- Hi, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - Helping you cultivate
an extraordinary marriage. - And today, we're gonna discuss how your marriage is your first ministry. (pop music) Hey, thanks for joining us
for this week's episode. We just wanna invite you as usual to subscribe to our channel
so that you get notified every time we upload a new episode. - Also, we just wanted to encourage you to keep leaving those comments. We get so encouraged by just reading through your guys' comments and the feedback that
you've been giving us and the personal stories
that you've shared with us. So just thank you so much
for that and keep doing it. So one of the reasons we started the Marriage After God podcast is because we had this wild idea to write a book called Marriage After God. And we've been working really
hard on the manuscript, and we're just so excited about it. And so we just wanted to
share that with you guys. But also every once in a while, there's just this really strong topic that we need to share with
you through the podcast based off the content of the book. And one of the chapters is about marriage being your first ministry, and so that's why we chose
this topic for today's episode. - So whether you realize it or not, you are in a ministry, and I'm not talking about your being a pastor
or a worship leader or a missionary, which
we were for a little bit. We're saying that you
currently as a husband and wife are in ministry in your marriage. That the first place that you practice the things that the Bible teaches us as we always say, your
first neighbor, right? Who's your closest neighbor? It's your spouse. And so when the Bible tells
us to love your neighbor as yourself, this is
what we're talking about. That if you don't focus and treat your marriage as a
ministry the way we should, and we let it fall apart, and we don't give it the
attention it deserves, then it doesn't matter what other ministry we might wanna do outside the home. We see in the headlines.
- Yeah. - What do the headline say? They're like, you know,
pastor leaves his wife. You know, missionary couple break up. Like there's just, these
stories we hear them. And what happens is they forgot what their first ministry was. - Not just that, but it actually affects the ministry that they're trying to do. - Yeah, and you know what? My heart for this is what good is it if we're blessing and serving
others outside of our home and then our wife, our husband, and our children get seconds, thirds, fourths of our ministry? You know, the outside
world and people out there are getting all of the
love, all of the attention, all of our strength and our
service and our ministry. And at home, our spouse and
our children are falling apart. And they're not being loved, and they're not being served, and they're not being taken care of the way the Bible tells
us to take care of them. That to me is called hypocrisy. And it doesn't matter
how good it is out there. If your first ministry is being neglected, you're a hypocrite, and this was us. - Yeah, when we realized this, I mean, it was a shock to us because
we had been pursuing God and the extraordinary
work that he had for us. We were missionaries. We were traveling in Africa,
and you went to Brazil, and then we were in different states. And at the forefront,
yeah, we were pursuing all of these things for God,
but behind the scenes, our marriage, yeah, it was crumbling. And so I guess the question is like what gospel are you actually
reflecting if that's the case? - Yeah, and so if you're in a place in your marriage and
you're both believers. I'm gonna talk to mixed couples in a second that are believer, unbeliever. But if you're in a marriage
and you're both believers, and your marriage is not in a good place, that is when right now
you need to recognize like man, are we seeing our
marriage as our first ministry? As a wife, do I see my role as a wife as a ministry to my husband? - That's good. - As a husband, do I see my role as a husband as a ministry to my wife? And so it actually elevates your marriage to another level of realizing like, wait, I'm not just a husband. I don't just go to work. I don't just pay the bills. I don't just do the things
that have to be done for everyday normal life to exist. But actually recognize, actually my wife, she has a spirit that I'm
supposed to be ministering to. She's got a spirit that I'm supposed to be washing with the word. - And what's the point of that? When you say my wife is my
ministry, what's your goal? - Well, my goal is to do what
it tells me in Ephesians 5, is to wash you by the water with a word so that you become clean
and new and refreshed and cherished, and you're
filled with the word of God. You actually become more useful for ministry outside
the home because of it. - Yeah, that's true.
- Right? If you go to do ministry, and you don't know where you are with me, does that make you feel
more or less confident? - Less confident. - But if you just know like,
oh my husband loves me, he is there for me, he cherishes me, he's behind me, he serves me, I'm not concerned about where we're at, you're more confident and more prepared. - Yeah.
- Right? And vice versa, what happens when you see your role to me as a ministry? - My perspective obviously has changed from a selfish one to
a purpose-filled one, and I actually can see
beyond even my purpose for ministry to you and the impact you then will have in
other people's lives. - Yeah, because when we
have a marriage after God, and we both see our
marriage as a ministry, and we're serving each
other and loving each other as the Bible teaches us to, and we're walking in
obedience to the word, who's gonna benefit from that? Our children. - Yeah, our family members. - Our family members. - Everybody.
