What Is Marriage?

I pastor Matt listen thank you for downloading or streaming this sermon pray that it blesses your heart two quick things that I want to lay before you before we get started in the proclamation of God's Word the first is and I love that you're dialing in to hear what the Lord's put on our heart here at TVC but I ask that you would only consume these messages as supplemental and in no way replacing your commitment and your listening to your local church pastor these are good gifts of God's grace for the people of God to grow in and yet they are not to replace ever meant to replace our belonging to a covenant community of faith where we are the the second thing want to lay before you is is that there are a lot of man-hours that men and women here at the village church put behind not just the creation of this but the creation of all kinds of resources that are meant to help you grow and develop as a disciple of Jesus Christ and so if this blesses you or the other resources that have been created have blessed you would you consider giving back to the village church to support not just these things with the creation of even more resources for you and really for anyone who wants to indulge in them now I pray that God stirs your affections for Jesus Christ as you listen now to the proclamation of God's Word well good morning if you want to grab your Bibles go ahead and do that we're going to be in Genesis chapter 2 if you don't have a Bible with you there's a hardback black 1 somewhere around you take that if you don't own one that's our gift to you I I joke often that if you want a nicer one the lost-and-found is out here by connection central there's some beautiful leather-bound Bibles there that you could grab ahold of if you'd like now we're going to start today a three week series on marriage and so I want to kind of just give you my outline and then from not just for today but for the three weeks and and then we'll dive into today so today I've got two things that I want to accomplish one I want to show you from the Word of God that humankind has been designed by God for deep companionship with other humans right so that's the first thing and then I want to move and I want us to get a view of marriage that's God's view of marriage and so it's like it's simplified I want to show us that we have a deep need for companionship and then I want to do my best to define marriage for us in a way that's helpful then next week we're going to talk about sex you don't need to be nervous about that you need to kind of shield your children nothing graphic I'm not showing videos I just want to talk about God's purpose and design sex was God's idea like he came up with that it's a gift from him to us that is to be enjoyed within the parameters for our safety that he created it for so we're going to talk about that second week and then week three we're going to talk about what I just call the long game and what I mean by the long game is if we could get in our minds I being 75 80 years old surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren kind of enjoy being patriarchs and matriarchs and see the fruit of decades of faithfulness all around us I want to kind of start with that and then kind of reverse-engineer and go okay what do we need to be doing now that moves us in that direction rather than the opposite direction so with that said let me just acknowledge very quickly from the front I know I'm going to be touching on some extremely sensitive areas of our human experience I just know that so I'm going to do my best to do gently and compassionately but honestly for our own good several years ago in fact two years ago precisely I started doing some research on marriage and and this is what I found I just went to amazon.com and and I pulled up the search bar and I typed in marriage in the search bar and hit go and what I found is that when I hit go there were a hundred and fifty-one thousand books on marriage two years ago so I had 40,000 to that right and then there were 27 thousand books on dating almost twelve thousand books on attraction what's a book on attraction like chapter one is she pretty Chapter two you're attracted then right I don't understand but whatever and then there were a hundred and ninety thousand books on sex now one of the things and one of the things that Amazon does it's a bit different than maybe other sites is other sites throw up ads based on your personal profile basically the Internet is tracking your cookie so I'll use this example of you wanting to get like a krx performance trainer and you kind of google that you found one then the next time you go to another website you know it's going to be there in the banner t-rex workout itself right and and so this is this is the man's way of keeping an eye on you now what Amazon does it's a bit different is it lets companies and organizations purchase base space based on what you searched and so when I search that night two years ago in in Amazon that marriage boom the banners were there I just wrote him up aggressive divorce that was one of the links I could click on or divorce help for women and so as I started to dig here's what's happening first of all its predatory in its nature so a marriage has entered in too difficult space and so someone's gone and they've typed in men I need some help for my marriage marriage book search and what comes up aggressive divorce right and and then to nuance it even more they know that it's usually women not always but usually women fighting the fight to hold their marriage together and so there's four women a special maybe maybe the aggressive divorce is there for the man but then you've got the sweet kind of pretty ad for we specialize in helping women get divorced and and so here you're this and about a thousand of the things lead me to this conclusion we deeply and desperately want intimate deep companionship with another and we stink at it and we stink at it we're not quite sure how to do it like any rights a hundred