Key points
- 1
1Marriage is meant to be a covenant of love, not a contract of mutual expectations.
“God invented marriage primarily for holiness not for happiness. Now that sounds morbid. That doesn't mean you won't be happy. But if I go after holiness, I will have joy”
“Marriage is supposed to be a covenant of love, not a contract of expectations”
“contracts exist to satisfy selfishness. Covenants exist to selflessly satisfy”
Illustration
NFL contract illustration: David Johnson's rookie contract renegotiation used to show how contracts are inherently self-interested
- 2
2Contracts are rooted in selfishness; every person naturally enters relationships wanting the better deal for themselves.
“the opposite of love isn't hate. It's selfishness”
- 3
3Contractual, conditional love is a false love — it counts nothing when expectations are met and breeds resentment when they are not.
- 4
4Covenantal marriage means submitting your expectations and making your 'win' the fulfillment of your spouse's hopes and dreams.
- 5
5Marriage is a picture of Jesus and the church — one party is unfaithful and selfish, the other loves sacrificially to the point of death.
- 6
6Submitting to one another in marriage is only possible when you have first submitted your life to Jesus.
“You will never submit to one another if you haven't submitted to Jesus”
“Who created the universe? Who created you? Who created your spouse? Who created marriage? And who wants to sit there struggling in failure and argue with the one who created it all”
A story from life
Pastor's father, a pitcher who struck out Ted Williams, coaching him through counterintuitive adjustments — used to illustrate arguing with a more knowledgeable authority
Application
The pastor's challenge is straightforward and personal: this week, decide in your heart whether God is who He says He is — the Creator of you, your spouse, and marriage itself. If He is, stop arguing with Him and start listening. Practically, that means identifying where you have been treating your marriage like a contract — tracking who gives more, nursing resentments over unmet expectations, or praying for a better deal rather than a changed heart. Then take one step toward covenant: ask yourself what your spouse's deepest hopes and dreams actually are, and pursue those rather than your own. For those not yet married, the call is to become the right kind of spouse before looking for one. For those in painful or broken marriages, the invitation is to find hope not in renegotiating terms but in the sacrificial love Jesus modeled — and to submit to Him first, so that submitting to one another becomes possible.
