual temperature readings in the home.
When the Bible discussions submission, Jesus Christ provides the divine example. Submission is a choice. It wasn’t forced. Submission that must be forced is not submission. Nor is the submission of the wife to her husband absolute, since her greater commitment is to the Lord.
So why is submission such a misunderstood and misapplied marriage principle? Many women feel unappreciated and unrecognized for their contributions to the home. When we get that wrong, a whole lot becomes wrong after it. Because of this, submission can seem like surrender—surrender to the status quo, surrender to a lack of recognition or value, or even surrender to boredom and a lack of purpose, meaning, and passion for life.
Submission comes from the Greek word hupotasso, which means “to willingly place oneself under the authority of another.” This is what Christ demonstrated on the cross.
Resolutions
As Gary Thomas writes in Sacred Marriage, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”
With marriage comes conflict—whether it’s competing values, preferences, desires, traits, or even control. Whatever causes conflict in your marriage, if you and your spouse will learn how to view it through the lens of God’s love, you can grow from it rather than allow it to destroy you.
We need to admit that marriage comes with thorns simply because both husbands and wives are human, but these thorns are a gift. The apostle Paul claimed, “There was given me a thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7).
One of the reasons God gives you a thorn is because He wants to show you something new. He wants you to see something beyond your normal comprehension, and He wouldn’t easily get your attention without it.
Another reason God gives thorns in our marriages is to keep us from exalting ourselves. Paul said, “To keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Thorns remind us that we are human, like everyone else. They keep us dependent on God.
God also allows a thorn in our lives to address an actual, or even a potential, sin in us. The thorn can be, although it is not always, disciplinary in nature (Hebrews 12:8–11). At a bare minimum, He wants to address the sin of our pride and self-sufficiency.
Paul said, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Paul not only accepted his thorn; he bragged about it. He praised God for his weaknesses, because in his weaknesses he discovered his true strength.
Requests
For far too many couples today, prayer is like a spare tire—stored away, just in case. It’s too easy to forget about it until you feel you need it to get out of a messed-up situation.
“Be anxious for nothing.” Even if that’s all we learn and apply to our marriages, we’d save a lot of heartache. Anxiety is a plague that targets way too many of us these days. More and more people are turning to anti-anxiety medications than ever before. Anxiety and worry hover at the base of a good amount of marital conflict.
Paul tells us to worry about nothing, and then he tells us “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6).
Worry about nothing and pray about everything. If you applied only these two principles in your marriage, you would still see drastic improvements. This is because prayer coupled with faith (a lack of worry) is that powerful (Mark 11:23).
Too often in our marriages, we react to our spouses out of our emotions rather than looking to God to see how we should respond.
Far too many spouses seek to be the Holy Spirit to their mates rather than leaving room for the real Holy Spirit to work.
In Philippians 4:7, Paul tells us one thing we can count on when we pray this way: “The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” We’ll get peace. Can your marriage stand some peace?
First Peter 3:7 reminds us of a very sobering truth. There’s more to having your prayers heard and answered than merely saying them. We read, “…so that your prayers will not be hindered.” Living with your spouse in a spirit of honor and unity will open the pathway to a more effective prayer life.
Restoration
First Corinthians 13:5 details this for us in a most straightforward way: Biblical love “keeps no record of wrongs.” If you have found yourself in a marriage with unresolved anger:
- Say something and do something every day that expresses value to your spouse.
- Pray daily for each other and with each other.
- Date regularly. Too many marriages get caught up in drudgery or routine, and spouses lose the fun they once had.
- Set an agreed-upon time weekly where you sit down together and allow the spouse who holds the unresolved anger to vent.
This four-step has been used with countless couples, and before long, that one hour a week turns into thirty minutes and then fifteen minutes—and then it’s not even needed at all.
The problems in our marriages are spiritual at their core, so the solutions to overcoming them must be spiritual as well. Only when you commit your conflict to prayer, healthy communication, humility, and forgiveness will you experience the power to overcome strongholds in your marriage.