- Our coworkers. Neighbors.
- Mm-hm the impact is huge. - Yeah because let's say
we didn't even say a word, but they saw our marriage. And they saw how cherished my wife was and how loved and honored the husband was. - Especially in contrast to
our culture today, right? - Which doesn't do that. - Which doesn't do that.
- Yeah. It actually teaches the opposite. It encourages the opposite, celebrates the opposite.
- Selfishness. - And selfishness and adultery. And then they see a marriage that's, the husband won't talk bad about his wife in front of someone. Or a wife who protects her husband's name in front of people.
- Or submits to him. - Or submits to him, God forbid. But that's what the Bible teaches. Those are the things that we do. If I loved my wife as
Christ loves the church, laying myself down for her, I lay my hobbies down for her. A friend invites me to go do something, no, actually, I already told my wife I'm gonna spend time with
her today and the kids. - Keep your word, yeah. - And I keep my word,
and they're like, okay. But that's ministry that's
happening now outside the home simply because I've seen
my marriage as a ministry. - And I think when people are confronted with that difference, that stark contrast compared to the world,
they question it, right? And what's the answer? What's the only reason you can give them for why your marriage is that way? - Yeah, we say, you know what? We submit to the word of God. We love God, and because he saved us, we're gonna walk the way
he's asked us to walk. - So therefore, you're actually pointing other people's hearts
to the Lord based off what they see in your marriage. - Yeah, and so we, as we grow in our marriage and as we focus on walking the way the
Bible tells us to walk within our marriage, we bear fruit. - Mm-hm. - Good fruit, and what's
the fruit for on the tree? Is it for the tree's sake? - It's for everybody else's
sake that's gonna eat of it. - Yeah, they pluck from the
tree, and they eat the fruit. And they're like, man this fruit's good. - They're nourished by it. - Yeah, how do I get more of this? - They enjoy it, yeah. - And then the other good
thing about the fruit is it plants seeds.
- Mm-hm. - And so, Paul mentions a
couple of times in the Bible, he says follow my example. And so, a pastor told me a long time ago, he said, Aaron, can you
honestly tell someone in your life to follow your example? - It's a hard question. - It's a really hard question. You have to ask yourself
the questions too, you know. Can I ask someone to follow
my example as a wife? - It forces you to evaluate your life and say who am I, and what am I doing? - And this doesn't mean we're perfect. This doesn't say like hey, I'm perfect, therefore do exactly as I've done. This is saying like my life
and the direction I'm going and the choices I make
and the wisdom I walk in and the way I decide things, can you tell someone
to follow that example? Or do you have to constantly
tell someone like, actually, do what I say, not what I do? Do what the Bible says but
not necessarily what I do because I don't always
do what the Bible says. No, we wanna be examples. So again, when you
focus and you make your, you recognize the ministry
that is your marriage, the ministry outside that
marriage starts happening organically.
- Yep. - Because you could tell someone like actually no, follow our example. We are growing and learning and changing, and we're following
what the Bible tells us, and therefore, you should do the same. And I can confidently say that. We just wanna challenge
you with that question to ask yourselves. Can you tell another young couple, another new believer, a
non-believer to follow your example? And be honest with it and say,
no, honestly look at my life. Come peek in. Peer into our home and follow our example. And you know what? There are areas of our life that we know we can't tell someone to
follow in our example. And we have to be confronted with that. And we have to change then.
