Marriage is Worship: the Creator, Sovereign, and Savior

Paul Tripp 5 God sovereignty rules your marriage

God has brought Paul and his wife together from hugely diverse backgrounds to stand in a lunch line together in college. Imagine the detail of God orchestrating the precise details of every single person's existence on the planet. It is his plan. The hassle of those differences is not an obstacle. It is his plan. We mock the sovereign God when we  are disrespectful to our spouse or her family background or any other kind of discontentment. It is first and last me wanting to be God the sovereign. Me thinking I could plan things better than this. No I could not. Deep abiding purpose of marriage is personal holiness. The mess that is our marriage is Gods mess and it is for our good. We either embrace and celebrate his sovereignty or me curse him and try to usurp him

We worship God as Creator, Sovereign, and Savior. It would be impossible for me to love my spouse more than Jesus does. Growth in grace is worshiping and resting in the Redeemers hands. If we don't rest in the Redeemer we try to be a better redeemer than he is and that does not work. Tere is one Redeemer and it's not me. When I bow my knee to the glory of God as Creator, Sovereign, to his glorious grace as Redeemer, then we experience love and unity in marriage. We love the way we ought, the way we were designed to love.

Paul is tired of what he calls Christian body part books. These books come off as if we don't know where stuff is. We always carry the character and quality of the marriage into the marriage bed. If we have been seeking the kingdom of self out there, of course we are going to have walls and dysfunction when we are naked in bed with each other. If you want pleasure in sex in your marriage then find pleasure in God, in the Creator, Sovereign, the Redeemer.

Paul hits pornography really hard. Many men have used their wives merely as instruments of masturbation. It is a short step for men to move to pornography to gratify their sexual urges. Problem is not the computer. The problem is worship. If you worship yourself in the marriage bed you have a crisis of worship first and last. A marriage of unity and understanding is rooted in worship. My thoughts: thus fornication and adultery are so heinous because they are such a distortion of worship. And sexual unfaithfulness begins with seeking the kingdom of self in a mans relation with my wife.

Marriage is a moment of grace, step into that grace. God is painting your life on the canvas of his grace with the pallet of his grace. Husbands and wives at the brushes. There are hard brush women and men in this room. Or bristles must be soften by the same grace that enables us to love our spouses. Seek grace to soften the bristles. We need grace to extend grace.

I am thrilled with his conclusion, tears. He described the wonder of final, eyes wide open worship on the great day. Wonder and glory!