Christ-Honoring Homes, Part 1 — John Byler

In the first of a series on Christ-honoring homes, John Byler teaches on marriage as an expression of who God is, rather than a means to personal happiness. His central message is that a marriage flourishes not when each partner tries to get what they want, but when both are cleansed, walk in the light, and are filled with the love of God, laying down their lives to build the other up. He warns against the ways spouses grasp for security—men through anger and intimidation, women through nagging and manipulation—and urges instead vulnerability, humility, and finding one’s deepest needs met in Christ. Even in a hard marriage, he says, the same principles apply, because our higher purpose is to become like Christ and express the nature of God. The talk closes with warm audience testimonies on listening to an "oblique" wife, celebrating a monthly "monthiversary," being first to say sorry, and kneeling together to pray through conflict.

Key Points:

– Marriage is God’s idea and an expression of his nature, so the aim is to honor God and become what he designed us to be—and in that we find the greatest fulfillment.

– Two becoming one requires being cleansed, walking in the light (openness and trust), and being filled with the love and fullness of God rather than being "full of ourselves."

– Insecurity makes us grasp our spouse and become demanding; real stability comes from finding security, healing, and needs met in Christ, so we can still need our partner without demanding.

– Spouses grasp for control in destructive ways—men with anger and intimidation, women with nagging and manipulation—whereas building each other up actually brings the change and closeness they long for.

– Genuine intimacy requires vulnerability and humility: admitting fear and fault, looking out for the other’s welfare, and taking pleasure in giving the other pleasure.

– Even in a horrible marriage the same principles hold, because our purpose is greater than a good marriage—to become like Christ; audience testimonies add listening, appreciation, quick apology, and praying through conflict.

Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 John 1:5-7; Ephesians 3:14-19; Ephesians 5:22-33

Guide me, O the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. Well, good morning. Welcome to Hope For Wondering Amish. This morning we have Brother John Byler on as our speaker. Brother John will be sharing with us on the all-important subject of marriage. He lives in Elliottsburg, Pennsylvania. They have 11 children and one grandson, and they are a part of Perry Believers Fellowship. I’ve known Brother John for about 14 years. He’s a brother-in-law of my good friend, Elon Peachey. I appreciate him, and I’m looking forward to what he has to say this morning on marriage.

I’d like to start in with prayer right now. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to be on here, as he shares on this important topic. Please minister to us the wonderful word of life, and use Brother John to speak your word and to encourage us in this matter. Thank you, Lord, for your grace and mercy. In Jesus’ name. All right, the time is yours, Brother John.

Okay. Well, I guess, the more I think about the subject of marriage, I think it’s an exciting subject. It’s a very incredible expression of God, of who God is, of what God has done, and of the nature of God, I guess. So when God created the world and the whole universe, he created man in his image, and then he created man and woman, and created the institution of marriage. And so marriage is the expression of God, really. It’s an expression of who God is — yeah, really, the nature of God.

So I guess I’d like to start out with that thought, that marriage is not just something that, you know, I like a person, I want to get married to them, that it’s for me — but really, marriage is something that expresses who God is. And so, instead of thinking about our marriage, my marriage, as, what do I want, or how can I get what I want to be happy, to be fulfilled — it’s, let’s think of it more from the viewpoint of, how can I become really what God intended me to be, what God designed me to be? Can I really walk in that expression?

So, thinking of that, and of our marriage and how we can be what we ought to be — there is, obviously, if we’re not, if me and my wife are not relating well together, then I’m not honoring God, and I’m not happy either. But in trying to fix my marriage, or your marriage, or thinking about getting married — let’s think about, how can we be what God wants us to be? How can we bring honor and glory to God? Not just get what I want; but in doing that, and fulfilling and being what God wants us to be, we will end up finding the greatest fulfillment and happiness in our marriage through all of that.

So I’d like to read a couple of verses here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. He’s talking about, before this, staying away from immorality and prostitutes and things like that. But then he says, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. So marriage is God’s idea. It’s not ours. It’s not our idea that we decided we wanted to get married. That was God’s idea.

It’s God’s idea how marriage should work. And so I believe that he has the answers. And whenever a man and a woman get married and are able to live together, each one laying down, sacrificing their own life for the good of the other and loving each other well, being one, and really expressing a beautiful marriage that is honoring to God — it pleases God very much. So how can we get there? How can we be an expression of who God is?

All right. So — I think that, in my marriage, I’m very happy with my marriage. I struggle. Maybe it’ll get to be something like this: I’m distracted, or I’m discouraged, I’m thinking about myself. And then my wife starts to feel uncared for. And then she starts to have a problem, she’s not happy. And at that point, we don’t connect well. We’re not loving each other, we’re not caring for each other, and our relationship breaks down. And so, you know, first off, we probably need to recognize we’re both being selfish. But how do we get to a place of connecting again? And so I’d like to go through a few things that I think are from Scripture, that God has given us, and that I believe will work. I have not experienced a broken marriage, where things were at the point of just, you know, extremely being broken. But I believe the same principles work for that, as well as keeping a marriage, or working through difficulties that we face.

If you’re going to take two people and come together and be one, we both need to be cleansed. We need to be clean. It’s hard to get close to a dirty person, to someone that’s defiled. And if one or both of us is defiled, we become repulsive. And so we need to be clean. 1 Corinthians — let me see here. I’d like to read a couple more verses there in 1 Corinthians 6. Verse 9, it says — okay, so first of all, we need to be washed. We need to be made clean, so that we can come together.

If I am working in a very dirty environment, and I come home from work, and I smell bad, and I’m just covered with grease and grime, you know, my wife’s not really going to feel too much like giving me a big hug until I get a shower. If I’m looking at pornography, maybe just caught up with making money, maybe some other idol or something — but we need to be cleansed. We need to be made clean before we can really get close to each other comfortably.

So, I guess the next thing — so first of all, let’s be clean, so that we can feel comfortable and be blessed in each other’s presence. And then we need to walk in the light. So 1 John chapter 1 says, this is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

So walking in the light is not just something for everybody out there, but it’s for marriage. We need to walk in the light. If I realize that my wife is hiding something from me, or if she realizes or feels that I’m hiding something from her, there’s no way that we’re going to really have trust and really trust each other and feel close to each other. It’s important that we are able to walk in the light, and that we’re open, that our lives are open with each other, that we’re not doing things that we don’t want the other person to know. Yeah, I think that, to have the trust, we need to walk in the light.

So, we need to be cleansed. We need to walk in the light. And then we need to be filled with the love of God. A lot of times, when people get married, they’re thinking a lot about themselves. And, you know, you can say, you know, I like this other person, I want to marry her. But do you really — do we — can we love each other well? And I think we can only do that well if God gives us love for each other. So I’d like to read here in Ephesians 3, verse 14 to 19: For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

If we’re full of ourselves, we’re going to run into trouble sometimes, because, of ourselves, we just aren’t that great. We have problems. But if we can be filled with the love of God, filled with the fullness of God, then we have something to give. So, there are thousands of books about marriage, about relationships. There are counselors. There are, yeah, just many, many people trying to help in marriages. I guess what I want to present here is not psychology, even though some psychology can help. I believe two people that are not following Jesus Christ can have a decent marriage. But that’s not the answer that I want to present this morning. I want to present Jesus Christ as the answer — that our being surrendered, being yielded to him, and being filled with the fullness of God, is the answer to a good marriage that glorifies God.

When you have two people, or one person — one of the two people in a marriage — that are not secure in who they are in Christ, then we bring our insecurities into our relationships. And when I’m insecure, I’m looking for something to hold on to. And the closest person in my life is my spouse, my partner. And so, in my insecurity, I hold on to them and become demanding, which actually, of course, doesn’t feel good to the other person. And so they withdraw. That doesn’t go well. And so, to have a stable, solid relationship, we need to find our security. We need to find healing. We need to find our needs met, for the greatest part, in Christ.

Now, I know that — marriage, if we come into our marriages with, I don’t need the other person — that doesn’t work either. And I’m not saying to be independent in Christ, independent of other people, but that we can be, in Christ, needy, and yet knowing that I am secure. And as I am secure in that, I may still need my partner — I need, but I’m not demanding. And if they don’t give me what I want, I’m going to love anyway. Even if I feel broken, even if I feel needy. And I think, as we give ourselves in that way, we’re realizing that we are needy, and yet we’re giving, we’re pouring out something that’s greater than ourselves. I think that there’s so much potential for finding our own needs being met, in a greater way, as we relate to each other in that way.

All right. I’d just like to read Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22 to 33, where it talks about relating to each other in marriage. Ephesians 5:22. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

So husbands ought to love their own 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 the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

So, I think that’s a great recipe for success in marriage. But the tendency that people have — that we as people have — in our marriages is, like I said before, we want to get something. We want security. We want the other person, our partner, to give us what we’re looking for. And so, there are different ways we do that. But for men, there’s a tendency to be controlling with anger and intimidation. And a lot of men intimidate their wives, or are angry, and they get what they want in that way. A very destructive habit. We’re never going to — we cannot become one with our wives with anger. And women tend to nag and put pressure on their husbands to try to get what they want, to manipulate — also a very destructive habit, to get what you want, to get security, from another person.

And so, when we relate to each other in these ways, we are actually going against what we really are looking for. And when we can lay down ourselves and look out for the welfare of the other person, build each other up instead of tear each other down — so, if I don’t like something my wife is doing, instead of intimidating her, or trying to manipulate her to change, that’s really tearing her down, just making her either intimidated or afraid, or making her feel worthless. That’s tearing her down. Instead of doing that, if we can build each other up — if I can build my wife up, if I can encourage her — building the other person up will bring change, will bring change that we actually like, that will actually give us more of what we want, really.

And he’s saying that, so, with our wives, we need to love them as our own flesh. And so, when we don’t treat each other nice, we don’t love each other, we’re actually working against ourselves. And I think that many women have husbands that don’t do well in taking responsibility. And so, you know, they might complain, and just, you know, tell their husbands they’re not doing a good job, and you should do this, or you should do that. And really, it’s just undermining their husband’s confidence even more, making them more of — or giving them less confidence, and making the problem worse, which is what they don’t like. And so, if they could build their husband up in the Lord, then he could find confidence — that in the Lord there is a solid place to stand — and help build him up, that he could become the man they want him to be. And they could be blessed in that.

So, just to go over some things here. We are to look out for the other’s welfare, not our own. What does my wife, or what does my partner, need? How are they doing? What are their struggles? Maybe they’re doing something we don’t like. Why are they doing that? Is there something that we can help — that we can build them up, where they can feel secure, where they can feel loved and honored and cared for, and become the person that God intends them to be?

God designed marriage to be a very intimate relationship. And so, the only way we can be what God designed us to be in marriage is to be vulnerable. And, you know, vulnerability is scary. If you’ve been hurt once, we tend to not put ourselves in that situation again. Just the other day, I listened to somebody who was doing a talk about animals. They were talking about skunks. They said, if a dog gets sprayed by a skunk once, it won’t happen again. Well, you know, we are that way as well. And, unfortunately, we’ve been hurt. We’ve experienced painful things. And so, many people — you know, before we’re married, things have happened, we’ve lived life and we’ve been hurt — and we don’t want to make ourselves vulnerable in that same situation again. And we hold a reserve on each other.

Let’s ask God. Let’s seek God together, that we could be vulnerable with each other. And I know that some people — we can’t trust some people — but let’s work towards that. If you feel you can’t trust your partner, let’s build each other up. Let’s work towards getting to a place where we can be completely vulnerable with who we are. This is who I am. These are the thoughts that I had. This is what I did today. This is just who I am. And if we can love each other, just completely being okay with, or knowing, who we are, and love each other well anyway — that’s really amazing.

We need humility. We need to be able to humble ourselves, admit we’re wrong, and just be humble in acknowledging who we are. We are needy. We’ve made mistakes. I believe humility goes a long way — instead of defending ourselves and putting the other person down, just humble ourselves. And, you know, maybe we can say, I’m afraid to be vulnerable, and that’s why I’m acting the way I’m acting. I think that will go a lot better than being defensive.

We find pleasure in giving another person pleasure. As the saying goes, shared joy is double joy. So God has created us — and especially in marriage — that as I give my partner pleasure, I find pleasure in that as well. And I give my wife pleasure in life and in our relationship. We need to learn to know each other. What I like may not be what she likes. Something that’s not really that important to me may be very important to her. But let’s learn to know each other, and learn what is important, that we can give each other pleasure.

There’s purpose beyond making each other happy. There’s purpose in marriage beyond pleasing ourselves and getting what we want. We are created in the image of God. We’ve been bought with a price. And let’s glorify God in our marriages, because that is what God created us to be. That’s what God created marriage for. And it blesses God to see a good marriage. And we want God to bless us — here’s one way we can bless God. Lay down our lives to build the other person up, and learn to know the other person — what they need, what their needs are, maybe what they’re reacting to, what their vulnerabilities are, where they’re afraid to be vulnerable. And seek the Lord together, to build each other up.

There is a lie that Satan tells us, that doing things God’s way is hard, or we won’t get what we want, it’s boring, it’s not exciting. But that’s a complete lie. If we give ourselves to, yield ourselves completely to doing things God’s way, yield ourselves to the Lord, we’ll actually get what we’re really looking for.

So, what if we’re in just a horrible marriage? And, like I said, I’ve not walked through that, and so I feel like I don’t know what that is like. But, what do I do? Where do I go? I believe all the same principles are there. And that Jesus showed us a way to live in a horrible relationship, as he came and lived on this earth and gave himself to redeem for himself a church. And so, I know the other person has choice. Jesus, you know, he gave himself, and yet not everyone chooses to receive his love in that relationship. But God has called us to give ourselves to our spouse. And so, let’s find cleansing. Let’s find our security in God, in Christ. Let’s be open, be vulnerable. Hold the other person up to the glory of God. And if we find ourselves being defensive and tearing the other person down, being negative — let’s stop, and let’s repent. Let’s change. Let’s ask God to change us. Remember what Christ has done for us.

Now, usually, when we begin to act that way, I think that our marriages will be good. And I really believe that. But I would like to say that even if our partner was a terrible partner — even with whatever the other person may do to us — our purpose is greater than just having a good marriage. Our purpose is in becoming like Christ, and being part of expressing the very nature of God. I think that’s an awesome calling. And let’s do that in our marriages and in our families. So, I believe that’s all I have. Thank you, and God bless you.

Well, thank you, Brother John. I really appreciated everything you had to share there. Lots of principles that work — principles that our Maker put into place. Like you said, marriage is really God’s thing. God knows what works. I really appreciated how you, just a number of times there, stressed the fact that it’s in surrender, and in giving of ourselves, and actually putting Jesus first — it’s there that we can get what we’re looking for in marriage. When our focus is on getting what we want — which may not be bad desires, but if our focus is on that, we end up not getting it. And that lines up totally with the principle that Jesus taught, that if we seek to save our life, we’ll lose it; but if we lose our lives for his sake, we’ll find it. That’ll make for strong marriages, if we can walk in it.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a beautiful morning. It was just gorgeous outside. The sun was coming up, everything was bright and beautiful, and the earth was washed. But my wife was away overnight at a retreat, and my daughter was going to make breakfast. She comes to me and says, Daddy, the power is out. And, oh no — it was supposed to be a beautiful morning, and all of a sudden it kind of went into haywire there. A storm had come through the night and knocked out the power. So I was just thinking about that. In our marriages, things can maybe look good on the outside, but there’s a disconnect. And if there is a disconnect, hopefully we feel it very keenly — as we feel it when the electricity is off, and we’re so used to using electricity in everyday life. And when those people come along and bring the connection back together, where the lights come on, the water pump pumps water, and everything else is working the way it should, and you’re back to the way things should be — so, if we can be that sensitive to any kind of disconnect with our spouse, and really bring the connection back together, make that a priority, that’s where it should be. Walking in the light, then we can have fellowship and cleansing.

Yeah, again, just appreciate that, Brother John. Thank you for your time there, and studying and sharing. I look forward to more talks, maybe down the road. And at this time, we’d like to open it up. We always enjoy hearing from the audience. If you have questions, comments, anything, make sure you’re unmuted on your end. I think on our end you should be unmuted. So if you would like to share anything, just go ahead and speak up.

My name is Dan Weeks. I’m from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. I’m a friend of Elam. And I would like to just share some observations. Very happy marriage. My dear darling wife passed away in ’21. And we got married in ’95. So we had 24 marvelous years together. My number one thought is, as I reflect on my conduct as a husband, of course I realized the places where I wasn’t quite up to snuff. One of them that I think is interesting is that women tend to be oblique — at least my wife was, in certain ways. And so, if you can pray, and tune yourself in to try to hear what your wife is really saying, when she’s not coming out and saying what she wants to say, it may go a ways to make your marriage just a little happier.

My wife was trying to tell me that she wanted me to sing to her. I didn’t consider myself much of a singer, but I had grown up — I grew up in the English world, I think you all understand what I’m saying when I say that — and so I knew all the marvelous love-song standards from back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. And I could have sung those to her. And I would sing to her, but I would sing silly, stupid little ditties that I made up. And I don’t think that’s what she was after. And I regret that I didn’t hear that request when she was making it. So that’s item number one.

Item number two is, see if you can find some particular way to express your appreciation for your wife. Now, as I say, I grew up in the English world, which included a lot of television and a lot of sitcoms. And in the standard fare in the sitcoms, almost everyone, it seems to me, would have an episode about the husband forgetting the anniversary. And that stuck in my heart so much, I said, I am not going to be the kind of husband that forgets the anniversary. So I came up with the idea of a "monthiversary," and Connie and I celebrated the 29th of every month as monthiversary. And usually, often, we would just exchange silly notes. But it was just a way of every month reaffirming to her that she was my sweetie, my precious one. So, I don’t know that that’s a particularly general thing — each man will have to figure out what that might be for himself and his wife — but find something like that, or see if you can, because it was precious to us. And now I sign off.

Well, thank you, Dan. I appreciated the wisdom there. You shared the testimony and all of that. Appreciate that. Anybody else that would like to share anything? Good morning. Yeah, thank you, Brother John, so much for your investment in pulling this teaching together. It was a real blessing. I don’t know how you men are, but for myself — I don’t know, probably a couple of years into our marriage, my wife had to ask me one time, in a conflict of some sort, that she always has to be the first one to say she’s sorry. I hadn’t even thought about that. But that was actually a stepping stone in our marriage, for me to be able to make that step, to be the first one to say I’m sorry. And I found it a real blessing.

Yeah, so, kind of what I heard this morning is the contrast between a couple that knows the Lord, you know, seeks after Christ, walks in the light, versus maybe a couple that is more self-seeking. And if you put two people together that are self-seeking people, aren’t we setting ourselves up for some trouble ahead? I would say so. But the idea of walking in the light, laying our life down, and seeking Christ first and his kingdom, is a beautiful picture. Not far into my wife and I’s marriage, I remember there was a conflict. I don’t even remember what the conflict was about — probably something very silly. And I just remember this feeling, like, wow, I’m up against a wall, how do we move ahead from here? And it came to me to pray. So we both got on the floor, on our knees, and prayed. And right into — not very far into our prayer — it was like the conflict was gone. And I realized this was just something really silly. And I remember just feeling so thankful to know what it means to pray. So, may God help each one of you and your marriages. And we are definitely in a generation that needs the people of God to be first seeking Christ and his kingdom, and walking in the light, and showing the world what a beautiful marriage looks like, representing Christ and the church. God bless.

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Brother Elam. You’re very much right that marriages are under attack in our society. And it’s an opportunity for us, as the people of God, to rise up and shine and be what God calls us to be. And, you know, the light shines brighter in dark places, and we are living in dark times. May we be unashamed of the light of Christ, and shine it out there in the world. And even in the Christian circles, there’s just too many marriages that are struggling. And I’m encouraged this morning to go forward in my marriage, to put Jesus first, and my lovely wife next, and myself last, and experience the joy that God gives in that. I found this very encouraging. And I hope that all of you can be encouraged as well, and God would bless and strengthen your marriages, and we can go forward in the things that we were graciously taught this morning. We’re going to go ahead and close this meeting. Thank you to everyone for coming on. May the Lord bless your day.