Marriage is a sacred one-flesh union which should be dearly cherished by both husband and wife. Yet many couples fall into the trap of making their spouse the center of their marriage, rather than God. This can only lead to disillusionment, as our mate will, in time, fall short and disappoint us—especially whenever God is not exalted as the primary focus of the marital bond.
In this podcast Scott Brown and Jason Dohm, joined by special guest Steve Hopkins, address this pitfall and explain how to make Christ preeminent in marriage. Their outline is simple: Strive to become like Christ through daily personal Bible reading and prayer, corporate daily Bible reading and prayer with one’s whole family, and daily prayer alone together as husband and wife. Rather than looking to your spouse as the source of fulfillment, exalt God’s Word, sing songs together, and earnestly seek the face of Christ.
Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture. We're here today to talk about the sufficiency, the preeminence of Christ in a marriage. And what does it mean that Christ is preeminent in your marriage? And we have Steve Hopkins to talk about this whole subject.
Hey Steve. How you guys doing? We're doing great. So good to see you. Steve is a pastor at Burnet Bible Church in Burnet, Texas.
He also works in Texas with the pastors in our network. Dear friend for a long time. What a blessing, Steve, it's been to know you over these many years and your family and just to walk through all this stuff. I really, really appreciate you being with us today. Amen.
We appreciate you too, Scott. And Jason. Good to see you. Jason. Yes, indeed.
We're kind of Steve Hopkins fans out here, Jason and I are. Okay, so let's talk about the preeminence of Christ. The Bible talks a lot about the duties of marriage in Ephesians 5, you know, 22 to 33. It's very heavy, heavy weighted on the side of the husband. The husband has lots of duties, very specifically.
The wife has basically two, to, to submit and to, and to respect your husband. And of course, that's not the only thing that wives and husbands are, have a duty for, but those are the specific duties. And you know, while the duties are very important, marriage isn't really sweetened by duty, it's really sweetened by the preeminence of Jesus Christ. Marriage has obligations. Each partner has biblical obligations.
There are commands. But marriage isn't just sustainable by roles and responsibilities. It's really sustained by Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. So becoming like Christ is really the heart of a marriage. The center of marriage isn't authority and submission.
It really is Christ, and since Christ is the head of the church, then the preeminence of Christ in a marriage follows. You might have heard a preacher talk about a top button issue. That's a shirt buttoning analogy that just acknowledges when you're buttoning the shirt, if you get the top button right and the button goes into the right hole, then things will be right all down the line. If you get the top button wrong, it's wrong all the way down the line. You won't be able to do anything else until you unbutton and start again.
Christ at the center of a marriage is that If you get that right, you find things down the line tend to fall into place, and even the things that don't fall into place, you have a lot of hope to be able to get them right by God's grace. If you got the top button wrong, something else is at the center of that marriage. Even if you fix one of the things that's wrong, you really haven't fixed the problem in the marriage. It's just a symptom. Yeah, amen.
So I want to just take us to Colossians 1, 18. And he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have their preeminence. And so in a marriage, the first question and last question is what would what's pleasing to Jesus Christ in this conversation, in this situation, in this moment of our relating together as a marriage and a marriage. So, but anyway, Steve, how does this work out? How is this solidified in a family?
Yeah, I don't know how Christ could be the center of a home unless there is a really a resolve on the part of husbands and fathers to be gathering their family together in family worship. I think that's been the most helpful thing for us in our 37 years or so, 36 years of raising children. We kind of got into this maybe about, a little over two decades ago, where we were introduced to family worship time that is non-negotiable, where we're gathering the family every day, husbands, fathers gathering the family every day. If you've got a wife, you know, your wife, if you've got children, gathering your children together every day. I don't know how you can make Christ the center of your home unless you're in his word together with your family every day, discipling them in the word of God.
It's been the most helpful thing for us for about 20, maybe 2, 23 years of doing that every day. Five days a week is about what we do in family worship time. Saturdays, everybody sleeps in and we kind of do things different. Sundays, we're all going to church and everything, or we got a little bit different schedule, but we've been consistent on that, and it's been the most helpful thing. And I've had, you know, I've had men in the past, One man in particular I'm thinking of right now who came back one day and he says hey Steve We go out and have lunch.
He'd been at the church many many years ago Maybe 15 years ago and he said, you know, and he cried when he said this He said, you know the one thing that has helped my marriage and my family more than anything else was learning at Burnett Bible Church to to to make Christ the center of our home by gathering together my wife and my children every day and worshiping God in the family opening the scriptures together with my family, praying to God together in the family, singing the praises of God together in the family. You know Steve, I was in your house several years ago And you had all 16 of your children in family worship, reading together. Yeah, I did say 16 children for anybody who's listening. Steve has 16 children. But of course, you know, only eight of them are left.
The rest of them have gotten married. Right. Is that correct? It's eight. You have eight left at home.
