Marriage can be really difficult.

Just ask Otou Katayama and his wife, Yumi. [image: Katayama 1] In the mid-90’s, after the birth of their second child, Otou became jealous of how much of his wife’s attention was going to their children, instead of him.

So he decided to give her the silent treatment. Literally. He stopped talking to her beyond just grunts and nods. And because he was a very stubborn man who refused to back down, this went on for years. 20 years, in fact.

It went on until 2017, when one of their adult children contacted a Japanese TV show [image: Katayama 2] which arranged for Otou and Yumi to sit on a bench in the park where they had their first date. There, the silence was finally broken.

Here’s what Otou said to Yumi as his sobbing children watched on from a distance:

“Somehow it’s been a while since we talked. You were so concerned about the kids. Yumi, up until now, you have endured a lot of hardship. I want you to know I’m grateful for everything. I also want to talk after this. I hope we can work together from here.”

This story floors me. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. To imagine this couple suffering in literal silence for decades, rather than simply addressing the problem, is wild to me.

And yet, as much as we might be tempted to roll our eyes at this couple, or to pat ourselves on the back for not being so petty in our own marriages, let’s just take a moment to think about some of the strategies we do often employ as a community when marriage gets tough.

(And don’t worry, no names… but these are all based on real life examples, and I’m sure you’ve seen them too.)

• Making fun of your spouse in public instead of addressing problems at home.

• Having extended marital arguments via text message.

• Self-medicating your marital sorrows away with alcohol or drugs.

• Having screaming matches in the kitchen.

• Making passive aggressive comments to your spouse to try to change them.

• Having an affair because you want to feel wanted again.

• Getting hopelessly addicted to increasingly extreme pornography.

• Stuffing your frustration and rage down deep and pretending everything is just fine until one day, like a volcano, you erupt.

Maybe the silent treatment isn’t so extreme after all.

Marriage can be really difficult. So what are we supposed to do when it is?

SERIES RECAP

Well, that’s the topic for today, the final week of our three-part marriage series, “First Comes Love.”

As you’ve seen if you’ve been here, the first two weeks of this series were pretty idealistic. Intentionally. I wanted to set the bar high for the kind of marriages the Bible calls us to have. What we refer to as:

Covenant Faithfulness - marriage as an eternal bond fueled by self-giving love

The kind of marriage Adam and Chava - Adam and Eve - first had in the garden, before everything fell apart. Unified, purposeful, unashamed…

This is the ideal. What marriage was created to be. But as we’ve seen, humanity has fallen far short of that ideal.

At least we did, until Jesus came on the scene and taught us an entirely different way to live. The way of self-giving love. Of agape love.

Now, thanks to the Holy Spirit’s help, our marriages can once more become A race to the bottom - a Christlike relationship defined by serving our spouse, honoring our spouse, meeting our spouse’s needs, as they do the same for us…

I believe this posture in our marriages is the key to discovering the profound joy and life that can be ours if we follow in the footsteps of our Savior. We can return to Eden.

The bar is set. Today we’re going to talk about what to do in our marriages when things look nothing like the ideal.

[PRAY]

DON’T GIVE UP

Our passage for this whole series has been Romans 12:9-12, Page ______. It is not a passage about marriage, specifically, which is why I think this series contains some great wisdom for all of our relationships, whether we’re married or not.

So, single people, I hope you’re gaining a lot of valuable wisdom through this, too. We all have a lot to learn about self-giving love.

Let’s read the whole passage one more time. And remember, the Apostle Paul wrote this to the divided church in 1st century Rome. He’s pleading with Jews and Gentiles to love each other in the way of Jesus.

Romans 12:9-10

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Now we turn to our verses for today…

Romans 12:11-12

Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.

Again, all of this is great advice for any relationship, but let’s see what we can learn by applying it to marriage, specifically.

To start, I’ll say that one of the benefits of reading modern English translations like the NLT, which we read at Grace, is that it makes the Bible really readable and understandable to a modern audience.

But the problem is that these very readable translations sometimes obscure some of the nuances of the original language.

For example, what we miss in the English of verses 11 and 12, which is clear as day in the Greek, is that Paul is getting into a rhythm here with six rapid-fire commands. And that rhythm gives the passage some real energy and intensity.

A far more literal version of these two verses would go something like this (and we’ll talk about each of these commands in a moment):

In zeal, don't be idle.

In the Spirit, boil.

In the Lord, serve.

In hope, rejoice.

In suffering, endure.

In prayer, persist.

