I’ve explained this before, but let me quickly review.

When we get married, we make a vow, I will love my spouse, in sickness or in health, till death do we part. Our spouse is saying, No matter whether you help clean the house or cook the meals or remember birthdays or do the yard work, I will love you, no matter what. You don’t have to do anything to be loved. I commit my love for you.

In marriages, as we get to know our spouses and our spouses get to know us, we see each others good and bad. We see some of the worst, the selfish, the greedy, the immature, the vindictive, the deceitful, the ugliest sides of each other, and we say, I’ve committed my love to you. There are no conditions to this promise. Nothing you do or don’t do can change that.

Marriage and Gospel Living is not about trying to be loved, but about love already given. Security.

Someone asked me in Gospel Living, what’s the place of obedience, service, doing? Doesn’t it matter what I do? I’m sure many of us have asked this question.

If a guy says, okay, in marriage, I should take out the trash, help with the dishes, call her from work once a day, buy her presents, etc. And if I do all these things, then I’m a good husband.

Yes, it’s good to do these kinds of things, but that misses the whole point of marriage. Marriage is about a relationship. Marriage is about knowing and loving a person.

Christianity is not about rules, duties, obedience. It’s about a relationship, it’s about knowing, loving, enjoying, trusting a person. Jesus becomes more beautiful, more glorious, more sweet as the years go by.

It’s the Martha complex. Martha was busy preparing a meal for Jesus, but her sister Mary sat at His feet. Jesus says, Mary has chosen what is better.

We’re so busy doing so many things, we can miss the whole point. More than wanting our service, God wants our hearts. Learn to sit there and enjoy, love, rest in Him.

Maybe some of us like cooking, and so we cook a lot. At one level, it may look like we’re loving our spouse. But it is possible that all the cooking is more because we just like cooking. We like Food Network, we like food. We liked cooking before we ever met our spouse. It may not have much to do with loving our spouse.

Some of may like studying, helping people, playing music or singing, helping the poor—we find joy in it. But it is possible that again, we’ve missed the whole point. We may do all these things (as some nonChristians do) but not love God.

We do these because we like them, or people will admire us if we do them, or we think these are the right things to do—but it’s not flowing out of our love for God.

We’ve missed the focus. It’s like a marriage with the right activities, but not much love.

Having said that, if we love our spouse, then of course, we’ll want to serve, we’ll want to do what they ask, perhaps we’ll want to cook for them. We’ll even start caring about the things they care about.

We’ll want to learn more about God, we’ll want to spend time with Him, we’ll want to serve Him and help others to know Him. We’ll care about the things God cares about. But the foundational piece must be that we love our God. I’ve said, it is our passion for God from which all our other passions must flow.

Let me also point out the other side: some of us aren’t about doing. This is the husband who doesn’t take out the trash, doesn’t help with the dishes, doesn’t call from work or buy present. Imagine a husband who sits on the couch, never helps in the kitchen, never helps with the house chores or the kids. All he does is watch ESPN or surf the net. Once a week he says, I love you, you are beautiful to me, I give you my heart, but stays on the couch.

Obviously, no wife would believe this man. The words of love are empty, even offensive. Let me say, spiritually, that’s what some of us look like. We come to church and sing these songs, but there’s little in our life that demonstrates we actually love God.

The real problem isn’t that this husband doesn’t help or serve his wife. The problem is, he doesn’t really love her, cherish her, care for her. He just cares for himself. Our main spiritual problem isn’t that we’re not doing enough, it’s that we don’t love Jesus enough. The primary focus of marriage is on loving our spouse. The primary focus of Gospel Living is on loving our Jesus.

Suppose you have a wonderful husband. Suppose he loves you completely and to the core. There is nothing he wouldn’t give you—his time, money, future. In fact, he’d die for you.

Then I say, so how’s marriage. Tell me about your husband. You say, well I make him coffee in the morning, I call him at work, I made his favorite dish for dinner last night, I bought him an iPhone for his birthday.

I say, that’s nice. That tells me about you. But, tell me about your husband. I still don’t know anything about your husband.

I ask, tell me about your relationship with God. Tell me about your God.

I go to church, I’m in a small group, I do my QT, I went to the retreat last month.

That tells me about you, but I don’t know anything about your God. I want to hear about your God. Tell me who He is and what He does in your life.

E.g., when we pray, many times I hear prayer like

Those are good prayers. We should bring our needs before God.

But something is missing. I don’t see anything about this person’s God. I don’t see this person seeing, recognizing, beholding anything about God. I see something about the person’s needs, but I don’t see much about the person’s God.

In contrast, look at the prayers in the Bible.

This is another way of saying #3.

A problem in marriage is that we are very self-centered. We have this deep instinct to make everything about ourselves. We have trouble seeing other people, because we’re almost completely self-absorbed. This is a real hindrance in marriage and in Gospel Living.

