Or, Inspecting the Loves System
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: February 16, 2025
Speaker: Sean Higgins
By God’s grace most of us don’t need to be convinced that marriage is God’s idea and God’s institution. He created it, He defines it, He blesses it. We have folks who are married, who have been married, who want to be married, along with the joys and pains that belong with all those categories. We think healthy marriages are necessary for a healthy church, and for a God-honoring city and nation.
The pastors, who are all married men, also know that it’s always tempting to turn the music up louder to cover the rattling sounds. Even Christians wait until the wheels fall off, some in the name of heavenly-pursuits. We’ve had marriage seminars in the past and various sermons on the subject, but it seemed right to start a pattern of scheduled tune-ups for spouses, and then for parents, every other year. Let’s open up the hood.
As with our cars, a tune-up isn’t supposed to be an overhaul or engine replacement, though it’s possible that a tune-up could reveal an issue about to blow up. A tune-up is regular maintenance to keep things running smoothly, maybe even to prevent a bigger problem down the road.
In this illustration, the spouses—you—are the home mechanics. Your marriage is you, but also, not you; it’s a thing you can work on (and get better at working on). The Bible is the owner’s manual, even if specific service “How-tos” aren’t in an alphabetized index at the back. Pastors aren’t necessarily experts, though a qualified pastor must be a one-woman man and overseeing his own household (1 Timothy 3:2, 4). He also must not shrink back from any part of God’s Word, including the verses that confront quarrelsome wives (Proverbs 27:15). We’ve organized this tune-up day for you to check in on a few crucial systems, for the progress and joy of your faith as husbands and wives.
When the rubber meets the road, every marriage breakdown is a heart problem. This is both the most hopeful and brutal part. We always do what we most want to do, and what we did shows what we desired. So we always love what we most what to love, and that isn’t always what we should love or what is lovely, or even what we say we love.
That’s hopeful because God saves men to be lovers. That’s brutal because there’s no one else to blame but ourselves when we’re lazy or lukewarm lovers.
The primary text for this message isn’t directly about marriage, and yet our marriages can’t get divorced from this text either.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:1–5 ESV)
This is love. Consider the context, even as Jesus knew His context.
Jesus was mere hours from being betrayed to death; He was about “to depart out of this world.” In terms of pressure, His primary work project was in crunch time. His whole life, and we might even say all of eternity (1 Peter 1:19-20), led to this moment. And twelve dudes’ feet were dirty? How did that “need” compare with Jesus’ situation? In terms of appreciation, none of the guys in that room really understood, and one of them was full of devil-driven envy and spite. In terms of status, there wasn’t any question who should have been serving who. Jesus left no doubt.
When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13:12–17 ESV)
So you’re busy. You don’t like the attitude in the room. You think you shouldn’t have to do the unpleasant thing. That just shows who you really love, right?
The setup, not just for the sacrificial death, but for the humble foot-washing, is Jesus’ love. He had loved His own and He loved them to the end (verse 1). Of all the tools in the cosmos,love picked up a towel.
Should you leave your towel on the floor to provide your spouse an opportunity to be like Jesus? Come on, people.
“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
Christians are the worst sometimes. Since love believes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7), I believe that the first preacher who ever said “Love is a verb” really meant well. And love is a verb, but that gets whipped out like a sword against sentimentality and has also cut off warmth. Are feelings the standard of love? No. But love is an affection in action. Love cares, love is feeling in covenant. Love is not heartless service or sacrifice.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3 ESV)
You can verb away all your things, you can verb your life to death by fire, and “have not love.”
‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:2–4 ESV)
We like our “love is a verb” wall to protect our actual lukewarm loves, if not our love in absentia.
Maybe you are remembering that only husbands are commanded to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25, Colossians 3:19). Do wives need a different message? Ha, no.
Yes, wives have it easier, they are commanded to do whatever their husband says (Ephesians 5:22, 24), just as the church is to obey Jesus (Ephesians 5:23), “in everything” (verse 24). But why does the church submit to her Head? Because she loves Him. So older women should train younger women, first of all, to be known as husband-lovers (Titus 2:4). There is so much love from a wife that it characterizes her.
For that matter, if you are a Christian, then love your neighbor (Matthew 22:39; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Love one another (John 13:34; Romans 12:10; 1 John 5:11-12). Love your enemy if you have to (Matthew 5:43-44).
Husbands, love your wife by cherishing her (the key Greek word in Ephesians 5:29 is pronounced thalpo, meaning “I warm up” or “keep warm”), and she will feel the security, and increase in beauty. Wives, love your husband by obeying, and he will feel the respect and increase in substance (known in the gates per Proverbs 31:23).
Failure to love/falling out of love is not a thing that “happens” to you. If your love levels have gotten low, repent. Ask forgiveness from God and from your spouse. Then to get your love running like it should:
Pray. If we ask according to God’s will, He hears and answers (1 John 5:14). Is there anything more His will than our proper loves (Matthew 22:37-40; John 13:34; 1 John 4:7-8)? Jesus will change your heart, actually.
Worship. God is love (1 John 4:8). God reveals, defines, and demonstrates love. The gospel itself shows us affection in sacrifice (Romans 5:8). Love just as Jesus loved (John 13:34). And consider how His love recreates the world. You need broader imaginative coordinates of the power of love, and beholding God transforms us more and more into the glory of His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Thank. Affections are yolked with appreciation. Most happy couples are out-grateful for the other person. For that matter, thankfulness is an antidote to sexual covetousness/lust which is a true love-wrecker (Ephesians 5:3-5).
Get filled with Word and Spirit. Both Ephesians 5:18 and Colossians 3:16 result in thankfulness, and they both precede the household codes for husbands and wives (Ephesians 5:22-24, 25-31; Colossians 3:18-19), and the Spirit’s fruit tastes most like love (Galatians 5:22).
Beware the world (of screens). Porn will ruin your appetite and expectations. Hollywood is a tease for the “desire of the eyes” (1 John 2:16). Don’t be slaves to your flesh, don’t feed it (Romans 12:2; Romans 13:13-14; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; 2 Peter 2:17-19).
Spend. Not just money, not necessarily even minutes. But spend attention, and spend your praise.
Please God. Just as Jesus took up a towel while thinking about what the Father had given Him and that He was going to God (John 13:1, 3), seek to please God more and more (1 Thessalonians 4:1).
How is your heart? How is your Loves System operating? Are you trying to push your marriage down the road because the engine is seized?
Love your own husband/wife, and love him/her to the end. If you know these things, jealousable will be your marriages and families and households if you love and do them.
Beloved, there is no instant marriage hack to fix or fill your heart. It is the most divine-among-humans relationship on the planet, so more than anything, you need God’s blessing. But good news! You serve the God of love and blessing. May He BLESS you to LOVE one another.
Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:11, 14 ESV)