WEBVTT 00:00:00.870 --> 00:00:03.040 You can't impart what you don't possess. 00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:06.890 And if you have Jesus, then you can live for Jesus. 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:10.580 But if you don't know the Lord, it's hard to be a Christ centered family. 00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:15.190 But it's good for us to know that we all make mistakes. 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:23.800 And what's important within our own family is to be able to find a place of solace and grace in which we can minister to one another and encourage one another and 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:28.090 growth with the Lord, both as a family and as individuals as well. 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:34.680 Last week we looked at something very important in order to achieve a Christ centered family. 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:36.300 We talked about communication. 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:40.020 It's important to communicate, isn't it? 00:00:41.110 --> 00:00:46.920 The truth of God determines that God's people should be able to share that with one another. 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:54.940 As a matter of fact, if we're honest with what Scripture says about our lives, we are born in sin and the tendency of our lives is to become very 00:00:54.940 --> 00:01:02.060 selfish and choose to follow after sin rather than follow after the Lord, and the way that we grow and progress 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:03.960 as people and our understanding with God is one. 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:05.019 We have to come to know the Lord. 00:01:05.019 --> 00:01:07.020 But two we have to walk with him in our lives. 00:01:08.300 --> 00:01:15.300 And we looked at last week very much the way that we follow Jesus, as we saw in the book of Ephesians, is it uses the illustration of a walk. 00:01:16.700 --> 00:01:17.580 Your walk with the Lord. 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:21.780 But not only your walk with the Lord, but the way that you choose to walk with the Lord before other people. 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:29.680 It's an illustration to those around you, those that you love of who Jesus is, and the fact that he has the centerpiece of your life. 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:32.400 How we choose to live is important. 00:01:34.220 --> 00:01:41.300 We can't impart what we do not possess, and if we desire for our family to be a Christ centered family, we need to first get with our relationship right with God to encourage 00:01:41.300 --> 00:01:42.460 others and that as well. 00:01:43.800 --> 00:01:50.860 Today, one of the topics I want to look at is just simply, what does Scripture say about marriage and 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:51.220 the family? 00:01:52.700 --> 00:01:57.320 May all these beliefs that we carry within marriage and the family, how do we even know that they're scriptural beliefs? 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:00.630 Out of all the things in life that we hold on to people. 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:05.540 You know, I'm one of the first people to just want to toss aside tradition if it has no point. 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:10.680 But if it's significant to Scripture, very much so. 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:12.870 I desire to hold on to it. 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:21.580 Right now, within society, there's a lot of things that are being tested and determining what life should be like for marriage and the family. 00:02:22.920 --> 00:02:28.260 Some people see marriage as something archaic, not knowing where it comes from and how it originates within Scripture. 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:35.060 They think that at some point life man thought marriage was a good idea, so they designed it to better help them at the time period in which marriage was invented. 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:37.960 But for us as people today, it's really not that important. 00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:45.420 So we need to possibly view and view and explore possibilities to get rid of marriage within our society, because it's not convenient for 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:46.640 Americans to abide by. 00:02:47.820 --> 00:02:49.750 Not a scriptural stand, but it is a stand. 00:02:49.820 --> 00:02:56.960 And in that line of thinking, people are trying to view marriage as a as a trial basis in which you you're married for 2 to 3 years 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:02.990 as if you were to try it out or something, like some sort of insurance which is renewed upon some sort of renewable basis. 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:08.900 Every six months, you just kind of pay your fees and are encouraged to partake of the marriage. 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:16.280 Further, as you renew those marital vows, when you study American history, you'll find that within American 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:24.320 society today that out of all the modern civilizations that exist, divorce is the highest among American 00:03:24.320 --> 00:03:24.420 culture. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:35.180 Even within the family, more so than marriage, there are organizations like the Child's Right Movement 00:03:35.200 --> 00:03:42.320 that are seeking to exploit the power that parents have over their children in order to train up their children in the way that they desire for them to go, to set a goal 00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:45.280 for their child's life, and to help their kid achieve that goal. 00:03:46.700 --> 00:03:54.300 The child's rights movement are attempting to bring into laws within our society that allows or doesn't allow it outlaws parenting from 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:56.960 making being able to make any decisions. 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:02.960 Decisions which include children can watch any type of television that they desire, even if it's X-rated. 00:04:03.760 --> 00:04:07.460 Parents can't determine where children live, where children attend school. 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:09.610 Parents are not allowed to even discipline their children. 00:04:09.640 --> 00:04:16.240 They can't, and they can't prohibit their children from partaking of any activity that might discriminate against them because of their age. 00:04:18.899 --> 00:04:21.579 That's where society is progressing. 00:04:24.520 --> 00:04:30.940 Marriage and family are the pillar of the way God designed this world. 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:40.820 Before the church even existed, the institution of marriage was established for God, and the strength of a church is 00:04:40.900 --> 00:04:42.270 really found in the strength of its families. 00:04:44.340 --> 00:04:45.420 I tried this out last week. 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:46.560 Let me give it another shot again. 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:53.620 Let me, just for humor's sake, throw out a couple of jokes about the randomness of marriage for just a minute to 00:04:53.760 --> 00:04:54.980 prove his love for her. 00:04:56.440 --> 00:04:58.370 He swam the deepest river. 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:02.960 He crossed the widest desert and climbed the highest mountain. 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:04.620 She left him. 00:05:05.520 --> 00:05:06.520 He was never at home. 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:07.800 Marriage. 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:13.100 Husband and wife were traveling together down the road. 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.320 And he said, honey, I got all the quotes in the world. 00:05:15.320 --> 00:05:16.670 Do you know what my favorite quote is? 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:18.160 It's like, no, what is it? 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:19.560 Well, it comes from Winston Churchill. 00:05:19.780 --> 00:05:21.840 He said, we shall fight on the beaches. 00:05:21.880 --> 00:05:25.240 We shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets. 00:05:25.620 --> 00:05:27.020 We shall fight in the hills. 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:29.360 Why is that your favorite quote? 00:05:29.460 --> 00:05:33.300 She said, because it reminds me so much of our family vacations. 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:35.680 Wow. 00:05:38.260 --> 00:05:43.090 An exhaustive study shows that no man or. 00:05:43.140 --> 00:05:47.800 Excuse me, no woman has ever shot her husband while he was doing the dishes. 00:05:50.280 --> 00:05:51.840 Looking for a safe place in your house, guys? 00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:54.360 There it is. 00:05:57.340 --> 00:06:04.780 The man who seldom finds himself in hot water is one with one wife, several daughters and one bathroom. 00:06:06.260 --> 00:06:06.920 Amen. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:07.680 Thank you. 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:08.460 Okay. 00:06:10.200 --> 00:06:17.340 Marriage and the family are important to our society, and it's important that we, as people who follow after the 00:06:17.340 --> 00:06:24.580 Lord, recognize how significant it is in the way that God chooses to work within this world. 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:34.020 2002 I was in an inner city working with a pastor on a missions trip late at night. 00:06:34.520 --> 00:06:35.720 I don't know why I was up this late. 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:42.800 We were out talking about just the ministry that was taking place, but we noticed as the evening wore on and it got later and later that the later it got, the more kids 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:44.140 were out on the street playing. 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:45.840 2 a.m. 00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:52.900 you could look out on the street and see children running up and down this inner city, playing all night long, rolling old car tires 00:06:52.900 --> 00:06:54.200 up and down the road. 00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:55.200 Hopscotch, whatever. 00:06:55.960 --> 00:06:57.820 Kids just running wild throughout the street. 00:06:57.960 --> 00:07:03.290 And I began to ask the gentleman in charge of the ministry, has this area always been like this? 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:04.060 I mean, this is bizarre. 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:10.860 Kids with no parental supervision, just running amok everywhere, causing destruction, playing all night long. 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:11.500 And he said no. 00:07:12.220 --> 00:07:15.900 In fact, when I was a kid, I grew up just a few blocks down the road. 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:24.560 And when we were kids, we had fathers and mothers living together, husband and 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.860 wife living together, and parents living in the home. 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:28.620 And parents had control of the home. 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:32.280 And throughout the last few decades, it's really changed. 00:07:34.260 --> 00:07:38.860 And I asked him, well, why all of a sudden, has it gone from that type of lifestyle in which you grew up? 00:07:38.980 --> 00:07:42.370 And all of a sudden now we see these children just running all over the streets like this. 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:47.340 And he and he began to share with me that it was he said it was all because of welfare. 00:07:49.380 --> 00:07:49.580 Welfare. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:53.220 How does welfare have to do with how parents raise their kids? 00:07:54.760 --> 00:07:55.080 He said. 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:02.440 You know, in the society or in the part of the place where I lived within the inner city, that the husband and the wife, they would they would live together 00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:06.200 and they didn't make a great amount of living, but they made enough to get by. 00:08:06.380 --> 00:08:08.300 And the father was in there as the central figure of the home. 00:08:08.300 --> 00:08:09.730 He was the disciplinary one for the home. 00:08:10.060 --> 00:08:11.190 And the kids obeyed. 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:18.760 And the mother took care of things and but when welfare came, the mother began to notice that as they struggled to make 00:08:18.760 --> 00:08:23.230 ends meet, sometimes she really just all she had to do was just kick out the husband to go on welfare. 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:25.440 And they had the same amount of needs met in their lives. 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:30.120 The problem was when she kicked her husband out of the home, so went the one who disciplined the children. 00:08:31.460 --> 00:08:34.860 And when the discipline of the children was gone out the window, then the kids began to run amok in the street. 00:08:38.900 --> 00:08:42.600 And therefore the society began to fall apart within that inner city. 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:52.460 We as people have the tendency to take things that God intends for good, even the welfare program, and make them bad. 00:08:54.540 --> 00:09:01.600 If you were to read the book of Genesis when God created Adam and Eve, and we're going to look at a few of the passages this morning, he 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.180 made the statement that it's not good for man to be alone. 00:09:04.360 --> 00:09:06.460 And so he creates Eve. 00:09:06.740 --> 00:09:13.820 And if you see it in the very end of chapter one of Genesis, down in verse 31, it says, When God created everything, as he went through 00:09:13.820 --> 00:09:16.720 all the days, he said, it's good, it's good, it's good. 00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:20.780 But he created the man and woman on the final day as he gets ready to rest on the seventh day. 00:09:21.020 --> 00:09:29.500 And when he creates man and woman being able to enter into that matrimony together, he says it is very good. 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:34.840 God's intentions for marriage is for it to be very good. 00:09:35.660 --> 00:09:37.520 Amen. 00:09:37.700 --> 00:09:43.500 But we as people are the ones who tend to take the things that God intends for good and make it bad. 00:09:45.900 --> 00:09:48.750 The families should be the pillar of our society. 00:09:50.620 --> 00:09:58.960 In fact, God, so much so believed in that when he came to the passage in Jeremiah in chapter 29, if 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:06.140 you know any of the backdrop to the account in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is about to watch the nation of Israel to go into captivity, into Babylon, 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:09.990 and he's about to see the Babylonian nation come into Israel. 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:12.760 Take all the people, slave and carry him off. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:17.000 Those who survived the siege. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:25.080 And God gives this note to the nation of Israel what he desires to do through them as people, as they live in the land of Babylon. 00:10:27.020 --> 00:10:34.240 It says in chapter 29 and verse four, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to those, to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem 00:10:34.380 --> 00:10:34.800 to Babylon. 00:10:35.940 --> 00:10:40.100 He says, build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. 00:10:40.900 --> 00:10:42.190 Marry and have sons and daughters. 00:10:42.300 --> 00:10:46.920 Find wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. 00:10:47.500 --> 00:10:49.160 Increase in number there do not decrease. 00:10:49.980 --> 00:10:53.380 Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:58.540 Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. 00:11:01.020 --> 00:11:03.380 Even carrying the nation of Israel into exile. 00:11:03.380 --> 00:11:05.120 God had a plan for Israel. 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:10.400 He's saying, if you want your situation, your society to change, here's what you need to do. 00:11:10.420 --> 00:11:11.530 As you're being carried off in exile. 00:11:11.880 --> 00:11:16.380 Make plans for the town in which I'm carrying you to live as a godly family. 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:20.480 And through that I will work through this nation. 