Do you feel the rhythm and intensity of this?

Why does this matter? Well, I bring this up is because our human instinct is to seek comfort and ease whenever possible. So, when we encounter hardship or discomfort in our relationships, marriage or otherwise, it’s in our nature to want to withdraw.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that every single married couple has experienced that urge at some point. Whether it’s through alcohol or being passive aggressive or not speaking for 20 years, when things fall apart, we pull back.

When the bar gets too high, we stop reaching for it.

But Paul’s very vigorous encouragement here - if we’re going to practice self-giving, agape love like Jesus - is to do the exact opposite. It’s to go deeper in the midst of hardship, to push forward, to try. “Serve… rejoice… endure… persist…”

In other words, when marriage gets difficult, which it inevitably will, the message of Scripture is clear:

Don’t give up. Lean in!

PROACTIVE

So, let’s talk about these six commands that Paul gives in verses 11 and 12. And we’re going to get real practical throughout. The first three are proactive and the last three are reactive. But they all carry the same, intense call: Don’t give up. Lean in! Verse 11, the proactive ones:

Romans 12:11

Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.

The first command is “never be lazy.” Or, literally, In zeal, don’t be idle.

Zeal, in this case, is all about earnestness and enthusiasm.

You want to see zeal? Ask Jaden Gaffron about native plants. Ask Laurie Hartman about Immanuel Prayer. Ask Steve Perkins about late 80’s Christian Heavy Metal music.

Zeal is the sparkle in someone’s eyes when they’re passionate about something.

So why does Paul have to say, “don’t be idle” in it? Well, because zeal can fade.

One of the most common experiences in marriage is that first year after tying the knot, when the passion and the pursuit of dating and wooing and making out all the time turns into the mundane routine of being roommates.

“Oh, hey, I accidentally used your toothbrush last night. Sorry.” It’s a far cry from lying under the stars and writing love poems at 2 a.m.

Zeal is a fire that burns hot and dies quickly if you don’t keep adding fuel. Which is why Paul says, “don’t be idle.”

After you’ve tied the knot, it takes intentionality to keep your zeal alive. You have to be proactive. Pursue your spouse. Date them. Do the things together that make your eyes sparkle.

And remember last week: marriage is a race to the bottom, so don’t forget to pursue them in the things that make their heart sing, not just the things that come easy to you.

Couples, what is something you could do this month that would shake up your ordinary and reignite your zeal? Whatever it is, it’s worth the energy. It’s worth the cost.

Second, Paul says, literally, In the Spirit, boil.

It’s the Greek word ζέω - to boil, to be hot.

It’s kind of a weird way to put it, but I think what Paul is saying here is simply that our zeal and our passion shouldn’t just be directed at others - at our spouse; it should also be directed towards God.

In other words, pursue Jesus. Focus on growing your own faith, your own passion for God’s Word. Make spiritual community a priority until God’s Spirit is simmering in you like a pot on the stove about to boil over.

Again, this is proactive. If you want your marriage to thrive, don’t let your faith grow cold. As I’ve said throughout this series, it is God’s Spirit that makes agape love possible in us. You can’t do it without him.

So, pursue Christ until your heart is simmering in the Spirit. Do that and it will help your marriage come alive. Maybe even come back to life.

How on fire is your faith right now? Faith isn’t an add-on when you’ve got extra margin. It is a prerequisite for truly healthy relationships.

The third proactive command Paul gives is In the Lord, serve.

In fact, the word for “serve” here is even more intense. It’s actually the word for being a slave. Be enslaved to the Lord.

Now, I know that idea of slavery carries a lot of baggage in our culture, but the basic idea is clear. We are called to whole-life surrender.

There’s a reason that at the altar we make our vows before God. Because our covenant isn’t just to our spouse. It’s also a covenant with our Creator.

When we face hardships in our marriages, we don’t address them because we want to be comfortable or because we want to avoid another argument. We address them because our marriage is a commitment made before God himself - the master of our lives.

Have you given your marriage to God? Or does it still belong to you?

So those are the first three commands. All proactive. Again, this all feeds into Paul’s big idea: Don’t give up. Lean in!

Oh, and quick side note while we’re talking about being proactive: [Image: marriage seminar]

REACTIVE

So, in zeal, don't be idle. In the Spirit, boil. In the Lord, serve. These are ways to be proactive in your marriage. To lean in, to not give up.

But what are we supposed to do when being proactive isn’t enough? When our spouse betrays our trust or hurts us deeply? When our spouse doesn’t seem to care or stops talking to us for 20 years? What do we do in a marriage when it seems like there is no path forward?

