Close to God, Close to Your Spouse
Pastor Tan Thai · Sep 16, 2012
This sermon based on 2 Corinthians 5:17 explores why marriages often lack happiness and points to renewal in Christ as the path to restoration. As husband and wife each draw closer to God, they will draw closer to one another in marriage.
The sermon opens with the observation that everyone longs for happiness in marriage, and that Scripture affirms this as God's design. Proverbs 18:22 declares that whoever finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. God himself unites husband and wife, and Jesus' first miracle took place at a wedding feast, demonstrating that marriage is a great blessing He has given humanity.
Yet the reality of many marriages is filled with pain and brokenness. The sermon identifies several reasons why marriages lack happiness: false concepts of what happiness is, spouses pursuing different goals, incompatible personalities, financial hardship, negative outside influences, and differences in faith. The pastor emphasizes that passivity and indifference in marriage can destroy happiness faster than all these reasons combined.
The central portion of the sermon focuses on the necessity of change within marriage. Through vivid illustrations — a firefighter backing a truck expertly into a narrow station, and Michael Phelps swimming a race blind at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — the pastor demonstrates that lasting change comes from persistent practice until it becomes a good habit.
The theological foundation of the sermon is built on 2 Corinthians 5:17: anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. This renewal is not outward but inward — encompassing character, thoughts, desires, and purpose. The sermon uses a triangle illustration: when God is at the apex and husband and wife are at the two lower corners, as each draws closer to God they also draw closer to one another.
The application section calls on husbands and wives to practice concretely the teachings of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 on love: patience, kindness, no anger, forgiving all things. The sermon encourages each person to identify their own weakness, pray for God's help to change, and persevere in practice until that change becomes a natural habit in marriage.