The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

by Timothy J. Keller

Jesus’s sacrificial service to us has brought us into a deep union with him and he with us. And that, Paul says, is the key not only to understanding marriage but to living it.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

Only if you have learned to serve others by the power of the Holy Spirit will you have the power to face the challenges of marriage.

Christians have learned that the worship of God with the whole heart in the assurance of his love through the work of Jesus Christ is the thing their souls were meant to “run on.”

That is, you only discover your own happiness after each of you has put the happiness of your spouse ahead of your own, in a sustained way, in response to what Jesus has done for you.

We were made to serve God and others. That means paradoxically that if we try to put our own happiness ahead of obedience to God, we violate our own nature and become, ultimately, miserable.

Jesus restates the principle when he says, “Whoever wants to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). He is saying, “If you seek happiness more than you seek me, you will have neither; if you seek to serve me more than serve happiness, you will have both.”

Paul applies this principle to marriage. Seek to serve one another rather than to be happy, and you will f...