Several reasons exists as to why married couples need Jesus to be the Lord of their relationship. To begin with, there’s the very purpose for which God established marriage: to reflect Himself.
Jimmy Evans illustrates this by zeroing in on the statement God made in the beginning, “Let Us make mankind in Our own image.” Who’s the Us and the Our? This is the first hint in Scripture that God is trinitarian, three in one.
Pastor Evans brings three men on stage and stands them shoulder to shoulder to symbolize the Godhead. Then he brings up a married couple and points out that the husband (representing Adam) doesn’t look like the trinitarian Creator, then to the couple now standing together to show that they also don’t look like the triune God (the three guys). So far, marriage is not looking much like God.
Then Pastor Evans walks over and stands with his arms around the couple, illustrating clearly that God is the necessary third piece of a marriage to have it reflect God, as He intended. The real point is that marriage must include God if it is to reflect God.
Another reason God – and more specifically, God the Son, Jesus – is the necessary third party in marriage is that marriage must have that one ingredient that only Jesus provides. Jesus came into our human world for the distinct purpose of availing that very ingredient to us. It’s the ingredient that saves each of us from our deserved judgment and into life forever with God in His eternal Heaven. It’s the ingredient necessary for us to be free from the chains of bondage we forged with our sinfulness. It’s what Jesus alone brought to sinning people like me. It’s what we need most and cannot attain except with Jesus.
It’s grace. Grace eliminates the horror we deserve and provides generously the beauty we do not deserve.
Grace is absolutely necessary for a great marriage; the intention of forgiving in advance whatever hurt a spouse may cause is the secret to having an awesome marriage. Every other approach to marriage will come up short and soon have the couple drowning in the quicksand of resentment and bitterness.
Since grace is necessary for marriage and it cannot be found except in Jesus, its author, then Jesus is necessary for any marriage to be a good one.
Some may say, “Wait, I agree that my marriage needs grace, but I disagree that I cannot produce the grace it needs without Jesus’ help.”
Well, I strongly disagree. But let’s assume for a moment that you’re right. You don’t need Jesus in your marriage because you can produce grace from your own heart and give it out freely to your spouse. In that case, you can have an awesome marriage without Jesus having a place in it.
Again, it is no more possible to produce grace apart from Jesus than to produce an elephant from a mouse. But if you could, and you could have a great marriage without Jesus, you still have no hope for eternity. You’ll have a great marriage on this earth. But once you and your spouse do by death finally part, you will enter into a forever long regret, because only through Jesus may you attain eternal life with God in Heaven. So, foolish spouse, you have gained the whole marital world, but lost your soul.
If you’re a person who hasn’t gone all in on Jesus, please realize that He is God’s answer to our sin problem. Start now believing in Him to make you right with God and to be reconciled with Him forever.
And simultaneously, allow Him the seat of honor in your marriage relationship. For He is that necessary third in marriage.