Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch and in today's episode, we're asking the question, is marriage just for winners? This is prompted by an article I read in the Wall Street Journal recently about how marriage is increasingly, at least in America, something that affluent people are undertaking and lower income people are avoiding. That's because younger Americans are increasingly seeing marriage as the capstone to a financial successful, professionally successful life. In other words, once I have my money under control, once I've built a career for myself, then I become marriage material. Or even maybe better saying, once you become professionally successful, once you become financially viable, then you become, for me, marriage material. One of the ways you see this is the median age for a first marriage in America has risen to 30 for men and 29 for women. And the rate of marriage has declined, actually 9% among 22 to 45 year olds. Uh, people are looking for better and better candidates to marry. And overwhelmingly, their threshold for who they consider marriage material is increasing. And as a result, people are feeling like they are not marriage material. And maybe neither are you. Now, uh, this is troubling for a number of reasons. From a biblical perspective, let me just start with this. According to the Bible, marriage is a covenant, not a reward. In other words, marriage is a mutual commitment, man to a woman, a woman to a man, to do life together, no matter what, come what may. The Bible actually uses the language in Genesis, uh, of God joining Adam and Eve. Jesus picks this up in Matthew 19 when he says, what God has joined together, let no man separate. The Bible has this idea of two becoming one, so that even the definition of success or viability is a shared definition. The cultural view seems to be that the man stands over here, the woman stands over here, and they, uh, evaluate each other. But the biblical view is that we commit to each other and move forward to build the life we want together. And I guess that's the second concern, is that there seems to be a cultural idea that we're trying out for each other. There's a performative aspect of this, but of course, there are two problems with that. One is that's not love. That might be acknowledgment of who you are. Hey, you're pretty impressive. If I have to partner with anyone, I guess I'll partner with you. That, I guess, is mildly encouraging, but it isn't the definition of love. Consider that God is love and God doesn't love us based on what we become or what we achieve. Believe uh, the biblical idea of relationship is that loving someone is joining with them as they become who they're supposed to be. Think about Ephesians 5 here. The husband is, uh, loving the wife, the wife loving the husband as they participate in the sanctification of each other. In other words, when you marry someone, you're acknowledging they're not yet who they need to be. And you're committing, you're covenanting to being a part of what God is going to do in their lives as they grow. The other problem here is that there's uh, a correlation between wealth and worthiness. You know, that somehow what makes you a real wife or a husband or purports that you will be a good wife or a husband is that you have money in the bank or that you can achieve in the office. This is part of Jesus warning in Matthew 6. You cannot serve both God and money. Both God and money cannot define for you what a good wife or a good husband is. You're gonna have to listen to one or the other. I can tell you, by the way, if you're young listening to this, that after 20 years of marriage, my wife's ability to make money is not at all on my top 100 lists of qualities. When I have sinned and I need forgiveness, I don't need a financially viable wife, I need a forgiving one. When I am struggling and I need my wife to care about my feelings, I don't need a financially viable wife, I need a humble one. When I have a sick kid at 3:00 in the morning throwing up and we're taking care of that kid and cleaning up. I don't need a financially viable wife, I need a servant hearted one. Uh, we're looking for all the wrong things using all the wrong metrics because we're listening to the wrong guiding voice. We're listening to culture and to money instead of God. And of course, that's the point. God has a design for marriage. He has a design for the role it should play in our lives. He has a design for what a wife should look like and a husband should look like. And what he tells us is that we covenant to become that. Sure. Should you look for a wife or a husband who loves the Lord? Absolutely. Who's kind, who's warm, who's loving, who actually works hard? Absolutely. No one's telling you to uncritically marry the first person you meet. But all of us, when we get married are buying on spec. There are no finished products. And, uh, if we wait for each other to become what God has desired for us to become, we miss the point. Marriage is one of the ways God turns us into who we are supposed to come. What you need is a partner who helps you grow, not an impatient person stamping their foot waiting for you to grow. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!