and ninety thousand books not chapter books on sex anyway one hundred and fifty one thousand books on marriage right these are these are not books that are going back to the 17th century and these are all pretty modern works like what in the world has happened to us that we've lost sight of what God has designed as good and given to us as a gift of grace so as we enter the fray let me lay in front of you some things that I know I know we're all over the map in here right I know some of you are single and you're like oh great a sermon series on marriage okay well here's if you're single praise God that you're single but a lot of what we'll talk about in this series has a lot to do with kind of a deep need that humankind has to connect with one another and so there'll be things for you in that and then there are those of us and we're not we're married and we're flourishing like we love our spouse we've been married for like a month and it's going just the way everybody does that give me a second to get to the other extreme or you've been married for a long time and you by the grace of God have gone through the peaks and the valleys and you've come out the other side being more committed to your spouse more in love with your spouse more as a legitimate partner in the call that God has for you with your spouse than ever before right and so I know they're you're you're in here your marriage is flourishing you feel alive in it you feel safe in it you feel known in it and it's a beautiful gift of God's grace and that's some of us in here so some of us are single some of us are really flourishing and some of us are floundering then some of us we got married and we're like oh my gosh is this that we had so much hope put into what this was going to accomplish that we got into it we're just so disappointed but we can't say anything to anybody about that disappointment how's it going man I am totally let down I mean my whole life I've been thinking this was going to do this or that and now I'm married and then I I feel like there's been a bait-and-switch here like I like oh gosh is this my life now and and then others there's been serious betrayal there have been events cataclysmic events that have led to heart brokenness but the feeling that the spouse can't be trusted that this feeling of fear of how you might be hurt or wounded again in fact many of you have come in here at a tipping point just not knowing how much longer you can hang in there or whether you should hang in there and my hope is that we as we dive into this that I might be able to encourage you to see things maybe the way the Lord sees them and navigate really with the lenses of what the Bible says marriage is as a way that guides you and drives you forward right and then lastly I've said this for really I've been your pastor 15 years now this fall and I've said this from very early on in my time here that the first six seven years of my marriage were awful whenever I say that in Laurens in the room I loved it because everybody who knows this kind of looks to see how Lauren's going to respond in that moment and here's what she does she's always like yeah yeah they were and I mean like bad bad I mean like I would lay in my bed at night and think oh my god is this the rest of my life surely this isn't the rest of my lives and and she was in bed next to me not going gosh I'm so glad I did this right but but feeling some of the very same things we were feeling trapped unable to get out of one another's way unable to figure this thing out lost and and not really knowing what to do and and so I say that because I can use my own story I hope as a way to lay before you hope regardless of where your marriage is today I could introduce you not just to my own wife but hundreds of couples here but if seen God work miraculously in their marriage to reconcile to restore to bring about the heart's desire of the man and the woman as they try to navigate a very beautiful but difficult and complex space and so what those things said remember what I want to do today I want to show you that humankind is desperate for deep companionship and that's rooted in creation and then I want to talk about how we should think about and define marriage in a way that they will help us I think kind of navigate the highs and lows of living with another person that's sinful so let's look at Genesis 2 starting in verse 15 the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die then the Lord God said it is not good for the man that the man should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him now let's chat because I know church baggage all right this word helper in the Hebrew is the same word that's applied to God frequently throughout the Old Testament so this is not I will make him a servant this is not oh man I've given him this big task who's going to make him a sandwich or who's going to wash that tunic or that's not what's happening in this text this word helper is applied to God who will come alongside and bolster up and strengthen is what's happening here there's not subservient roles being woven into this text there is helpmate partner the one who will come alongside and walk with so side ran back to it 19 now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name and the man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh and she shall be called woman or whoa I mean because she was taken out of the man therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed you see like a really kind of stunning thing occur in the creation narrative where everything to this point has been either good or very good and then God sees the man and says it's not good for man to be alone and he doesn't do this because he checked in with Adam right he didn't come have this conversation with Adams like hey what do you think how's that Golden Retriever treating you you know man's best friend you're doing well you lonely do you feel like you need something um it's compatible with you or you cool God knowing the plans that he had knowing what he was up to in regards both the human flourishing and the glory of his name sees this isn't good because up until this point in the creation narrative everything has something compatible that actually completes it and so show you what I mean here the skies without the Sun Moon and stars even the birds are incomplete the sea without the fish and the other teeming creatures are seen as incomplete and without mankind and land animals the earth is in complete and so God sees out of it and says this is not good and then you get this you get this really kind of strange I think he's trying to prove a point to Adam that's conjecture it's not in the text but then all the animals start to come before Adam and he's naming them and if we get into the the rhythm of kind of the Hebrew versus the the English you got this moment like not like me not like me not like me that's really cool but it's not like me not like me not like me not like me he goes to sleep he wakes up there's the woman he says like me you are like me this is like me oh my gosh you have thumbs this is amazing right and and now there's a compatible partner now you and I according to the creation narrative have been designed by God for deep intimate companionship this text is dealing with kind of marriage and and marriage is kind of a foundation by which discipleship and human flourishing occurs that can't be argued all right the family unit is the seed by which humanity grows into something beautiful you destroy the family you destroy the beauty of humanity very quickly and so although this is going to introduce ease as the solution to this problem throughout the scriptures you see a call towards community a call towards companionship we've been hard-wired to know others in a deep and intimate way when I'm using intimate there I'm not talking about sexual I'm talking about known and being fully known we crave that we want that and the issue of our day is we live in a society that's thin you've got a thousand Facebook friends and you don't know anybody and you know everybody without knowing anyone so paradox that's never really occurred before it's a scary day in which you and I live we have to have a companion or hungry for it we're lonely when we don't have it and and you can see this in a couple like I think one of the places you see this clearly it might make you giggle is if you ever saw the movie castaway with Tom Hanks to remember this movie and so he stuck on this island for I think about a decade and he's trying to like fire and he cuts his hand and he freaks out I mean you don't do that you're more sanctified than that but he hurt himself and freaks out and he slaps this Wilson volleyball and the blood from his hand form what appears to be a face on the volleyball and Wilson becomes Tom Hanks character's best friend for the decade that he's on the island and and then in this that this brilliant cinema photography this kind of manipulative sense of our souls what they do is Tom escapes the island on this raft and he goes through a storm and Wilson who's been tied with VHS tape I think to a stick he he falls off into the water and I don't know if you called this but there's no music in the movie until Wilson hits the water and then Wilson hits the water and some strings start up and and Tom Hanks and then he tried any thinks about untethering himself from his life raft to save a volleyball and then if you've got a soul you might have even teared up a little bit as he's freaking out about Wilson but it's a volleyball but the drive to be known to speak to interact and to know intimately is so powerful that a man stuck on an island ends up with the best friend that's a volleyball now because of the thinness of our day he here's one of the big ways that we get robbed from companionship without wit with our culture kind of pressing us to always be put together and always have all the answers and always we we early on start to fear rejection fear being found out and so what you do mostly in fact I think everybody does this is you kind of project strength so that you won't be rejected all right so you're like I'm great I'm doing fine grades are great relationships great I'm not afraid I'm not anxious I'm not nervous I don't feel like I'm going to get outed as a failure at any moment so you're going to project this images up together I'm happy things are going great I don't worry about much I'm at peace God and I are cool all my friends and I are great then you project this image and it's not true and you become a slave to the image and the image of strength without vulnerability will always Drive you into isolation loneliness so the more you project your awesome and that everything in your life is awesome and you're not afraid of anything you're not anxious about anything you don't have any worries the more you enslave yourself to isolation and loneliness it's one of the great tragedies of our day but the very way to get into deep intimate companionship is the one thing we simply cannot allow ourselves to be vulnerable so I want you to think like this you're human yeah but you're a human you know what humans do they realize they're fragile they tend to get anxious they can to get nervous I tend to get afraid they tend to fail this is what humans all if you have never met a human being that doesn't fail you have never met a human being that doesn't get scared you have never met a human being that is not in specific areas of their lives weak and afraid you and I are in a culture where that's unacceptable and the projection of strength is the norm and so of course we can't get into the companionship God has for us of course we can't walk in intimate relationships and I'm not just talking about marriage right now I'm even just talking about deep friendships because the more you can't be weak the more you isolate yourself and self-determined loneliness for your soul it's such a shame because vulnerability is the one thing that actually rushers in this stuff