00:11:23.060 --> 00:11:30.500 As you read the Old Testament, as the nation of Israel is carried off into captivity based on their obedience 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:34.760 in following after the Lord, we see many a blessings that come through Scripture. 00:11:36.380 --> 00:11:43.460 For instance, the Book of Ezra, the Book of Esther, the book of Nehemiah, all written in Babylonian captivity by those 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:45.980 who choose to follow after the Lord in that situation. 00:11:47.680 --> 00:11:54.440 Stories like Daniel in Babylon and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Babylon. 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:04.340 When we read about the account of Jesus's life and the wise men who journeyed from the East to sit at the manger and worship the Lord, they came from the east 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:11.500 in the area of Babylon, men who would have been influenced by people of God, who carried the word of God into the Babylonian nation and began 00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:12.080 to share. 00:12:12.740 --> 00:12:14.840 And these wise men began to follow the teachings. 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:22.300 So much reading from the book of Daniel that they knew when Christ would come, and they journeyed to the West to worship Jesus, because people in 00:12:22.300 --> 00:12:27.740 the midst of a difficult circumstance as a family chose to stand for the Lord. 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:36.100 We've seen together that what God desires in our family is the truth of him. 00:12:36.140 --> 00:12:41.210 We can't impart what we do not possess, but we also must walk in unity with him. 00:12:42.300 --> 00:12:45.100 Galatians five told us that sin brings division and discord. 00:12:46.500 --> 00:12:53.660 But when God is at work in our lives and the lives of our family or even our church community, what we find among ourselves is unity as we follow 00:12:53.660 --> 00:12:55.650 the Lord in truth. 00:12:58.410 --> 00:13:02.490 The Bible contains for us the basics of what marriage is all about. 00:13:04.060 --> 00:13:09.060 This morning, I'm going to look at a few basics of and give us some insight of what marriage and the family is all about. 00:13:09.140 --> 00:13:16.260 So when we face opposition from this world, when we face different theologies and beliefs from people who try to influence us in society about what marriage is 00:13:16.260 --> 00:13:19.140 all about, we can turn to Scripture and say, this is what God says. 00:13:20.920 --> 00:13:27.940 One of the things that we looked at and it repeatedly comes up in study as we see together, is that to have a godly family, if you read any 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:32.060 counseling book, is counselors have studied what a what a strong family is based upon. 00:13:32.060 --> 00:13:33.760 At first it starts with a sense of care. 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:42.380 When a spouse can look at their at their spouse and say that my spouse cares for me 00:13:42.380 --> 00:13:43.740 more than anything else. 00:13:46.280 --> 00:13:52.630 My spouse looks after me even more than their own well-being and even with the family and children. 00:13:54.060 --> 00:14:01.620 As kids look to their parents, mom and dad love me and are willing to do what they need for my benefit and 00:14:01.620 --> 00:14:02.660 for my gain. 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:06.060 Now, I may not be what the gods goal for the child, but what? 00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:07.940 Or excuse me, what the child necessarily wants. 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:12.770 But it's God's goal for the child to appreciate and love the child enough to do what God desires for them. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:23.480 Second is a strong sense of commitment because as we've looked together, no marriage is perfect and 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:26.120 every marriage for a season will have its trials. 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:31.260 Sometimes, in the middle of those trials, we feel like that season is extra long. 00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:32.720 It's like winter in Utah. 00:14:35.810 --> 00:14:39.670 But a strong sense of commitment to what marriage is all about. 00:14:43.020 --> 00:14:45.600 First passage of scripture I have up on the screen this morning. 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.640 This morning for us to look at is about the marriage covenant. 00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:57.720 Marriage, if you think about it for just a moment, isn't a covenant just between you and your spouse? 00:14:59.420 --> 00:15:01.480 It's also a covenant before God. 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:11.780 Proverbs chapter two God accuses a young lady of going against the covenant that she established with the love of 00:15:11.780 --> 00:15:12.600 her youth. 00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:20.680 In Malachi chapter two and verse 14, it says this the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:24.800 dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:29.220 Notice what it says in the very first line about God staying in that marriage. 00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:36.280 It says, the Lord has been a witness between you and your wife as you go to the altar to marry 00:15:36.280 --> 00:15:38.700 that loved one, the one that you desire to give your life away. 00:15:39.140 --> 00:15:40.310 God sees it as a covenant. 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:42.670 And as you're entering into those vows one another. 00:15:42.920 --> 00:15:46.480 God, it says in this passage, is right there in your presence. 00:15:49.500 --> 00:15:57.440 It's a covenant before you and your loved one, but also seen before God. 00:15:58.160 --> 00:16:05.280 God even tells us in Scripture, oversaw and officiated the first marriage in Genesis chapter two and verse 18. 00:16:05.300 --> 00:16:08.290 It says, then the Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. 00:16:08.920 --> 00:16:09.720 Amen. 00:16:10.100 --> 00:16:11.980 I will make him a helper suitable for him. 00:16:12.700 --> 00:16:18.940 For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:24.460 God created Adam and Eve and officiated this first wedding. 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:28.060 And it says in verse 25 that they knew one another and were not ashamed. 00:16:28.060 --> 00:16:29.550 They were intimate together. 00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:31.360 Marriage is good. 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:40.210 It tells us, implying in verse chapter two and verse 18, that what isn't good is if God created you to. 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:46.220 To marry someone is to not engage in that marriage with another woman or with a woman. 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:54.640 He says it's not good implying this, that the marriage itself, because of God seeing the need of man, it becomes good when he created the woman for man to enter 00:16:54.640 --> 00:16:58.030 into that intimate relationship with her. 00:16:59.220 --> 00:17:06.859 Your commitment to this covenant greatly affects your marriage and your family. 00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:08.760 Bible. 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:10.640 The Bible tells us that marriage is a covenant. 00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:14.680 The Bible also tells us that marriage first focuses on the relationship between the husband and wife. 00:17:15.460 --> 00:17:16.849 That's a pretty no duh statement, isn't it? 00:17:18.280 --> 00:17:20.460 Marriage is about a relationship between a husband and wife. 00:17:21.300 --> 00:17:22.480 Yeah, okay, I get that. 00:17:24.099 --> 00:17:27.020 It tells us in the chapter two and verse 24. 00:17:27.099 --> 00:17:28.329 Let me read it to you one more time. 00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:34.200 It says, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife. 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:41.440 The word join in the Hebrew text we've talked about it before, is as a church literally means glued together. 00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:50.740 The husband and wife, when they enter into that marriage relationship, they're literally glued together to the point where you can't tell where one spouse ends and the other one begins. 