Forgiveness is probably the greatest gift you can give your spouse, but it’s also the greatest gift you can give yourself. Forgiving opens your marriage to the flow of God’s favor to you, and through you, to your spouse.
Resources
One of the greatest contributors to financial health in a marriage is contentment. In fact, the apostle Paul called it a “secret.”
In or outside of marriage, you will find very few people today who are content. Contentment means being at rest, thankful and grateful for whatever situation you find yourself in.
More money doesn’t automatically translate into contentment. One of the happiest seasons in marriage for a lot of couples was when they started out without a dime to their names but knew that their love could take on the world.
In an 1863 speech calling for a national day of prayer and fasting, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!”
Do you give the Lord and His kingdom your best effort when it comes to using His resources for eternal purposes? Or do you spend your energy to make ends meet or increase your standard of living?
Use these three simple words to manage your finances: give, save, and spend.
- Give. Proverbs 3:9–10 says, “Honor the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce; so your barns will be filled with plenty.”
- Save. A portion of every dollar you earn should go into savings. When you make a practice of saving some of your money, you will be prepared for what is in store.
- Spend. But spend wisely. Plan your spending. Draw up, agree upon, and stick to a family budget. Play hard and enjoy life but also play smart. God tells us in Proverbs 21: 5, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.”
Romance
Sex in and of itself is not intimacy that leads to a deeper relational tie. Married couples can have sex during their entire marriage and yet never experience yada (Hebrew for “to know”). This is because yada involves much more than an action. It includes the elements of romantic attachment, desire, cultivation, and commitment regarding another person, which lead to a depth of knowing in a marriage. This is the kind of intimacy that arouses feelings of satisfaction, contentment, happiness, and joy with each other on an ongoing basis.
God uses the understanding and experience of intimacy in our marriage relationships to give us clues to the unique intimacy within the Trinity, and it also serves as a down payment on the intimacy His children will experience with the Lord in eternity. Jesus made it clear, in his High Priestly Prayer, that He wanted the unity and oneness of His followers to share in the joyful experience of intimacy that He Himself shared with His Father (John 17:5, 13, 21).
It also explains why marriage will no longer be needed in heaven, since we will have the full and direct experience of intimacy with God (Matthew 22:30).
One of the greatest obstacles to developing true physical intimacy in a marriage is a failure to correctly comprehend the needs of the other person and then meet those needs first. Duty goes beyond physical intimacy.
Marriage was designed as a way of bringing out the best in both of you so that you can jointly fulfill God’s purposes in your lives. Enjoy this gift He has given you. Honor it. Cherish it. And keep the romance alive.
Rebuilding
A married woman once said, “I was looking for the ideal, but instead it became an ordeal, and now I want a new deal.” A man put it this way: “Marriage has become like a three-ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.”
What you say, how you say it, and even when you say it affects whether you are building someone up or tearing someone down. Your mouth reveals your heart and simultaneously affects someone else’s, for good or for bad.
Our Lord instructs us in Colossians 4:6 to “let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” In other words, put some flavor on your words so that you make them as tasty as possible and remove the option for decay. That’s what salt does; it adds flavor and inhibits decay.
Your tongue, and what you say, has the ability to steer your marriage toward mutual satisfaction and benefit or mutual despair and harm. Choose your words carefully, because within them is housed both life and death.
Let David’s prayer be your own daily prayer for your marriage: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19: 14).
Pray that verse each morning and abide by it, and you will see life restored in your marriage.
Conclusion
In John 2:5, Mary, the mother of Jesus, tells the servants at a marriage feast, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” That’s an important statement. It’s also a statement that often goes unnoticed and unheeded in our everyday lives. Sure, we understand what Mary told the servants to do. But if we were to apply her advice to our lives and marriages, how much better off would we be?
A successful kingdom marriage can be boiled down to that one phrase:
