Sermon On Happy Marriage

The Soil Where Joy Grows: Building A Marriage That Lasts

There is a question that almost every person who has ever stood at the beginning of a marriage has carried in their heart, even if they never said it out loud. The question is not simply, "Will this last?" The deeper question is, "Will this be good?" Not just enduring, but genuinely joyful. Not just legally intact, but alive with warmth, friendship, and meaning. That is the question Scripture actually answers, and it answers it in a way that surprises many people. The Bible does not promise that a happy marriage is the result of finding the right person. It teaches that a happy marriage is the result of becoming the right kind of person, and doing so together, in Christ.

This morning we are going to spend time in two passages that belong together like two panels of the same painting. The first is Philippians 2:1-5, and the second is Colossians 3:12-17. Both were written by the Apostle Paul. Both are addressed to communities of believers who were learning what it looks like to live out the gospel in daily relationships. And both passages, when you read them carefully, describe the exact interior conditions that make a marriage not just functional but genuinely flourishing.

Let us begin in Philippians 2. Paul writes, "If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus."

Notice what Paul does here. He does not begin with a command. He begins with a foundation. The word "if" in verse one is not expressing doubt. In the original Greek, it carries the force of "since." Since there is encouragement in Christ. Since there is consolation of love. Since there is fellowship with the Spirit. Paul is saying that everything he is about to ask of these believers flows out of something they already possess. The resources for the kind of love he is describing are not generated by human willpower. They come from union with Christ.

This is the first and most important thing to understand about a happy marriage. It is not primarily a human achievement. It is a spiritual overflow. When two people are genuinely connected to Jesus Christ, when they are drawing daily from his grace, his patience, his forgiveness, and his love, those qualities begin to shape the way they treat each other. A marriage that is rooted in Christ has access to a supply of grace that no amount of personal effort alone can manufacture.

From that foundation, Paul calls believers to humility. "In humility consider others as more important than yourselves." This is not a call to self-erasure. It is a call to reorientation. The word translated "humility" in the Greek New Testament was not considered a virtue in the surrounding culture. It was associated with lowness and weakness. Paul takes that word and fills it with the character of Christ. Humility in a marriage means that you are genuinely interested in the flourishing of your spouse. You are not constantly calculating what you are getting out of the relationship. You are asking what you can give. You are not keeping score. You are keeping covenant.

Every marriage counselor, every pastor who has sat across from a couple in crisis, will tell you the same thing. The majority of marital pain traces back to two people who have turned inward, each one focused on their own unmet needs, each one waiting for the other to go first. Paul's answer is not to wait. The answer is to go first, because Christ went first for us.

Now turn to Colossians 3, beginning at verse 12. Paul writes, "Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule in your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

This passage is a wardrobe. Paul uses the image of clothing. You take off the old self and you put on the new. What does a marriage look like when both partners are dressed this way every morning? It looks like compassion, which is the ability to feel what your spouse feels and respond with tenderness rather than irritation. It looks like kindness, which is not merely the absence of cruelty but the active presence of warmth. It looks like patience, which in the original language carries the idea of being slow to anger, of having a long fuse when someone you love disappoints you.

Then Paul comes to forgiveness, and he does not let us be vague about it. "Forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive." The standard is not "forgive when it feels natural." The standard is the cross. You have been forgiven an unpayable debt. Therefore you extend forgiveness even when it is costly. No marriage survives without this. Every marriage, no matter how loving, will accumulate moments of hurt, misunderstanding, and failure. The question is not whether those moments will come. The question is what you will do with them. Paul says: forgive, because you have been forgiven.

Above all of these virtues, Paul places love. "Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Love is not the feeling that holds the other virtues together. Love is the decision, the commitment, the daily act of the will that keeps choosing the other person. It is not the spark that starts the fire. It is the wood that keeps it burning.

And then Paul says something that is easy to overlook. He says, "Be thankful." He says it twice in this short passage. Gratitude is not a sentimental add-on to the Christian life. It is a spiritual discipline. In a marriage, gratitude is the practice of noticing what is right rather than cataloguing what is wrong. It is saying thank you for small things. It is remembering why you love this person. It is refusing to let familiarity become contempt. Research consistently confirms what the Bible has always taught: couples who express regular gratitude to each other report significantly higher satisfaction in their marriages. Gratitude is not naive. It is wise.

Finally, Paul anchors everything in the word of Christ and in shared worship. "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you." A marriage where both partners are regularly in Scripture, where they pray together, where they worship together, is a marriage that has a compass. When you are lost, you have somewhere to return. When you disagree, you have a higher authority than your own preferences. When you are afraid, you have a promise to stand on.

Here is the good news this morning, and it is genuinely good news. You do not have to manufacture this kind of marriage out of your own strength. The God who calls you to this kind of love is the same God who supplies the grace to live it. Jesus Christ, who humbled himself to the point of death on a cross, who rose again in victory over sin and the grave, is the one who makes this kind of life possible. If you are in Christ, you have everything you need to build a marriage marked by joy, humility, friendship, gratitude, forgiveness, and shared faith.

If you are here today and you do not yet know that grace personally, the invitation is open to you right now. Not to a religion, not to a set of rules, but to a relationship with the living Christ who gave himself for you. That is where all of this begins.

May every marriage represented in this room, and every marriage yet to come, be rooted in him.

Sources Consulted

Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2008.

O'Brien, Peter T. The Epistle to the Philippians. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1991.

Thielman, Frank. Philippians. NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan, 1995.

Wright, N. T. Colossians and Philemon. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. InterVarsity Press, 1986.

Garland, David E. Colossians and Philemon. NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan, 1998.

The Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.