00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:53.060 And he goes on to describe what that means. 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:56.520 He refers to it as one flesh. 00:17:58.220 --> 00:17:59.700 This means a completeness. 00:18:01.060 --> 00:18:07.140 See, when God looked at the man and he said, man, it is not good for you to be alone. 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:09.060 I mean, that is that's a sad sight. 00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:12.180 I've been there. 00:18:15.430 --> 00:18:18.220 and I've learned since then what a dust ruffle is. 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:20.080 It was a wonderful experience for me. 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:22.580 The things that a lady brings into life that you just. 00:18:23.340 --> 00:18:25.300 At first you don't know what your bed's missing, you know. 00:18:25.300 --> 00:18:27.050 And then all of a sudden, you've got a dust ruffle. 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:27.720 It's beautiful. 00:18:28.180 --> 00:18:29.390 Your sheets smell so good. 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:30.860 It's nice. 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:32.300 There's something wrong with you. 00:18:33.260 --> 00:18:34.980 He says it's not good for you to be alone. 00:18:34.980 --> 00:18:35.840 You need a completeness. 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:37.780 You need the one flesh. 00:18:37.780 --> 00:18:42.880 And so when he talks about making the woman he says, I am going to be, I'm going to make man a helper. 00:18:44.340 --> 00:18:46.370 In Hebrew, it literally means a helpmeet. 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:52.120 It's as if God looks at the man and says, and all these areas, these are definitely your weaknesses. 00:18:53.160 --> 00:19:00.180 And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to design one that meets the needs that you have in life and all the weaknesses that you 00:19:00.180 --> 00:19:00.580 have. 00:19:00.660 --> 00:19:02.560 I will create for her those as strengths. 00:19:03.380 --> 00:19:07.290 And when you two come together, what you're going to experience as one flesh is a completeness. 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:14.180 Sometimes we wrestle with what that means, don't we? 00:19:14.300 --> 00:19:17.490 But the Bible refers to the wife as a helper. 00:19:19.380 --> 00:19:23.380 Can I encourage you this morning not to view your marriage relationship? 00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:30.920 And seeing that she completes who you are as a man and he completes who you are as a woman, not to look at it as a 50 over 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:31.550 50 relationship. 00:19:33.700 --> 00:19:40.740 We're going to see as we look throughout Scripture that the Bible never calls a marriage relationship as a 50 over 50 relationship, what they refer to it as a 00:19:40.740 --> 00:19:44.740 100%, 100% relationship. 00:19:45.220 --> 00:19:52.240 So when we enter into a covenant with your wife or with your husband, when God engages and he's 00:19:52.260 --> 00:19:59.380 there in the midst of that relationship, what you're saying before your spouse, what you're saying before, before God, is that everything that I am, 00:19:59.520 --> 00:20:04.040 I have chosen you as my spouse, and I'm giving all that I am to you 100%. 00:20:06.260 --> 00:20:09.510 And likewise, the spouse's response is the same. 00:20:11.040 --> 00:20:13.470 Marriage is about dying to self, isn't it? 00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:17.270 And living for the needs of your spouse. 00:20:19.380 --> 00:20:22.520 And this passage of Scripture, he refers to his wife as a helper. 00:20:22.520 --> 00:20:29.640 And I love the way that God chose this word because when you read it in the in the Greek Septuagint, it's also the same word that God selected to describe the 00:20:29.640 --> 00:20:30.380 Holy Spirit. 00:20:32.340 --> 00:20:33.060 Ladies. 00:20:33.060 --> 00:20:36.020 You're just like the Holy Spirit and men. 00:20:36.020 --> 00:20:37.340 If I could compare you just for a minute. 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:38.700 Way short. 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:39.420 But you're like Jesus. 00:20:41.280 --> 00:20:43.000 God even said that you guys are equal. 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:44.860 God created you equal. 00:20:45.320 --> 00:20:47.620 Just like Jesus and the Holy Spirit are equal. 00:20:47.620 --> 00:20:49.780 But you know what's significant about Jesus and the Holy Spirit? 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:50.640 They're different. 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:53.380 Equality doesn't mean the same. 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:55.920 You can be equal and different. 00:20:57.260 --> 00:21:01.360 And that's the way God designed us, that we are complete with one another and we are equal. 00:21:01.800 --> 00:21:08.800 But we are different in recognizing the oneness that God has given to us to be joined 00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:11.280 together in completing us as one flesh. 00:21:11.420 --> 00:21:18.640 What God is pointing to us to as people in chapter two and 18 and verse 24, is that both men and 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:22.740 women, when it comes to the marital role to complete one another, have different roles. 00:21:25.380 --> 00:21:29.140 God made men better at some things than the ladies. 00:21:31.140 --> 00:21:32.200 And God. 00:21:32.540 --> 00:21:35.400 And don't tell, don't tell the feminists what I'm saying this morning. 00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:36.120 Okay. 00:21:36.520 --> 00:21:41.440 God told made ladies to be better at certain things that men greatly lack in and. 00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:42.460 Amen. 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.200 And God has created us with different roles and abilities. 00:21:48.220 --> 00:21:55.360 And the more that we enhance those roles with in one another, and the more that we build one another up in those roles, the better the 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:56.120 family functions. 00:21:56.500 --> 00:21:59.360 Now, I'm not saying this morning women can't work. 00:21:59.360 --> 00:21:59.460 Okay. 00:22:00.020 --> 00:22:00.140 I'm not. 00:22:00.940 --> 00:22:03.660 Let's I don't want to fight the battle of feminism that's coming in a couple of weeks. 00:22:03.820 --> 00:22:04.340 We'll fight it. 00:22:04.340 --> 00:22:04.440 Okay? 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:09.080 Proverbs 31 says women can work. 00:22:09.080 --> 00:22:09.200 Okay. 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:11.750 So just go home and read that right. 00:22:12.340 --> 00:22:16.680 If one of those guys that think women need to stay home and, whatever. 00:22:18.100 --> 00:22:21.280 but Proverbs talks about ladies if they're interested in working. 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:28.620 But what I want to point out to us this morning is we need to recognize that God has made us equal but different, and learn how to better live that with within 00:22:28.620 --> 00:22:28.820 the home. 00:22:30.760 --> 00:22:37.900 When you ever you ever watch the movie Jerry Maguire where he, Tom cruise walks in the room and Renee Zellweger is sitting on the other side and he makes the statement, 00:22:38.520 --> 00:22:39.380 you complete me. 00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:43.150 And then Bruce Springsteen pops in with his wonderful song. 00:22:43.380 --> 00:22:45.440 He looks you in the eye. 00:22:45.900 --> 00:22:46.460 You know what I'm talking about. 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:47.940 Everybody knows what I'm talking about. 00:22:47.980 --> 00:22:48.390 I know you do. 00:22:48.920 --> 00:22:50.090 And that is a biblical concept. 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:51.660 It feels so right, you guys. 00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:54.930 All you guys went home was like, honey, you complete me. 00:22:55.840 --> 00:22:56.240 Too late. 00:22:56.420 --> 00:22:57.740 Tom Cruise already stole it. 00:22:58.460 --> 00:23:01.020 But the point is that's a biblical concept. 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:03.500 The way that God has designed the husband and wife. 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:03.600 They. 00:23:03.820 --> 00:23:05.700 They complete one another in their roles. 00:23:05.700 --> 00:23:11.640 Now, guys, let me let me just give you some some scary verses for just a moment and understand that God has made us equal but different. 00:23:12.100 --> 00:23:13.890 We all carry roles within the family. 00:23:14.320 --> 00:23:18.850 God tells to the men in Ephesians chapter five and verse 23 that the husband is the head of the home. 00:23:20.300 --> 00:23:26.200 Now, ladies, before you jump all over this for a second, if we talk about feminism for just a minute, you get mad at that. 00:23:26.780 --> 00:23:29.590 I want to be the head, we're both heads. 00:23:30.700 --> 00:23:34.360 let me just say just hold the brakes on till we talk about feminism for just a minute. 00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:38.840 Because right now, what I'm telling the men is that God's going to hold them most accountable for the way they choose to manage the family. 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:45.680 So before you jump for that position, God is holding the man of your house primarily responsible for the care of the family. 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:47.440 That's good. 00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:48.720 That relieves some stress sometimes. 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:57.880 Ephesians six and verse four, it says to the fathers, bring your kids up in discipline and instruction, your responsibility. 00:23:57.880 --> 00:24:00.150 In Ephesians six, we've been looking at Ephesians together. 00:24:00.700 --> 00:24:04.560 In first Timothy chapter three, it says, you must manage your own household. 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.860 Well, that is God's goal for your life as men. 00:24:07.660 --> 00:24:15.050 In first Timothy chapter five and verse eight, it says, if anyone does not provide for his own family, talking to the men, and especially for those of his household, 00:24:15.620 --> 00:24:18.880 he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 00:24:20.580 --> 00:24:24.260 Meaning this guys, if you're not working, get off your rear end and go work. 00:24:25.660 --> 00:24:28.560 And if you've got a family, you've got a responsibility and God's called you to do that. 00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:34.550 God holds the man responsible for the caring of the family. 00:24:36.860 --> 00:24:39.850 God even held Adam responsible for the care of his family. 00:24:41.280 --> 00:24:48.300 If you were to read Romans chapter five and verse 11, that portion of scripture there, or even first Timothy chapter two, what you'll 00:24:48.300 --> 00:24:52.760 find in those passages of Scripture is that in the Garden of Eden, who was the first one to eat the fruit? 00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:56.140 Somebody tell me, Eve. 00:24:57.560 --> 00:25:03.320 But when you read in Romans chapter five, the one that God accuses and holds responsible is Adam. 00:25:05.600 --> 00:25:06.640 Adam was the head of his family. 00:25:07.020 --> 00:25:12.120 Adam's responsibility was to share with the Lord or share with Eve what the Lord wanted in their lives. 00:25:13.800 --> 00:25:20.860 Let me just say, talking about men for a moment and the headship and the responsibility that God sees upon you, and leading your family according to the 00:25:20.860 --> 00:25:21.580 way that God directs. 00:25:22.040 --> 00:25:25.020 There's responsibility that also comes in the life of the ladies as well. 00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:29.100 It comes by the way of respect. 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:33.900 You guys are equal, but different. 00:25:36.140 --> 00:25:43.240 Ladies, let me tell you more than anything, if God is holding your husband responsible for the leadership of the family and he sees you as 00:25:43.240 --> 00:25:50.520 a helpmate within that family, as his partner, more than anything, he needs your respect. 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:55.720 If he's going to lead the way that God desires for him to lead, he can't do it without your respect. 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:00.880 Well, what's it like for a night to come home to the castle when his queen doesn't even want him there? 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:06.350 But respect is very welcoming to him. 00:26:07.500 --> 00:26:11.390 And I know the defense that ladies can make to a passage of Scripture like this. 00:26:12.760 --> 00:26:18.720 To be quite honest, the way that our society trains men up, they're not really worthy of much respect today. 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.680 And we could use that excuse in saying to your husband, Listen, you don't deserve respect. 00:26:28.140 --> 00:26:29.490 But when we enter into that marriage covenant. 00:26:29.800 --> 00:26:36.900 And it's important for the young ladies who aren't married to recognize this, that when you enter into that marriage covenant with a husband, what the Bible asks you to do 00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:37.820 is respect that man. 00:26:37.860 --> 00:26:40.660 And so if you can't respect him, don't marry him. 00:26:42.940 --> 00:26:44.500 Ladies who are married, what the Bible commands. 00:26:44.560 --> 00:26:51.720 If you want to see a change within your husband, if you want to see him living the way that God desires for him to do that, and for you to enable him as best as you can 00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:54.030 to be able to help him out and lead that family as God directs. 00:26:54.360 --> 00:26:57.350 What he really needs from you is your respect. 00:26:59.540 --> 00:27:05.440 You think about for a moment the lady who when the man comes home, he gets no respect from her. 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:08.860 And when he when she walks in that door, she jumps all over him about things. 00:27:10.500 --> 00:27:12.000 Could you imagine walking in a home like that? 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:18.880 And all of a sudden the wife just unleashes on you know, as a man who is supposed to lead the family, you really only have two choices in a situation like that. 00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:27.000 You can either cower and become a sissy and not stand up for anything within that situation and lead as God desired for you to leave, or you can react 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:30.920 towards her and get aggressive, and all of a sudden she begins to cry because you became a bear. 00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:33.820 It is a lose lose for you in that situation. 00:27:34.660 --> 00:27:35.820 You don't have a good choice. 00:27:36.580 --> 00:27:43.580 And so it's important for us to the ladies to understand that what God desires for you to establish within your household, the way that God intends to work within your 00:27:43.580 --> 00:27:46.760 family, is that you look at your husband with respect. 00:27:49.040 --> 00:27:56.160 The Bible never says that you have to earn it, men, but it does request the ladies to give it. 00:27:57.860 --> 00:28:02.400 Can I just say to the men, men don't make it difficult for her. 00:28:04.580 --> 00:28:08.500 Make it easy and become a man that's worthy of respect in your household. 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.000 Proverbs warns against this, and I just want to share a couple of verses comes in. 00:28:14.580 --> 00:28:16.370 Actually, it repeats it a couple of times in Proverbs. 00:28:18.100 --> 00:28:23.410 He says to the men, it's better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. 00:28:25.220 --> 00:28:26.580 All the men are being silent right now. 00:28:26.580 --> 00:28:27.520 They're like, yes, please. 00:28:27.520 --> 00:28:30.260 Where are you going to write that verse down. 00:28:30.300 --> 00:28:31.680 Aren't you going to put it on your wall somewhere? 00:28:34.180 --> 00:28:40.450 Proverbs 1913, in the contentious contentions of a wife, is a constant dripping. 00:28:45.540 --> 00:28:48.240 Man, can I just make it easy for your wives for a moment? 00:28:48.280 --> 00:28:51.420 We're talking about respect, husbands. 00:28:51.780 --> 00:28:56.920 Ephesians tells the wife, as she should respect you, that you as well are to love her. 00:28:58.320 --> 00:29:06.060 It tells us in Ephesians chapter five and verse 25 says, husbands, love your wives, just 00:29:06.060 --> 00:29:09.780 as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. 00:29:09.900 --> 00:29:11.480 Think about that sacrifice for a minute. 00:29:12.140 --> 00:29:19.320 What it costs Jesus to love his church so that he might sanctify and cleanse her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word 00:29:19.580 --> 00:29:26.620 that he might present to him the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and 00:29:26.620 --> 00:29:26.920 blameless. 