Yes. Eight are still at home and two of those will be married by January. It looks like we'll have six after that. You know, when, is that an empty nest? Is six an empty nest?
No, no, because you got a bunch of grandchildren running around that place. So, you know, when, crazy. So, you know, when Deborah and I still had children in the home, it was, it was family worship. That was what we did together. We never, Deborah and I never had an kind of a, just the two of us time in the word of God where I was washing her in the water of the word.
It happened through family, our time in reading the Bible. Now we do read the Bible, just the two of us, but we never did before. But Deborah, she was very satisfied by that. So, Steve and Scott, when we talk about making Christ the center of your marriage, I immediately, in preparation to this, I was jotting down a few notes, thought about what's the alternative. So the alternative is something else as the center of your marriage and this is just the thought of that is really crushing for both partners.
Why is that so? It's crushing for both partners because then somebody's looking to something else or someone else to provide the things that Jesus has made us to look to him for. And oftentimes that's the spouse. Like, I need you to fill this space that God made me to look to Christ for. So if Christ isn't the center of the marriage, maybe I'm the center of the marriage, or even you're the center of the marriage, either one is really damaging because you begin to look to that other thing or that other person for something that you can only actually get fulfilled.
Only Jesus can do that. So it sets you up for a never-ending quest where you never find what you're hoping for and looking for. And it makes you disappointed in your spouse, but it's not their fault. They were never designed or equipped to give you the thing that you're looking for but can't find. Absolutely, which is why it's essential to not only be getting together with your wife and your children, if you have children worshiping God together, but getting alone with God, absolutely essential to be alone with God, each of you.
If Christ is gonna be the center of your marriage, as you're saying, he's gonna be the center of your life individually, and you need to be getting alone with God, and getting in his word, and being in prayer. You know, as an elder and a pastor, you know, we're having these meetings with men every Sunday after the fellowship meal. And there's always three things that we ask men, many things we talk about, but we always make sure we ask these three things. Number one, are you getting along with God in prayer and in his word every day. You're setting aside that time and you can't assume, pastors can't assume that it's happening just because you preach about it and you teach about it and say this is what we need to do.
You can't just assume it. You have to kind of follow up and you have to be involved in the lives of these men and have personal one-on-one conversations with them and find out what's going on. But many times what we'll hear is, well, I'm trying to. So we have to encourage and we have to, you know, exhort. You've got to get back on track.
But number one, are you spending time with the Lord alone in prayer and in his word every day? And number two, are you gathering, you know, your family, if it's just your wife, your wife, if you have children, your wife and children, you're gathering them together and discipling them and leading them in the worship of God, you know, and then number three, you know, are you praying with your wife alone away from the family separately? Those are the three things that we ask, and I think all three of those very very important in making Christ the center of your home. If he's going to be the center in family worship, he's going to have to be the center of your life before family worship when you get up in the morning and you pray and you're alone with God together and communing with Him. You know, if we would have Christ as center of our marriage, then it's Christ that's compelling us and moving us.
In 2 Corinthians 5.14, We're told, for the love of Christ compels us, and then that he who died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. You know, a marriage where you're moved by the wisdom of Jesus Christ, you're compelled, what you do, it actually arises out of the fruitfulness of your love for the Lord. You know, glorying in his wisdom, you know, counting all things as lost for Christ, as we're told in Philippians 3, 7 through 8, I count all things as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish that I may gain Christ you know Having Christ as preeminent in marriage means that the marriage partners must have Christ preeminent in their hearts. One time I heard you say, Steve, when a husband washes his wife in the water of the Word, He too gets a bath. Yeah.
Yeah. When he watches his wife and the Word, he's getting a bath at the same time, and the whole family is getting a bath. Yeah. Okay. So what does it mean to have Christ the center of your marriage?
It means that Christ is the center of your heart. Christ is preeminent. He's the top button. He's the first. He's the one that determines everything else.
And if our concern is the glory of Jesus Christ, representing Jesus Christ, speaking the words of Christ, then we'll probably be okay. If we're all wrapped up in ourselves trying to get our own way or fulfill our own desires, it might not work out very well. But the preeminence of Christ in marriage is the preeminent matter for marriage. So Steve, thanks so much. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.
And so Jason, maybe we can learn how to make Christ even more preeminent. Amen to that. That'd be great. Okay. Hope to see you next time on the Church and Family Life podcast.
And I also hope you can come and be with us at our next conference in St. Louis called Build Dwell Plant, which is all about family life. I really am excited about that conference. And then next year in April, our national conference on making disciples, really a pivotal conference. And then we have two pre-conferences.
One is to train preachers and leaders. We got a whole day with Steve Lawson and Kevin Swanson and Alexander Strouk and myself are going to have a pre-conference pastors conference. We're also going to do our singles conference again and I'll be at both of those. Hope you can join us. See you next time.