I don't know if you saw Brene brown did a TED talk I think like 60 jillion people have watched it and at the 10-minute mark of her TED Talks he's just brilliant brilliant so she had just a great month and at the ten minute mark she starts to kind of be very vulnerable about her own fears about her own you know failure so and and what you saw collectively it hit a string apparently because of the number of views but what you almost felt in the audience that was live was okay thank God her to as we have this tendency to kind of create superhuman people that we see and we're like oh man they don't struggle they don't they're amazing there and the realities we're all human beings and that comes with a set of experiences that is universally true we all get afraid of stuff we all fail we all tend to get anxious we all and when you let people in to that real companionship is possible and the more you feel like you have to manage that the more you enslave yourself to a faux image that needs to be managed because it's not actually who you are tracking with me okay but on this what we're talking about here is now marriage and and how this idea of the need for deep intimate companionship plays out in the marriage and so here's what I want to do I want to talk about the way I think marriage tends to be viewed in our day and age versus kind of been how God has built marriage to to work and so I think that by and large our consumerism has put on our eyes the lenses of consumerism even as we think about marriage and so in a day in age I keep saying this because I want you to be so aware of it because I think the rest of the world when you're not in here is trying to disciple you down this path I'm trying to do my best to help us right we live in a day and age where the rights of the individual are ultimate so that what you want is what you must have an ultimate freedom and happiness it can only be found in your individual desires being fulfilled humankind has never thought like that this is new this is a new form of idolatry that's absolutely gutting our ability for relationships and for flourishing so we tend to view marriage through the lenses of consumerism right we live in a day and age where individual happiness is the ultimate value so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment right marriage in our day and age is primarily about Rome antek fulfillment right it's not about partnering for something it's not about coming together to make something beautiful it's just about romantic fulfillment right self is at the heart of marriage through these lenses it sees the individual as supreme and I think about the breakdown that we've already got going into the marriage if the husband sees himself supreme and the wife sees herself as supreme and you put two supreme rulers in the same house historically that starts Wars right so when you see marriage through the lenses of what I want is supreme and your spouse sees of marriage through the lenses of what I want is supreme you're already in a bad way the mantra of marriage via consumerism is you adjust to me or I'm out you adjust to me or I'm out and it's driven by feelings and passion and has no room for Duty or promises so you'll often times hear people say I fell out of love that's this version of marriage that's this version of marriage and men if you have said that or you believe that I promise you I'm I'm trying my best to not be offensive except for where the truth might actually offend so what you've just said is I have no room for duty I have no room for the promises I made to keep I don't feel anymore I don't have emotion anymore and so I'm out as though love or some sort of ethereal feeling and not thicker than that right and so I want to use this definition for our series together I started to try to work on one and then I realized Tim Keller had one and he's just smarter and better and older and wiser he's like Yoda free Star Wars nerds and and so here's what Keller said Keller said marriage is a lifelong monogamous relationship between a man and a woman and then he begins to unpack the purpose according to the Bible God devised marriage to reflect the saving love for us in Christ so I want to stop and talk about that if you watch little boys and little girls I usually talk about this at weddings they grow up not really interested in one but interested in their own kind so my youngest daughter's birthday is tomorrow we celebrated her birthday with her friends on Saturday and so when Nora gave me the list of friends that she wanted to her party know that what was on it ten seven year old girls that's what was I wasn't like and Braden write that one on meri it was ten seven-year-old girls and so we had ten seven year old girls over to our house and my son right now even at 11 they're just gross right no thank you just give me the guys but there is a day coming a day I call the day of Epiphany and on the day of Epiphany you're like now now no yes please right and then all of that turns you like gross cooties no thank you I need one of those and you will sell out your guys so quickly right like Jennifer Aniston movies that's ridiculous what do you want to see it Jennifer ends let's go see that movie right can't go tonight right I mean you will just so sell out your crew after the day of Epiphany and it's this moving towards and what Tim is alluding to it's something that's taught in Ephesians chapter 5 that God longing to paint on the canvas of creation his love for us his pursuit of us his zeal after us puts it into the heart of the man to pursue the woman and be like well I mean I appreciate what you're saying but I think it's testosterone doing that and I would totally agree with you I would tell you there's a God behind the testosterone there's a God behind the biology the biology does not disprove God it actually proves that there's a God behind it and so after this day of Epiphany we pursue and in that pursuit every time you see a man pursue a woman every time you see a wedding