00:29:29.500 --> 00:29:33.540 Because if you want a better teammate in your home, Scripture tells you here that you need to love. 00:29:35.140 --> 00:29:37.060 It actually gives you the cure for the ugly woman. 00:29:37.560 --> 00:29:39.360 I'm not calling any woman here ugly today, okay? 00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:46.060 But it's saying this if your wife isn't quite as beautiful on the inside as you want her to be, love her more. 00:29:47.840 --> 00:29:51.080 It says Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for her. 00:29:51.080 --> 00:29:52.200 And look what the result is. 00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:55.700 This as Jesus is dying for his church, giving himself to his church. 00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:02.940 It says so that he might sanctify and cleanse her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word that he might present to him the church in 00:30:02.940 --> 00:30:05.590 all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle. 00:30:07.280 --> 00:30:14.300 It's saying this to the men, men, as you begin to love your wife unconditionally, as this passage of Scripture is talking about, regardless of the way that she behaves as you choose 00:30:14.300 --> 00:30:20.270 to love her in that way, what you tend to do is to make her more lovable and more lovely. 00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:25.680 Because as you love her, as Jesus loves, she becomes more beautiful in her appearance from day to day. 00:30:29.140 --> 00:30:30.560 Learn to speak her love language. 00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:34.660 Let me give you one helpful tip. 00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:37.080 Don't always be a problem solver. 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:45.620 You ever, as a guy in the workforce or whatever, all day long you're solving problems and dealing with solutions. 00:30:46.100 --> 00:30:50.160 You sometimes need to consider, as your wife comes before you for a need in order to love her. 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:52.370 She doesn't need you to solve her problems. 00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:59.560 Sometimes she just needs you to listen, and a listening ear can even go a long way within a family to demonstrate to 00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:00.820 your wife that you love her. 00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:05.880 Husbands, your wife is your beautiful teammate. 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:07.140 And it goes on in verse 28. 00:31:07.860 --> 00:31:10.860 So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. 00:31:12.080 --> 00:31:13.780 He who loves his own wife loves himself. 00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:21.320 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. 00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:25.910 Ladies, if you want your husbands to love you more. 00:31:27.740 --> 00:31:28.060 Show them respect. 00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:34.560 Husbands, if you want your wives to respect you more, show them love. 00:31:36.300 --> 00:31:37.480 And it goes a long way, ladies. 00:31:38.600 --> 00:31:43.210 When your husband walks in the room, just grab grab those big muscles and just tell him you are so strong. 00:31:43.380 --> 00:31:45.820 Look at you big protector of our family. 00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:48.620 Oh my goodness, I just squeeze those muscles. 00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:57.380 Now, granted, they haven't been in the gym for about 20 years, but you know, the next time they walk into that room, you know what they're 00:31:57.380 --> 00:31:58.100 going to be doing, right? 00:31:58.620 --> 00:32:01.880 I mean, you're going to see a chest puffed out like you haven't seen in years. 00:32:03.400 --> 00:32:06.300 Your knight in shining armor that you dated when you were young is back. 00:32:07.140 --> 00:32:08.300 And he's looking good, right? 00:32:11.500 --> 00:32:12.010 In that mirror. 00:32:12.020 --> 00:32:13.420 That morning he will he will flex. 00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:17.280 And you still continue to be impressed. 00:32:17.280 --> 00:32:17.380 Okay. 00:32:21.020 --> 00:32:22.310 I guess I'm saying fake it. 00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:30.660 Is that right to say the Bible says this to men as well in first Peter three seven, likewise, 00:32:30.740 --> 00:32:37.900 ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the wife as unto 00:32:37.940 --> 00:32:38.560 the weaker vessel. 00:32:41.240 --> 00:32:42.330 I've seen a lot of feminism. 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:47.560 Feminism get feminist groups, get upset with the word weaker vessel in this passage of Scripture. 00:32:47.580 --> 00:32:52.180 And before we ever take that approach as a church, let me just give you an idea of what weaker vessel means in this passage. 00:32:52.840 --> 00:32:56.160 I like the way the King James words it in First Peter chapter three. 00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:00.680 The weaker vessel is an ornate decorative item. 00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:08.980 It's saying this view your wife you think about in your home, the most precious item that you own, that you display within your home for its 00:33:08.980 --> 00:33:09.400 beauty. 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:11.800 Think of your wife that way. 00:33:12.740 --> 00:33:18.260 Whether it's an expensive chandelier or it's an important vase that sits as the centerpiece of decoration to your home. 00:33:18.620 --> 00:33:23.970 When you walk into your home, the way that you're careful around that vase, and the way that you appreciate the beauty that it brings to your home. 00:33:24.460 --> 00:33:26.800 Appreciate your wife in that way, she is the weaker vessel. 00:33:27.060 --> 00:33:29.200 She is a vessel of beauty. 00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:32.840 After all, she does things way better than you do. 00:33:33.400 --> 00:33:34.800 And that is beautiful, right? 00:33:38.380 --> 00:33:43.700 The primary question we ask ourselves when we look at a passage of Scripture like this in Ephesians is wives. 00:33:45.340 --> 00:33:48.560 Do you respect your husband enough to live live for them? 00:33:50.040 --> 00:33:54.340 Husbands, do you love your wife enough to die for her? 00:33:58.180 --> 00:34:04.480 Marriage is about a relationship between a husband and a wife, no doubt. 00:34:04.600 --> 00:34:05.750 Well, marriage also is. 00:34:07.540 --> 00:34:11.000 And what it causes us to do is to make adjustments towards outside relationships. 00:34:13.380 --> 00:34:17.860 Notice what it says about outside relationships in Genesis chapter two and verse 24. 00:34:19.340 --> 00:34:24.679 He says, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother. 00:34:26.300 --> 00:34:26.840 And biblical chords cut. 00:34:28.050 --> 00:34:29.480 It's time to go on. 00:34:30.940 --> 00:34:38.260 It talks about the need to recognize the importance of severing relationships, changing what relationships were previously to your marriage, and 00:34:38.260 --> 00:34:45.480 establishing that new relationship with your wife or your husband in order to become intimate and personal in the relationship that you now 00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:46.860 have with your spouse. 00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:53.030 I really appreciate my mother's understanding of this passage of Scripture. 00:34:54.260 --> 00:34:55.440 I hope she doesn't listen to this message. 00:34:57.240 --> 00:35:04.240 Verse 24 when it talks about leaving and cleaving to your wife, my mother, in understanding this verse has 00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:05.400 never said nor. 00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:13.170 She's made it a point to me where she ever say anything that might be considered remotely negative about my relationship with my wife. 00:35:13.460 --> 00:35:20.430 I really love that about my mom in her position that now she does say a lot of encouraging things about it, but she refuses to take a position on it. 00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:24.940 And it's the encouragement here to us in this passage of Scripture is men and women. 