Elisabeth Elliot: There is a sense in which marriage involves a total surrender of the self. This means sacrifice.

Lisa Barry: It?s very popular these days to base a marriage on a 50/50 arrangement. If she has to do the dishes, then he has to take out the garbage. Or another common sentiment is this. When my husband starts loving me as Christ loved the Church, I?ll be happy to submit to him. But until then, forget it.

But God?s idea of marriage does not operate on the same set of standards that seem logical and fair to us. In fact, God?s arrangement seems very unfair in some respects. Today on Gateway to Joy, Elisabeth Elliot begins a series called MAKING YOUR MARRIAGE WORK. She?ll hand over the key to a happy marriage in these next 15 minutes. Let?s join her now.

Elisabeth Elliot: Marriage is both a revolution and a revelation. I?ve used those words, because there is no word that more adequately describes the enormity?the enormous intensity?of the change which has to come about in our lives when we become married people.

We expect a certain amount of change. We can?t possibly foresee all that it?s going to mean. As Mike Mason has said in his book, THE MYSTERY OF MARRIAGE, it?s kind of like having a tree in the living room. All of a sudden, there all kinds of changes and revolutions and revelations in our lives.

But it is an awesome privilege to have a husband or a wife, to be given another human being in a special way as a gift from God, in a way that no other two human beings can relate. Occasionally, I get letters of criticism. I had a letter from one lady saying that if I was going to try to tread on the ground of the psychiatrist or the psychologist, I?d better go and get a degree in psychiatry or psychology. I?d better stick rather with the Bible.

Well, it is my intention always to stick with the Bible. There will be many things which I say that may be purely opinions, and I would suppose that it would be fairly obvious to you that they are merely my opinions. You?re perfectly free to discard those. But I would hope you?d be much slower to discard anything which I can back up with Scripture.

So this seminar is not by any means a sociological study. It?s not a historical study. It?s not psychological, nor will it be a sexual study. I think in that it differs from most of the other seminars on marriage. People who have authority in those fields have very different things to say.

But I see marriage primarily as a theological mystery of a profound, spiritual character. It is a theological mystery with profound, spiritual character. Mysterious dimensions. It is ordained by Christ and it represents the greatest mystery that we know anything about, which is the mystery of Christ in the Church. That is, to me, the heart?the very deepest thing that we know about marriage.

In fact, God chose the analogy of marriage to represent the deepest truth that we know anything about in the spiritual realm?the relationship between Christ, who calls Himself the Bridegroom, and the Church, who is called the Bride in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, we find the same imagery used to describe the relationship between God as Bridegroom and His people Israel as Bride. When Israel went off after other gods, they were committing adultery.

So we must constantly be going back and forth between the very human, down-to-earth reality of marriage and what it means for a sinful man to live with a sinful woman 365 days a year, and somehow or other make a go of it and get along, and this deep, spiritual mystery of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I think the more we can understand the connection there, the more we will be able to act in marriage as God intended us to act.

First of all, marriage is a total surrender of the self to another person. That is revolutionary. We are born rebels, aren?t we? We are born with the attitude that I am going to do my thing and nobody is going to tell me what to do, and don?t try. This is my life and I?m going to live my life in my way, and you can like it or lump it.

Well, you can get away with a certain measure of that, as long as you?re not married. You all have many other human relationships, and you?re going to make those human relationships very tough and very difficult if you do continue in that frame of mind. But we can get away with it, to a certain extent. But you just cannot possibly get away with that in a marriage, not for very long.

The woman surrenders herself to the man in a very different way than the man surrenders to the woman. I don?t suppose that very many of you men ever thought about surrendering yourself to a woman, and that really is not the imagery that God intends. The husband is standing in the place of Christ, and so he is the one who initiates. He is the wooer. He is the one who wins. He is the one who protects and provides for and cherishes his wife.

But there is a sense in which marriage involves a total surrender of the self. This means sacrifice. If you don?t remember one other word out of everything that I have to say, please remember the word "sacrifice."

When I see marriages falling apart (and I get piles and piles of letters from people whose marriages are in trouble, asking me for advice and counsel), what I want to say to them is: "There is nothing wrong with a marriage that sacrifice wouldn?t heal." Of course, I am called "oversimplistic, and that?s an oversimplification, and that?ll never work, and what in the world are you talking about?"

But I hope that I can explain in this time together what I mean by that. It starts with this idea of self-surrender. When I think of the word "sacrifice" as a Christian, I don?t think primarily of loss and privation as much as offering?an offering. Man comes to this woman that he has fallen madly in love with and he can?t live without, and he offers himself to her.

I?ll never forget when my husband, Addison Leitch, was wooing me. He was a widower of 60 years old and I was a widow of 42. He wrote me what I used to call his geriatric letter. He wrote?this was before he had actually said, "Will you marry me?" but it was very obvious to me that he was closing in for the kill. He outlined some of the things that I could expect if I was going to marry an old man. He wanted to be straightforward with me and say, "Now look. You?ve got to take a look at this. Eighteen years is a big difference. You?ve been a widow once. You?re probably going to be a widow again. Now you?ve got to face this."

He outlined the fact that one of these days I was going to have to start cleaning his glasses, and then another day I was going to have to take over the driving, and then a whole more odious list of things that I might have to do. Having said all that, at the end of the letter he said, "But having pointed out all of these things that you have to face, here I am, all of me for you forever. But what kind of an offer is that?"

I thought, "Isn?t that an analogy of our offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God?" What do we have to offer, when it comes right down to it? What is God taking on when I make my body a living sacrifice and say, "Lord, here I am, all of me for You forever"? But what kind of an offer is that? What is He getting?

So there is this surrender of the self, and that was exactly what Add was making?a surrender of this aging body, which he felt was certainly not much of an offer, not very attractive. But he was hoping that I might be willing to accept it. And I was dying to surrender myself to him. There was nothing in the world that I wanted so much as to belong to that man. I think that that?s the deep instinct, the deep heart?s desire, of almost every woman that I?ve ever talked to. Now I have to be careful and say "almost," because I?ve had a few women tell me that they were greatly insulted by that suggestion. They did not want to surrender themselves to any man and they were very happy with their singleness. "You have insulted us," they said. So I need to be careful about that.

But this surrender of the self is an analogy of the spiritual life, which applies to this institution of marriage. I want to give you an overview of how this analogy works. The conditions of discipleship were three. Jesus said, "If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself and you must take up your cross and follow Me."

I think that that is exactly the order in which a husband and a wife ought to look at their responsibilities in marriage. First of all, you give up your right to yourself. We?ll get into some of the things that I mean by that. When I say, "Take up the cross," it?s "take up" all that is involved in daily living together. "Take up your cross daily," Jesus said. And lastly, "Follow Me. Obey. Fulfill the responsibilities which life is going to unfold, little by little, as you walk together."

These also match the three conditions that Jesus described. He said, "If you get married, then the husband must leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they must become one flesh." So leaving and cleaving and becoming one?those are all analogous to exactly what we?re supposed to do.

Lisa Barry: Well, I?d say there?s enough here to apply for the next five years, wouldn?t you? If you?d like to purchase a copy of this weekly tape called MAKING YOUR MARRIAGE WORK or a copy of the booklet, MARRIAGE IS A GIFT, you can call us on our toll-free number. That?s 1-800-759-4JOY. Another way to request materials is to dial up our Web site at gatewaytojoy.org. You?ll find upcoming program topics, speaking schedules and you can visit our online resource center. Or if you prefer to write, our address is Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about the most important element in a healthy marriage, so join us then for the next Gateway to Joy.