you need to be reminded that what we're witnessing is a picture of God's romantic pursuit of us and if you're a man and you're like I just kind of bothers me to think about God romantically pursuing me okay let's let's check for a second all your masculinity that there's enough in the Bible to offend everyone so if women have to deal with being sons of God you have to deal with being the Bride of Christ all right so this is just enough in the Bible to offend all of us and so he says not only is that true that marriage is there to reflect the saving love for us in Christ but it's also there to refine our character and all the married people said amen yeah and it also is there to create stable human community for the birth and nurture of children and to accomplish all of this by bringing the complementarity sexes into an enduring whole life union this is the definition we'll be working off of so what Keller is talking about here is really marriage as covenant so earlier we talked about marriage as consumerism right that it's driven by the individual self its mantras you adjust to me and there's no place in that for duty or promise because its purpose is romantic fulfillment well in covenant marriage things are the exact opposite and not not purely opposite let's talk about it the heart of biblical marriage sees God as supreme not the individual self as supreme but God himself as supreme the mantra is we adjust to God together we adjust it's not you adjust to me it's we adjust to God together and when all said and done it doesn't just lean on duty and promise but when God is supreme and not the individual or even the family itself that truly frees you up to live a life where both promise and passion exists and we're both feelings and fulfilment come into line with one another so I've been with Lauren for 20 years been married for 18 and here's what I can tell you I think my wife is a physically stunning woman I mean I still can't believe this has happened I'm not kidding I'm like gangly and awkward I've only gotten less of those things as I've gotten older right so in one of my kind of high watermark moments of being gangly and awkward this stunningly beautiful woman said she would marry me and she did like it wasn't a joke you know she said yeah and I was like I hope she shows I see showed and she can't I thought the doors would open and just be my dad going sorry bro but it didn't see like Cana and we've been married and here's what I can tell you is as much as I find her physically stunning watching her come alongside of me to serve the Lord is easily one of the more sexy things she does I know we don't tend to have those categories like godliness equals sexiness but godliness is sexy - godly people so to watch her solely like here let me give you a recent example my son does this thing I'm just gonna leave it at that and and he did it and like when he does that thing he does like I like it it gets on my nerves like it bothers me like deeply which probably says more about me than him but uh it does some bad to Daddy's soul but to watch Lauren just walk over there and get on her knee and just go hey buddy so what what's going on are you are you angry or you sad I don't know already a man right so then my wife will follow it up with this does does it make you want to break something or does it make you want to cry makes me want to break something okay that's anger that feeling of wanting to break that that's anger so let's talk about why you're angry and what and then just to watch her navigate to some like oh my gosh that's unbelievable I want a mouth kiss you is that too far I don't it wears an elder I need an elder to give me a head nod maybe not in here I'm safe right so this is what happens like I watch her live a godly life and there's commitment and duty and passion right and this is Howard she's come alongside of me I've come alongside of him we've been given this mission by God make much of Jesus make God be supreme and create an environment which children might flourish and grow into the fullness of what God has for them in Christ that's our task that's our goal and we're partnering to see it accomplished it's not well got this task to do so let me do it you're really kind of gross to me but I'm gonna make it's not what's happening there's this thing that happens to our souls being knit together as one as we seek to sir and make much of Jesus so the best way I think I can explain this to you is via language around covenant there's this moment in every wedding where you have the exchanging of vows and what happens in that moment is is the bride and groom they turn and face one another and then before God and their community they begin to exchange vows they begin to make promises with one another and the language is always covenant 'el for better or for worse richer or poorer in sickness or in health till death do us part that's covenant language that's I'm not going anywhere imagine how mortified you would be if you went to a wedding and and the vows were consumeristic and contractual you imagine you're you're in the wedding you you wore your wedding clothes you found them in a closet put them on now you're sitting out there and they turn and face one another and the wife says you will need to make over 60 thousand a year and he responds with you're going to have to stay the same wait oh that was too real y'all want me to lie yeah y'all want to lie you in the wrong place and then and then he counters with this and she counters with that let me tell you I'm up I'm getting my gift and I'm out you will not find your second shot at singleness with my microwave I bought you all right I'm gonna go eBay that mug take that money back because you can see in that moment this didn't happen there's too many outs the Covenant love doesn't work that way covenant loves it I'm not going anywhere think about how crazy it is but on your wedding day you set out loud this could go back for better or for worse I'm in wait what for worse haven't you guys