00:35:24.940 --> 00:35:30.240 When you're experiencing difficulty within your marriage relationship, find another place other than your mom to go. 00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:32.110 Talk about your situation. 00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:39.780 What you might need is even some partial counseling because for your mother, you really put her in a bad spot. 00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:48.860 Most of the time when we are arguing with our spouse, a lot of times when we go before our friends and we begin to gossip about our situation, we're really not looking 00:35:48.860 --> 00:35:49.980 for them to solve our problems. 00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:51.880 What we're looking for them to do is to take our side. 00:35:53.260 --> 00:36:00.380 And when I bring my present, my argument before a loved one, a parent or a friend, I can really begin to paint a picture of how good I 00:36:00.380 --> 00:36:06.960 am and how I did everything perfect in the situation, but my spouse was just the wrong one, and I'll take my side and make me feel good. 00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:08.760 Now build fuel to that fire. 00:36:10.060 --> 00:36:12.240 Now let me go back and tell my spouse, well, my mom said. 00:36:15.620 --> 00:36:22.660 Genesis chapter two and verse 24 is a reminder to us there is danger in those types of relationships and what we need to seek to do in our marriage relationship with 00:36:22.660 --> 00:36:24.950 our spouses, to guard it and protect it. 00:36:25.900 --> 00:36:30.880 It is the most intimate relationships of all relationships in which we'll experience in this world. 00:36:32.180 --> 00:36:34.940 And God desires for us to learn a lot about our marriage relationship. 00:36:35.740 --> 00:36:40.380 After all, he connects a marriage relationship to his relationship with the church. 00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:45.920 Don't let others divide you in your intimacy with your spouse. 00:36:48.140 --> 00:36:51.180 We see that happen a lot in our American society today. 00:36:52.540 --> 00:36:53.370 This includes friends. 00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:54.700 It includes family. 00:36:54.780 --> 00:36:57.020 It even includes your kids. 00:36:59.140 --> 00:37:01.800 A biblical marriage makes adjustments towards relationships. 00:37:02.340 --> 00:37:05.590 And I'm not saying cut your family off, but it's important. 00:37:05.900 --> 00:37:13.000 Whatever builds the oneness, the companionship, the unity, the glued together of your marriage, that you 00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:14.510 seek to stand for that together. 00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:22.980 Also includes a biblical marriage also comes with it the blessing of raising children. 00:37:25.320 --> 00:37:32.540 It tells us in Genesis chapter one and verse 18 at the very bottom, I don't know why I have 28 there, but 00:37:32.600 --> 00:37:33.120 God blessed them. 00:37:34.040 --> 00:37:37.500 And God said to Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply. 00:37:40.120 --> 00:37:41.480 Children are a blessing. 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:47.700 America sees it different, but children are a blessing. 00:37:47.700 --> 00:37:49.840 It says in Psalm 127 and verse five. 00:37:49.980 --> 00:37:53.660 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. 00:37:54.280 --> 00:37:54.870 And look at the blessing. 00:37:55.080 --> 00:37:58.100 When he created the husband and wife, he said, God blessed them. 00:37:58.300 --> 00:38:03.000 And when he gives us the answer about how he blessed them, he says, be fruitful and multiply. 00:38:04.260 --> 00:38:08.980 Now, given this passage isn't just entirely talking about having children and raising them. 00:38:09.380 --> 00:38:13.020 It's talking about taking care of the earth and subduing the earth and cultivating the earth. 00:38:13.040 --> 00:38:20.260 But in addition to that, it's also talking about having children and the blessing that comes with that, and being fruitful and multiplying in 00:38:20.260 --> 00:38:27.340 a society that sees children contradictory to that and reminds you of Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse four, where it tells us to build our 00:38:27.340 --> 00:38:32.960 homes, to have our godly families, to raise our children the way that God desires and change our society for the Lord. 00:38:36.540 --> 00:38:38.500 Genesis chapter two and verse 24. 00:38:38.500 --> 00:38:45.360 When we've seen that the husband and wife are to cleave together, that outside relationships are to change with that marital covenant that's established. 00:38:45.660 --> 00:38:49.660 Notice also what takes place in the life of the children. 00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:56.580 It says, for this man, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother. 00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:02.140 Kids have grown up and the kids are leaving. 00:39:03.940 --> 00:39:06.350 Mom and dad are saying goodbye to their children. 00:39:07.600 --> 00:39:13.560 Children are designed to leave the home to become one with their mate. 00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:21.900 Marriage is about oneness, but parenting is about independence. 00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:27.520 Your goal for your child is to seek to train them up in the way that they should go. 00:39:27.720 --> 00:39:28.790 They may become independent. 00:39:28.840 --> 00:39:32.820 To be able to go out into this world, to find a spouse and become one with them. 00:39:36.420 --> 00:39:41.740 And in so doing, Jesus teaches us about our relationship to him. 00:39:43.580 --> 00:39:50.500 Think about the things you learn at a new depth because of marriage and your relationship to God. 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:57.360 When we learn what it means to love in a different way, biblically, to give ourselves away in that love. 00:39:57.740 --> 00:39:58.260 Love is patient. 00:39:58.560 --> 00:39:59.110 Love is kind. 00:40:00.160 --> 00:40:00.640 Love is gentle. 00:40:00.840 --> 00:40:01.460 It does not envy. 00:40:01.460 --> 00:40:03.780 It does not boast, does not think of its own. 00:40:04.160 --> 00:40:09.670 It keeps no record of wrong marriage is a good educator and what it means to love. 00:40:11.860 --> 00:40:13.320 We learn how to love 100%. 00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:15.320 In giving ourselves away to our spouse. 00:40:15.540 --> 00:40:21.780 We learn how selfish we are sometimes and how to die to self the way that Jesus died for us. 00:40:24.040 --> 00:40:31.100 When God says he loves us like a father, it's through marriage that we experience children and having children and being a parent and loving your child, you begin 00:40:31.100 --> 00:40:35.080 to understand, as God expresses himself as a father the way that he loves us. 00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:42.520 As children, we learn answers and we come up with wisdom by having to trust in God for situations that we 00:40:42.520 --> 00:40:44.240 really don't know how to work through. 00:40:44.380 --> 00:40:51.500 Sometimes, rather than ask our parents for advice, we sometimes are put in a position where we seek 00:40:51.620 --> 00:40:53.660 the just the counsel of God alone. 00:40:56.280 --> 00:40:58.760 Marriage teaches us something about the interaction of the Trinity. 00:41:00.740 --> 00:41:02.960 Man and wife are equal but different. 00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:09.550 And so Jesus and the father and the Holy Spirit are equal but different. 00:41:11.200 --> 00:41:14.220 Marriage shows our ability to stay committed to a covenant. 00:41:15.900 --> 00:41:20.560 Marriage helps us to develop further in our maturity before God. 00:41:21.140 --> 00:41:26.570 It helps us to show what's important in relationships, in life, out of everything. 00:41:27.140 --> 00:41:34.300 Parents, I think what marriage does the most for your child is that they finally get the opportunity in life where they realize that all the advice that their mom and dad gave them, that they thought 00:41:34.300 --> 00:41:37.790 was so stupid when they were growing up, starts to make a lot of sense. 00:41:42.340 --> 00:41:44.600 God's goal for your children are to become independent. 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:49.400 Learning to discover where your child fits into the marriage is important. 00:41:51.680 --> 00:41:57.480 And one of the things they say in counseling today, over over 90% of all counseling that takes place deals with marriage and family. 