- Mm-hm. - When we see like, oh, you know, actually, we still bicker. We can't tell someone
to follow our example in the way we communicate because sometimes we communicate wrong. And this is something that
we are often confronted with and have to change in. But do you know what I can tell someone? Hey, follow our example in
the fact that we are humble, and we recognize when we're wrong. - Mm-hm. - And we change. - Yeah, so you talk about this example and being an example to other people, and our example is found
in the word in what, how God directs our hearts. And so I wanna read Ephesians 5:22-33. So it says, wives, submit
to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the
husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in
everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives
as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present
the church to himself in splendor, without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy
and without blemish. In the same way, husbands
should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall
leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of
you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that
she respects her husband. - Yeah so, that was a lot of scripture, but this is like the
staple marriage scripture. But what's happening here, there's something so much
deeper than what we might think. Paul is telling us that
our marriages are a symbol that represent a ancient mystery, which is Christ and the church. My wife represents the church, all of us. Me as a husband, I represent
Christ in the world, and our relationship together represents Christ's
relationship with the church. And so, we have to ask ourselves what message are we giving to
the world with our marriage? - Yeah, if we're walking this way, if we're being obedient
to these scriptures, people will see the reflection
of Christ and the church. - Yeah, that's exactly what our
ministry is in our marriage. That our marriage is not
just to make us happy. It's not just to be a
happily-ever-after story. But our marriage is actually, it's a earthly symbol
of a spiritual truth. - Mm-hm. - That my wife represents a church that is become one with
the body of Christ. And that's what we're telling the world. We're like hey, this oneness that we have, the way we walk, we're representing a heavenly spiritual truth. And here's the downfall. If you're not doing that, you're showing the world a false gospel. You're showing the world like hey, God only loves you as long as you serve me the way I wanna be served. God only is gonna love you
if you do everything right. This is what you do. When you show the world your marriage that's fractured and broken
and maybe even divorcing, or adultery and cheating
and all these things, those are pictures of how the people of Israel were towards God when they would go and
chase after false Gods. That's why they use the
word adultery in the Bible. It was cheating on God. And so, when we walk in
faithfulness with each other, and in oneness with each other, we're showing the true message
of what Christ came to do. - And it produces fruitfulness in so many different
aspects of your marriage, your family, your children, other people in your
proximity of who's around you. We love this idea and message
that the Bible presents of our marriage as being a ministry because it really is a beautiful thing that represents a beautiful mystery. - Yeah, and so if you're currently in ministry outside the home, let's say you're a youth pastor, a senior pastor, worship leader, or the plethora of other
ministries out there. - There's so many little
things, like you greet people. Maybe you're a hospitable. Maybe you, I don't know,
serve the prison ministry. There's so many different
types of ministry, so we don't wanna just put
certain labels out there. But we're talking to everybody
who spends time outside the home serving others and
spending their time there. - This is what we'd say to you. If your marriage is not this way, if it's not in order, not perfect, but if you guys are not focusing on seeing your marriage as a ministry, take a break from the ministry you're doing outside the
church, outside your home. - Yeah, don't sacrifice your
marriage for that ministry. - Yeah, a quote a say in the book is don't sacrifice your marriage
on the alter of ministry. - That's good. - Focus on your marriage. Go make sure you are an example so that you are not gonna be disqualified in this ministry when someone says like, wait a minute, you're
telling me to be this way, but why are you being that way over there? We wanna be good examples.
- Yeah. - It doesn't mean throw the ministry out, but say hey, I wanna
take a break from this. - Which we've had to do before. - We've done this. We recognized this when we were in Africa. Or actually when we were in Canada-- - There was several
different spots over time. - And we realized we need to go home and take care of some stuff.
- Yeah. - And you know what, God worked on us, and he was faithful to heal us and show us that this
was our first ministry. And then nothing else mattered
unless we could do this. - Yeah, and I wanna go
back to what you said about don't sacrifice your marriage
on the alter of ministry. That's such a good quote. But it doesn't happen in just one choice. It's not one decision just to say I'm gonna choose this
ministry over my marriage. It happens incrementally, and
I just wanted them to hear that because I think it's
really important to know that every choice that you make has an impact on your marriage. I think that we need to just stop and think about that sometimes. - And I just thought of something. One of our previous episodes,
we talked about escapism. - Yeah. - If you're using a ministry to escape what's going on in your marriage, like, oh, I can't even deal with this, or I feel so lonely or this, and so therefore I'm gonna go over here and use this ministry--
- Get fulfilled. - And my serving over here
to get your mind off of it, again, take a break.
- Mm-hm. - And say, God, I wanna be a good minister over here in my marriage. I wanna serve you as a
good soldier in my home. You know, as Timothy is told by Paul. I wanna go ministry in my home. So real quick, I wanna talk to marriages where one of the spouses isn't a believer. You might be thinking like, well, how am I supposed to do this? I can't do any ministry because my husband or my wife's not a believer? No, I wanna say this. I wanna say don't just
throw your ministry away, but what I would say is make sure you are being the way you've been called to be as a ministry in your home even though your spouse is an unbeliever. Peter gives us some very
specific directives in 1 Peter 3, telling husbands and wives how to be when your spouse is an unbeliever. So that doesn't mean
throw the other ministry you might be doing out, but make sure you are ministering
the way God desires you to minister in your home now. And so, this is a little bit different. If you're both believers,
I think you should absolutely definitely
take a break from ministry if your marriage is not in order. And you're not ministering to each other the way the Bible calls us to. If you're in a marriage
where one's an unbeliever, you can still be seeing your marriage as your first ministry. And you can actually sacrifice things and be like, you know,
actually I can't go do that because I know that I'm gonna spend time with my husband for this purpose. - And consider the impact that's gonna make in your husband's life. I mean, that's just incredible. - Go read 1 Peter 3 and see the power that a believing spouse could have in an unbelieving spouse's life when you walk the way
the Bible tells you to. It tells you that you
could potentially save them and bring them salvation
through the way you are to them. And so again I don't wanna
just say throw it all out, but I would say consider
if you're ministering to your unbelieving spouse the way you've been called
to minister to them first. And then do those other ministries, 'cause I'm sure, I could
see that being a case where you're around other believers and you wanna serve in those ways. And maybe your spouse wants
nothing to do with that. Just weigh that, balance that, take it with a grain of salt on that side. - Pray about it.
- Pray about it. But know that even in a situation where you have an unbelieving spouse, it is still your first ministry. - Yep, so another scripture
that we wanted to bring up for you guys is 1 Timothy 3:5. Did you wanna read that
and just touch a little bit on what the scripture says?
- Yeah. Paul's telling Timothy, he's giving order on how an overseer or a deacon qualifies to be
in those roles in the church. And so I'm not talking
in the sense of those, but I wanna talk in the sense
of how we all should be. And he says this in
chapter three, verse one. It says, this saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to
the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. So first of all, to all
the men, he saying like, hey it's a noble thing to desire that position whether you have it or not. And so we should desire it. But listen to the qualifications he gives. He says, therefore an overseer
must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard,
not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. And then listen to this part. He says, he must manage
his own household well, with all dignity keeping
his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? So in regards to just doing ministry, this is saying like having
this specific ministry in the church, this is the qualifications, but we should all desire this position and therefore, we should all try and desire to walk in these ways. And this is a pretty stark thing. He's saying how can you wanna
manage the household of God if you can't manage your own home? And then he even says up
here that a qualification is being a husband of one wife. And so he's even saying like, marriage is a qualification
for that position. And so there's all these things
that line up of saying like, is my home in order? Is my wife cherished? Is my husband loved and respected? Are my children submissive
and honoring to us, meaning we're taking the time
and training our children. And so these are all things
that happen in the home. These are all things that happen at home right here with this relationship. And so this was just an encouragement. Again, we're not talking specifically about this office in the church. We're just using these principles overall, and if we're thinking
about trying to do ministry outside the home, that we
should have our home in order, have our hearts in order with our spouse, have our hearts in
order with our children. Because you know what? At the end of my life, I don't wanna go and stand before my Father in heaven and have all these great
things that I've done and have lost my children to the world and have a wife that was bitter and angry to me because of the way I led. I would much rather have a wife that is cherished and
loved and feels confident and powerful in a ministry
that God has for her. And I'd rather have children who love me and love God. Right?
- Absolutely. - Than any other ministry
in the whole world. - Yeah. - I'd rather those things
to be true in my life. But you know what, when
those things are true in our lives, ministry naturally
happens outside the home. - Yep. - Because there's freedom, there's fruit, there's authority, there's power. We're not hypocrites. We walk in authority
because we're not ashamed. We're not hiding. And that's what our hearts is for you. That's our hearts for you as a you walk as a marriage after God. That you would see your
marriage as your first ministry. Again, we're not saying
your only ministry. But it's your first ministry. It's the first person God's
given you to practice the things that God's told us to be in this world. And we do it to each
other first and foremost. And then we do it to our kids. And then everyone else after that. So, we just wanna encourage you today. Ask yourself that question,
can you be an example? Can people follow your example? Ask yourself do you see your marriage as your first ministry? And then ask God just to reveal to you how he wants you to navigate that and turn towards each other in that way. - Thank you guys so much
for joining us this week. We hope that it blessed your marriage and that you just have an incredible week, and we'll see you next time. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate
an extraordinary marriage.