got to the bottom of that yet why would you say yes to marriage if for worse was a possibility but you say it out loud it's this crazy moment of Covenant promise I'm not going anywhere that's covenant marriage that's God's view of marriage partnering together to glorify God serving one another adjusting to one another before God for the flourishing of your home the flourishing of your children the flourishing of your neighborhood towns cities countries world that's got a big plan and be like that's huge it's not huge I've got a wife and three kids that's where I'm gonna work right I'm not working like got to really do something about the state no I don't I really don't we're gonna do about America you know I'm I don't want to really try to love my wife as best I can like Christ loved the church and create this environment where my children might flourish and grow and I'm going to preach the word to the church that he's called me to as my vocation and that's what it means fulfill God's calling in my life all right Sydney huge this is be where you are be present do these things that God has called you to now I need to put a little asterisk on this okay so covenant I'm not going anywhere if you are in a marriage that is abusive violent emotionally manipulative and you're anxious for your safety I am not telling you to stay and I am NOT giving you're very broken husband permission to continue to bully you scare you emotionally manipulate you or make you feel unsafe and husband I'm not trying to shame you you are a broken soul in desperate need of help you are battering and bullying a daughter of the king of the universe and if you think there will be no repercussions for that then you are a fool not to mention the generational carnage you are unleashing in your depravity nor did I say ladies right run out now and get a divorce lawyer I didn't say that let's create some space for you let's get you into safety and we can work on your marriage or you don't have to worry about getting beat up or bullied I think the church has to start adding this in this conversation one and three women live in this kind of environment according to the recent data which means there's quite a few of you in the room I I will not give your husband permission to use the Bible to bully you it's not what God intends it's not what he has and so if that's you then we we have spent a year now being trained and getting ready to kind of help in these spaces and so if you want to loop us in and I know that in and of itself is terrifying you want to loop us in were more than willing to come alongside of you and walk with you just know that when I'm saying this things these things is not God's heart for you to stay in a place where you feel unsafe bullied manipulated and abused now I also want to add this caveat where men tend to use their size and strength to bully manipulate and abuse women tend to use more emotional tactics more manipulative tactics so this is certainly not a one-way street although the majority of abuse is perpetrated by men on women there are plenty of cases where that road we've gone the opposite way and it's women abusing their husbands not physically rarely physically but but here's something that I realized years ago in my own marriage but like because of the nature of what I do it is not uncommon for me to be put on blast by some guy who doesn't like what I just said some man or woman that thinks I'm an idiot and and I'll just get these lengthy crazy emails right I hope you die and I uh and then you want to send me that I'll literally respond to you by I'm far worse than what you're describing and don't worry I will die one day and I'll send it to you and we can just move forward so and what I mean by that is this I'm just over the course of 27 years develop some really really thick skin to critique and attack from people who are coming from broken spaces I want to learn from my critics as best I can and where it's sane and reasonable I want to take that and learn but the world sometimes is not sane and reasonable and and I've just learned you're gonna I don't know what you could say they would pin a trait my thick skin and really send me into a tailspin but you know who can crush me with a sentence my wife so you like put me on blast send me you know a nine page document of just how terrible of a human being I am and I'm gonna have lunch and get a cup of coffee in the afternoon finish my work pain I'm gonna go to sleep and I probably won't think about your email again let's lay that before the Lord if there's nothing true in it I'm just gonna move on with life and sleep well my wife can say a sentence that can undo me for weeks the unbelievable amount of power in the words of a woman I mean the Bible says some crazy things about men who live with women who kind of always are tearing down you know Bibles I'm not making it the Bible says it's better for a man to die in the desert than to live with a contemptuous woman ladies that's God saying that coming to your husband going Ironmen just head out into the desert I need to get some water no it's gonna be better don't get any water just go am I going to die out there yeah it's gonna be slow probably before you die a vulture will probably start to eat your flesh but listen it's better than where you are bro get out just go go you'll be home soon it'll all be over just get out into the desert right it equates living with a contemptuous woman to water torture like a dripping faucet and so again I'm not saying if you're in such a toxic relationship that the emotional physical spiritual damage occurring in that marriage should be something you just sit in and I guess this is what God has for me no no I'm saying that to get help sometimes you got to get some space to get help sometimes you've got to get some space so I'm not teaching on covenant so that you might stay in an abusive relationship I'm teaching on covenant because there are seasons of difficulty where our impulse is to see only ourselves and we