00:41:59.580 --> 00:42:06.620 And one of the primary problems that they find is that parents have in American society have begun to build their life entirely around their kids. 00:42:08.680 --> 00:42:11.840 Can I tell you this morning what your kids need more than anything? 00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:19.800 Especially recognizing the condition of marriage in our society is for you to display for them what a godly 00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:20.790 marriage looks like. 00:42:22.900 --> 00:42:28.020 Dad, your daughters need to know how their future husbands should treat them. 00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:29.840 Seeing the way that you treat mom. 00:42:32.620 --> 00:42:39.380 Dad, your son needs to see how to treat a lady by seeing how you treat mom. 00:42:41.340 --> 00:42:48.640 Mom, your daughter needs to see how to love her husband by watching how you deal with the family 00:42:48.640 --> 00:42:50.540 and with your husband with grace. 00:42:52.640 --> 00:42:59.960 Mom, your son needs to know how his future wife should treat him and seeing how you choose to treat your 00:42:59.960 --> 00:43:00.810 husband. 00:43:03.020 --> 00:43:04.120 More than anything today. 00:43:04.140 --> 00:43:08.210 I think what kids need is not to focus our marriage. 00:43:08.500 --> 00:43:13.780 Our marriages on them, but to display for them what a godly marriage looks like. 00:43:15.660 --> 00:43:20.700 He considered the negative effects of building a marriage just solely around your children. 00:43:23.240 --> 00:43:26.940 When you build your life around your kids, your kids get married. 00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:30.600 Kids continue to think that life is all about them. 00:43:33.340 --> 00:43:38.200 Kids who are intended to function independently will never learn that independence. 00:43:38.200 --> 00:43:42.420 They need to establish and continue to have a dependency for the rest of their lives. 00:43:43.500 --> 00:43:43.760 Could. 00:43:45.500 --> 00:43:52.800 When kids leave, and as the parents have built a life around the kids, when the kids finally leave the nest, the parents are left looking at one another within the home as if they're married, 00:43:53.160 --> 00:43:53.720 but they're strangers. 00:43:55.120 --> 00:44:00.620 They've never sought to build that relationship with one another and to grow further in the depth of that marriage. 00:44:03.580 --> 00:44:09.240 Kids won't know how a proper marriage is to function because they've never seen it modeled. 00:44:11.980 --> 00:44:20.820 Can I take a break from you married couples for a minute and just talk to the kids, talk to our teenagers and young ones and just say, to 00:44:20.840 --> 00:44:21.180 our young people. 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:24.510 Give mom and dad a break. 00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:32.410 You think about if you encourage them to go out and just invest some time to one another, you get the house to yourselves. 00:44:34.380 --> 00:44:35.260 Yeah. 00:44:36.740 --> 00:44:40.880 But Mom and Dad know something that eventually one day, you're going to leave the home. 00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:45.070 And what they need is for you not to eat up all of their time. 00:44:46.720 --> 00:44:47.460 And they need time to themselves. 00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:57.440 I read of a couple who had a lot of children, and they understood the significance of just building a life together and still raising their children the way God 00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:01.560 desired and still loving their kids, but they couldn't find time to invest one another. 00:45:01.940 --> 00:45:07.280 So they got up early on Saturday morning and just made Saturday morning breakfast a date. 00:45:07.380 --> 00:45:12.110 Time for them to go out and experience life together and grow to one another. 00:45:13.240 --> 00:45:18.230 It's important for us to continue to establish that within our marriage relationship, because we as people are always changing. 00:45:19.180 --> 00:45:19.860 We're always growing. 00:45:19.860 --> 00:45:20.530 We're always progressing. 00:45:20.620 --> 00:45:22.300 We're not the same person that we were days ago. 00:45:23.780 --> 00:45:30.920 And when you're married to an individual or you're married to your spouse, you can't live on past memories of what you used to date because 00:45:31.120 --> 00:45:33.920 20 years down the road, that's not the same guy you married. 00:45:33.920 --> 00:45:35.060 And that's not the same lady. 00:45:35.380 --> 00:45:38.440 Guys, if it's a different day, it'll be a different lady, right? 00:45:39.360 --> 00:45:41.040 Sorry, ladies. 00:45:43.390 --> 00:45:47.310 It's important to build that marriage together. 00:45:49.180 --> 00:45:53.560 Marriage is about cleaving, cleaving to one another. 00:45:55.280 --> 00:45:56.300 But parenting is about Leaving. 00:46:00.500 --> 00:46:06.160 And I think, recognizing that children will leave one day. 00:46:07.020 --> 00:46:08.460 just having our first kid. 00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:10.410 I have no idea what that's like yet. 00:46:11.860 --> 00:46:13.200 I don't know if I ever want to know. 00:46:14.460 --> 00:46:19.840 But, I think it might be healthy for us as parents when we're home every once in a while, just to mention to each other. 00:46:19.860 --> 00:46:23.260 You know, I can't wait till that last kid leaves the nest. 00:46:23.960 --> 00:46:25.310 And then it's just me and you again. 00:46:27.100 --> 00:46:31.880 My mom called me when Stacy was flying back from back east to let me know how difficult that was. 00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:37.080 We just had our first her second grandbaby, her oldest boy. 00:46:38.100 --> 00:46:38.540 Kids. 00:46:38.540 --> 00:46:39.170 We all know parents. 00:46:39.260 --> 00:46:42.660 You know, you love your firstborn more than any of your other siblings or children, right? 00:46:43.720 --> 00:46:50.740 And, she goes, she calls me and says, well, did you miss Stacy and Grayson? 00:46:53.980 --> 00:46:59.060 I said, yeah, they've been gone for two weeks. 00:47:00.600 --> 00:47:08.730 And, um. 00:47:08.730 --> 00:47:11.620 She said, well, now you know what it's like for me. 00:47:19.850 --> 00:47:19.970 Moving to, to Utah, away from family for the sake of Christ, and that people may know him is a decision that affects family, but think is having young children one day God's designed for them is to leave the home and to become one flesh with someone they choose to love. 00:47:19.970 --> 00:47:27.530 Some marriage and the family relationship is different 00:47:27.530 --> 00:47:35.670 than the husband and 00:47:35.670 --> 00:47:36.010 wife. 00:47:36.090 --> 00:47:59.970 Your kids 00:48:00.550 --> 00:48:07.650 didn't get a choice in which home they were in, but when it comes to marriage, you get the opportunity to choose the person that you will love 00:48:07.650 --> 00:48:11.850 and that covenant is important. 00:48:14.930 --> 00:48:17.720 What's a biblical overview of marriage in the family? 00:48:19.590 --> 00:48:26.750 Marriage in the family is sacred, a sacred covenant that God oversees, a covenant 00:48:26.750 --> 00:48:33.990 that is established between one man and woman, and in this covenant knew things about themselves, others, and their relationship to God are discovered. 00:48:35.470 --> 00:48:42.650 God wants them to be unified above any other relationship, and to allow that unity to help them experience 00:48:42.650 --> 00:48:43.430 the depth of love. 00:48:43.690 --> 00:48:50.850 To experience this love the way God desires, they must learn how to handle the position of their marriage as well as the relationships 00:48:50.850 --> 00:48:52.250 with other people. 00:48:53.410 --> 00:48:59.550 God intends marriage to be between one man and one woman, not between a man and a woman. 00:49:00.230 --> 00:49:01.590 The parents and the kids. 00:49:03.550 --> 00:49:07.030 And through their marriage, they can establish a family. 00:49:09.210 --> 00:49:14.310 As the couple grows together, they can demonstrate to their children what a godly marriage and a godly family looks like. 00:49:15.870 --> 00:49:23.190 And in so doing, they'll help train up godly children who will be able to live independently from their mother and father, 00:49:24.130 --> 00:49:29.070 and to live in a God honoring relationship with the one that they chose to love. 00:49:32.110 --> 00:49:32.670 Do you see that? 00:49:35.270 --> 00:49:38.110 There's a lot in Genesis chapter two and verse 24 isn't there? 00:49:40.130 --> 00:49:45.550 But it's important for us to recognize God's value biblically in marriage. 00:49:46.830 --> 00:49:47.850 Let's close in a word of prayer.