We honour marriage because God honours it. Indeed the whole Trinity testifies that marriage is honourable.

God the Father honoured it by designing, instituting, regulating, and witnessing the first marriage. God defines its nature, its parties and its terms.

Christ honoured it by performing His first miracle at a wedding (John 2) and using marriage in quite a few parables.

The Holy Spirit honoured it by making it a picture of the church in Ephesians 5.

We also honour marriage because God commands it to be honoured (Heb. 13:4). Here are eight ways we can do this.

1. We honour it by praying for it⤒🔗

Some people will pray for a parking spot but never pray for a wife or a husband. They think it’s too much to ask. Or they’ll pray for their children to get into college but not that they’d get into a good marriage. By not asking God for marriage for themselves or their loved ones, they are dishonouring marriage and the God who can give it.

A fund raiser once told me that some wealthy people he knows are actually insulted if he doesn’t ask them for money, or if he asks them for too little. Instead they feel honoured that he should ask them and that he should ask them for so much.

Honour God and marriage by asking for happy and fruitful marriages for yourself and for your children. Let it never be said, ‘You have not, because you ask not’. Or ‘You ask not because you value not’.

2. We honour it by seeking partners according to God’s Word←⤒🔗

God has clearly set out that Christians should only marry in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39) and that there are certain characteristics and qualifications to look for in a wife or husband. We honour God when we comply with the Maker’s instructions for marriage.

3. We honour it by waiting for it←⤒🔗

God has forbidden sexual intimacy before marriage. We’re not permitted an appetizer, not even a sip; that only spoils the feast. Honour marriage by waiting for it.

4. We honour it by entering into it at appropriate ages←⤒🔗

We can dishonour marriage by getting married too young, when there’s little understanding or appreciation of marriage, both parties too flippant and frivolous. But we also dishonour it by delaying too long, by putting it off till later and later in life.

5. We honour it by organizing Christ-centered weddings←⤒🔗

Some weddings have virtually no reference to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit or the Gospel. The messages are just full of do’s and don’ts, the speeches are irreverent and risqué. It’s like receiving the greatest gift from someone and then not even thanking them, or worse, making fun of him and his values. Honour marriage by honouring God on your marriage day.

6. We honour it by avoiding debt-laden weddings←⤒🔗

The average wedding in America now costs $31,000! What a way to start out in married life! It’s like starting a race with lead weights tied round your ankles. It’s wrong, displeasing to God, and damaging to everyone.

7. We honour it by taking on the roles God has designed←⤒🔗

The wife’s role and the husband’s role have each been designed by God to show the relationship between Christ and the church – the man to primarily show Christ’s love, the woman to primarily show the believer’s obedience.

8. We honour it by defending and promoting it←⤒🔗

We oppose every attempt to redefine marriage. But we must do more than defend marriage and oppose its attackers. We must also promote it by demonstrating what a wonderful thing it is – especially to our children. We must demonstrate its benefits.

The Puritan Daniel Rogers wrote:

Marriage is the preservative of chastity, the seminary of the commonwealth, seed plot of the church, pillar of the world, right hand of providence, supporter of laws, states, orders, offices, gifts, and services; the glory of peace, the sinews of war, the maintenance of policy, the life of the dead, the solace of the living, the ambition of virginity, the foundation of countries, cities, universities, succession of families, crowns, and kingdoms.