might in a moment say something foolish or we might in a moment freak out we might but these things are few and far between and they're not a pattern and they're not a habit and so I'm leaning into covenant because every marriage will go through some dry seasons or some just ordinary seasons and and so I need to just lay before you we stay and push through those seasons we don't bail on those seasons but we don't fall out of love because we think love is also a decision of the will we think love has to do also with promise and duty as much as it has to do with feelings and passion but I'm I don't want to give permission for abusive men to abuse and manipulative women to twist the knife all the more and their husbands spirits I want to encourage you to let us help whether that's coming to our recovery groups that are built around this stuff or coming up and being prayed for and connecting with one of our biblical counselors just don't stay in the ARC with where you are that's that projection of strength that robs you of genuine companionship and intimacy the thing God's trying to usher you into right now if you pay attention to Bible there's covenants everywhere covenants between man covenants between nations covenants between families and what makes the marriage covenant so spectacular to look at is you have a covenant being made between God and the couple and between the couple and the couple in front of their community so there's this promise to one another that's rooted in their relationship with God where the community of faith is holding them accountable to those vows that they made to one another before God so it's this beautiful moment where community divine presence and commitment to one another wrapped in passion happens in a marriage in a wedding it's this beautiful reality that we get to work through and in and at all the days of our lives and so I want to chat with you about how I want us to think moving forward here's the first I think on this topic the temptation is always to kind of hope that your spouse is listening look look right and what I'm going to try to serve you you make a terrible holy spirit you want to undo anything God has been doing in the heart of your spouse get in the car after that and go I hope you heard what Pastor Taylor says men and women do not change via the nagging and griping of their spouses they might try to conform the best they can to keep the peace but they won't be transformed only the Spirit of God can do that so what you need to do is prayerfully ask the Spirit of God to engage to be gracious and gentle and make your requests be known nothing you just have to be silent hope things work out I'm saying there's a way to approach it that's helpful and there's a way to approach it that's not helpful I think you should be an expert in the strengths of your spouse more than you are an expert in their weaknesses like if I gave you five minutes right now what could you nee more of where they're weak and you wish they'd get better or where they're strong and you're so grateful that God gave them to you you become an expert in the strength of your spouse you'd be surprised at how just and this is going to be a radical idea you might never even thought of this is crazy listen then you should tell them you should be able to say hey I love this about you and I just can't see how that's going to lead to a fight like if you pull your husband aside today like men listen when you do these things I'm just so grateful and so I just love how you bring this to the like you said oh are you serious like no but like that's just not gonna happen right and if you pull your wife aside and and say hey I love this about when you do this and you and listen you know your relationship if it's so toxic and broken that even that can lead to a fight and I've seen it right where you're like hey but I just notice about you sweetheart like when you do this I just can't tell you the difference I think oh is that all I do is that all you've ever seen you oh gosh okay Chandler right no no so maybe you just coach it by adding a simple one of the things right you navigate your environment with wisdom but be an expert in the strength of your styles and you should all share that so throughout this series whether it's the idea of covenant consumption whether it's sex or the long game you need to worry about you and not them the second thing I want to display before you is we start to wrap up our time together today the the category I didn't address upfront which is actually a pretty frequent happening is that one of the spouses will think the relationship is flourishing and the other one will think it's floundering so I want to just be bold enough to say this look if your spouse thinks you need counseling you need counseling one flesh what it's one marriage that's what it's not your merit it's one marriage and so if your other at the other half of your body stopped working you would be like we're fine like like uh it's not going to happen your one body so husbands if your wife is and said man I'm struggling I don't know how to navigate this we need help your response cannot be we're fine your wife just told you you're not fine or if your husband comes to you and going I don't know how to navigate this I'm trying boo I don't know what to do we need to get somebody to help us ladies your response can't be I don't know what you're talking about we're doing great listen that's that projected strength that's going to destroy you it will take from you the one thing you so desperately want you want your spouse to fill it they're not filling it you refuse to be vulnerable about that so you can't move past it into the space that God wants to us are you and all because I want to see a council we're not the kind of people that see counselors look at my Instagram feed good God we're on dates all the time listen we've got to stop and it's frickin madness step into the light step into the light lastly as we wrap up our time today laying this as a