Well, let’s keep exploring the passage as Paul turns to some reactive commands. Responses to difficulty. Verse 12.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.

Paul’s first command here, literally, is In hope, rejoice.

And this is so important. I believe that one of the most brutal Achilles’ heels of a marriage in crisis is when one or both partners believe that nothing can be done to save it. When they’re hopeless.

Often in that situation, their focus becomes almost entirely on what is wrong in the relationship. “This is broken. We’re incompatible. My spouse doesn’t make me happy anymore.”

Things start to become like a self-fulfilling prophecy. How could they not? Because all the attention is on the negative. And things are going to keep reinforcing that narrative.

However, I am fully convinced that there is a way out of that drain spiral of negativity. And that way out, as Paul says here, is hope.

But I want to be clear about something. Hope here is not weak, watered-down hope that’s little more than wishful thinking. “Gee, I sure hope things get better some day.”

No. Biblical hope is a lot more like expectation or trust or even confidence in what is to come. It’s a hope rooted in who God is. As the author of Hebrews says,

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Hope is not wishful thinking. It’s confidence in the character of God.

If your marriage is a mess right now, do you trust that God desires for things to be better? And do you have confidence that he has the power to change your situation? Is your expectation that he has prepared a path forward for you?

That is what it looks like to hold tightly to hope. To rejoice in hope, as Paul says.

Don’t just focus on what is broken. Fix your eyes on what is possible.

Do you trust that the God who created marriage can transform your own?

Hope is how we respond when marriage gets hard. And then we add in Paul’s next command: In suffering, endure.

If you’ve been around Grace since the beginning of the year, you’ll recognize that word, “endure.” It’s our old friend,

hypomonē - perseverance, steadfastness, patient endurance

(Or, rather, the verbal form of the word)

Basically, we spent all of January talking about hypomonē. Biblical endurance. As we saw, this kind of endurance isn’t just, “Oh, have a stiff upper lip, old chap.”

This isn’t just putting up with your partner being an idiot. No.

This kind of endurance is willingly meeting our Savior under the cross and allowing him to help us carry our own. This is dying to ourselves and discovering that Christ’s endurance goes far beyond our own.

If your marriage is hanging on by a thread… Now is the time to follow Christ’s example and die to yourself.

This looks like giving up your right to be right. This looks like letting go of your narratives. This looks like willingly enduring the hard stuff because of the hope that you have. As Paul says elsewhere,

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

The point is, our willingness to endure the suffering of marriage

-to have the hard conversations instead of just stuffing things down

-to work through divisions instead of just self-medicating

-to be vulnerable and honest instead of just ashamed

that willingness to endure and join Jesus in death to self, is exactly what will lead to new life. To resurrection.

When the hardships come - and they will come - are you shrugging your shoulders or are you choosing to endure?

CAVEAT

Now, I do want to give one important caveat at this point.

When I talk about dying to self, sacrificial love, enduring suffering, etc. What I do not mean is putting up with emotional, mental, or physical abuse.

Allowing your spouse to abuse you - being a doormat as they walk all over you - is not self-giving love. No. Because if you are just putting up with abuse, you are allowing your spouse to persist in sin.

That’s not loving. The most loving thing you can do in a situation like that is to create space. To remove their capacity to keep hurting you by removing yourself from that environment.

But even then, don’t give up. Hold on to hope. Because the space you create may just give God’s Spirit a chance to get to work and transform your spouse’s heart. Repentance is a powerful thing, and sometimes it starts with a wakeup call.

Even at a distance, don’t give up. Lean in. In the suffering of your shattered dreams, endure. Because God is not finished writing the story of your marriage.

Now, I recognize that knowing the difference between hardships to endure and abuse to avoid can be difficult. Which is why I encourage you to not do this alone. Talk with friends and family about what you’re going through. Talk with therapists and counselors. Talk with us as pastors.

An outsider’s perspective can help you see things clearly.

But don’t just talk to us. Talk to God. The final command Paul gives in this passage is to “keep on praying.” Or, literally, In prayer, persist.

This one doesn’t need much explanation. Prayer is how you bring God into your relationship. And the strongest marriages are bathed in it.

Are you praying for your marriage? Are others praying for your marriage?

In prayer, persist. Don’t give up. Lean in! Let the God who stays faithful to his covenants help you stay faithful to yours.

In fact, we are going to spend time right now doing exactly that.

[Set up prayer cards - closing prayer]