Imagine an insecure, 17 year old girl dating a 17 year old boy. “I love him.” What she really means is, I love the way he makes me feel. I love that he’s attracted to me and makes me feel special. I love how he thinks I’m funny, deep, bright, charming, etc.

She doesn’t really love him. She barely even sees him. She just loves the way he make her feel.

Imagine now, a 70 year old couple, married for 40 years. “I love him.” What she means is, I love him. He is caring, faithful, handy, strong. He is good, and he’s been good to me.

For the 17 year old, it’s all about self. Her self-centeredness becomes a real hindrance in her relationship. It blinds her from seeing and loving her husband. And the more immature and self-centered she is, the more relational troubles she’ll have.

For the 70 year old, it’s all about the other. She sees him, she loves him. That enables her to find joy in him. That’s what marriage is supposed to be like: each partner focused on the other.

The problem is, we are far more self-centered, immature, insecure than we realize. We are so radically, instinctively, intuitively self-centered. We’re a lot more like that 17 year-old than the 70 year-old. This hurts our marriages, and it hurt our relationship with God.

Another enemy in marriage is lust. Let me take it from the guy’s side, but it applies to women as well. Here’s a guy who has wandering eyes. It’s a real temptation when watching TV, movies, the different pop-ups on the web. During the warmer weather, just walking around outside is not easy.

Obviously, this lust problem causes problem in marriage. His eyes are to be reserved for his wife. It does not honor her that he has sexual thoughts when seeing other women.

For women, it does not honor him when she has emotional attachments and fantasies with other men.

Likewise in our relationship with Christ. We have wandering eyes and hearts. We’re so easily tempted to turn to career, wealth, reputation, comfort, marriage, kids, etc. There are so many things we dream about, spent our time and money on. Our eyes and hearts lust after other things not God. We’re supposed have intimacy, love, joy, satisfaction in God, but we’re looking for an affair.

The problem is, we don’t really believe our God is that great. It is a problem of unbelief. We’re not satisfied. We keep trying to fill our hearts with other things. Our hearts keep reaching out for other things. If you’re honest, I think you’d agree this spiritual lust problem is deep and wide.

So let’s say someone is deeply self-centered and deeply lustful, this is going to cause big problems in marriage. And if this guy wants to have a real marriage, not just on paper but in his life, he’s going to have to do some real work. He may need to implement some safeguards, be intentional about investing in his marriage, he may need counseling. He will need to incorporate some practices into lifestyle because he is not going to naturally have a great marriage. In fact, left to himself, he will destroy his marriage.

So likewise in our relationship with God. The truth of the matter is we’re really far worse than we realize. We overestimate our hearts and underestimate our sinfulness.

We are not naturally bent toward Gospel Living. Left to ourselves, we’ll make everything about ourselves and seek pleasure is everything else. As mentioned, the problem is not that we forget. The problem is that we are bent away from God.

An additional problem is that we don’t realize how sinful we are. We think we’re good Christians, or at least, we’re not that bad. We’re better than most. The truth is that we have a severe and aggressive sin cancer, but we don’t think so. We think we have indigestion. So we take our spiritual conditional casually.

I think that’s why some of us are complacent and lazy. We don’t see how serious our sinful hearts are. We don’t see how sad our relationship with God really is. We don’t think we’re that bad. We’re being swallowed up by this cancer, but we sit around and think it’s not a big deal. There’s no urgency.

We need to be diligent about incorporating spiritual practices that help bend our self-centered hearts to be more God-centered and our lack of faith to be strengthened.

I think there are times when God, in His mercy, does reach down and reveal His goodness, His peace, His protection and presence. He helps us experience Him so sweetly, that we do find peace, strength, comfort in Him.

However, I find that for most, it is a slow and long process of battling against these enemies and growing in being able to see God more clearly.

In marriage, its not that we have a good marriage or a bad marriage. It’s process. What have a marriage certificate, and so there’s no question about our legal status. But making marriage a true reality, living in the sweetness of committed love with another person—this is a process.

There’s a time when we make a decision for Christ, when we invite Him into our lives. But living in this relationship, living in the sweetness of committed love with an Almighty God—this is a process.

Gospel Living is not an on/off, black/white thing, in reality, it’s more of a spectrum. We’ll always have our sinful desires, our self-centeredness, our unbelief, but we grow in becoming more God-centered, more trusting/resting/delighting in Him.

For most of us, it is a slow and long process. We’re Growing in Gospel Living.

I think this journey will have up’s and down’s over weeks, months and years, but I also think we’ll have up’s and down’s hour by hour.

It’s about me, what I do ß ------------------------------à It’s about God, what He does

I’m seeking acceptance I feel completely accepted

I’m seeking satisfaction I’ve found deep satisfaction

I see myself, my reputation, my accomplishments I see Him, His glory, His work

I love myself, I’m somebody I love Jesus, Worthy is the Lamb