foundation for next week on sex and then the week after that because what we're talking about the idea of covenant versus consumption has a ton to do with how we approach sexual intimacy if your spouse is there to be consumed well I mean that that's a problem you shouldn't expect really beautiful intimate soul knitting stuff I can't preach that sermon that's next week you can't approach your spouse like they exist at some servant for your pleasure so what I want you to do is I want you to spend just a couple of moments here I'm just pray and give it to it I want you to think about how you view your marriage you view it through the lenses of covenant we adjust to God are you viewing your marriage so because I think a lot of difficulties birth by entering a marriage where your lens is you adjust to me you fulfill me you fix me you make me happy you put me back together you solve all my daddy issues you handle all my fears you take on all my anxieties you take you you make this work you complete me you make me work just a terrible way to enter a marriage relationship or are you seeing through the lens of Covenant no I mean I don't want to be overly romantic most of the best marriages I see have a strong coven ental push and always have a little sprinkling of consumerism in them right so I'll Lorna not anytime I'm preaching on stuff like this I'm just bracing and so earlier this week were on this huge fight like this huge fight is like so insane and and what happened is I was I was seen through this kind of individualistic lens the last month for me has been crazy I mean the pace of it it's just gone long a lot of really long days alone late nights a lot of things that needed to get done needed to get finished he to get tied off needed to get pushed to the next person that needs to take something that's been created and move it down like a lot of that stuff's been going on and in all of that I was unable to see that Lauren was dealing with all the end of the school madness and that her days were long and that they were complex and that she was trying to get ready for this missmiss and she had this and this was going on - I just couldn't see anything I was just like what why are you not being more grateful for me and why are you not kind of making life easier for me right now you're not see that I'm the one that's getting up at 5:00 you get to sleep until 6:30 are you not seeing that I'm not getting up till 7:30 and 9:00 are you not seeing I haven't had a day off in three weeks how can you not see and and I'm the one that couldn't see I can eat it again and so although I would say that God has restored in miraculous ways the first six seven years of my marriage and I and best friends with my wife I say this I mean I hate leaving and I love coming home we laugh a lot play a lot rejoice in one another understand each other strengths and weaknesses understand the partnership God has put us in for God's glory and our good and every once in awhile we have one of those eighty percent of the time it's me it is I I listen I'm not I'm not trying to like you know manipulate with vulnerable I'm saying eighty percent of the time I'm the one that gets caught up in my life and what I'm doing and what I'm trying to get done and I lose sight of God's calling her life and what God has asked her to do and then I just started getting resentful and then I say something stupid and then we're off to the races I'm guessing you're giggling because you're with me right oh but what's the driver is it covenant or consumption what's striving your relationship see a fight like that every once in a while the great a fight like that three times a week that that's trouble are you seeing your spouse through the lenses of covenant are you seeing them through the lenses of consumption is it you adjust to me or is it we adjust to him let's pray father I thank you for these men and women I ask for our singles in here your grace I pray that if they desire that you would give them a spouse who loves you give them a spouse who longs to partner with someone to make much of the name of Jesus pray that you would give them contentment in the state but that they would want that and not feel guilty about wanting that that's a good gift something to be desired they would operate in contentment while they pursue while they pray while they long I pray for our marriage our marriages that are flourishing in this place I pray that you would encourage them today all the more in their flourishing but I also want to pray for those who are flowing during those who are in difficult spots pray that today may be some clarity would be given a way of seeing might be introduced that helps them pray that they would grow in their expertise of the strengths of their spouse want to pray for any woman in this room that's nervous and afraid that lives in fear that feels exhausted and weary and terrified I pray space and freedom for them for your peace over them it's not meant to be like this pray that where they feel crazy that you would give them eyes to see that they're not and I pray for men that are just emotionally and spiritually battered you'd give them the courage to to be honest about men I don't know what to do here and I'm broken and lost and heartbroken and I feel like such a weak man because this is my story but I pray that they would walk into the light and find the healing and rescue that you've promised them pray to the village church be known for its marriages that have been rooted and established in you but understand that there are partnerships fused together filled with passion and Duty delight and commitment in a picture of your pursuit of us in Jesus to create safe environments for human flourishing help us we need you through your beautiful name amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 134,320

Rating: 4.8504672 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Captivated, What is Marriage?, week 1

Id: ggKER3SyaZQ

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2017