Auto Generated Transcript
I’m just going to start off by throwing this out on the table. I know when you do a series related to marriage and the family, sometimes you may as an individual, if you’re coming to worship, feel left out or curious how this would relate to you. So let me just throw this out for us. Everyone should find something relevant over the weeks ahead. And this is why if you’re married, if you’re looking to be married, if you have kids, if your kids have kids, if your kids are married, if your kids kids get married, if you know someone that’s that’s married or you know someone with kids, this should be relevant for all of us. The only person the series should not be relevant for is one who has the perfect marriage with perfect children, who grow up to have perfect families who only interact with perfect individuals. Right? And since none of us live in that bubble. Welcome. Once upon a marriage carries a theme for us, or an idea of what God’s original picture was in the Garden of Eden when he described marriage. In fact, when you turn to the very beginning of God’s creation of individuals, the first institution that God establishes is that of marriage. And when you look throughout Scripture, the description of what marriage is about, the first couple of chapters in Genesis that define it for us become the the launching pad that as you look at the definition described within the New Testament, many of the New Testament writers refer all the way back to the Book of Genesis, the first couple of chapters, when God set the precedent for what marriage and the family was all about.
When you see the description of what God God states for the picture of marriage, it gives us an idea of this storybook picture of what marriage is about. In Genesis chapter two and verse 18, it says this. The Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Some translations refer to it as helpmate. Let’s go ahead and mention this idea of this word helpmate. I’ve heard people or ladies sometimes get frustrated over God referring to a lady as a helpmate. And and in our culture, sometimes that can be viewed as demeaning. But but when you look at that word scripturally in the Bible, this word helpmate or helper is is used in the New Testament, the same Greek word that describes the Holy Spirit. And so if God means or intends this word to be anything that that takes away from the beauty of what a woman is in this world, God would also be holding the same precedent for the Holy Spirit. And God is spirit. And so the reality of this world is not sometimes what we infer it to mean within the text of Scripture.
But what God is saying by this word, helpmate is this that that your spouse is in your corner to help and support you and your marriage. Be what God desires. Maybe in a more practical way, when things go down, they’ve got your back. The storybook picture just continues on. You look within chapter two. It goes on in verse 24 and God defining it. It says, for this reason we go back. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And God’s picture of marriage. If we’re to say this morning, just one idea of what marriage is all about, according to that Scripture that God states its oneness, unity, God’s desire for your marriage is unity. So if anyone ever asks a unity in him. So if anyone ever asks you, what’s your goal for marriage? Or what is it God desires? And in Genesis chapter two and verse 24, he says, two become one flesh. And it says in Matthew 19, What God has joined together, let no one divide us under. God’s desire is oneness. That oneness in the Hebrew. The description is so close that you you can’t tell where one spouse ends and the other one begins. It’s literally your you’re glued together. In Genesis chapter one and verse 28, he gives this the goal or the aim of marriage. And he says, The God blessed them.
And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So when God describes marriage, let me just this morning, you think about maybe as it relates to people in your life or family, or maybe your own God’s picture for marriage and the family is bigger than this. It’s bigger than saying, you know, I feel like my spouse and I are good. So, you know, how is this relevant to me? What God is saying here is that God’s plan for for marriage and the family goes beyond how good the family’s operating. God creates the marriage, and God creates families so that through the family as it operates and a means that’s healthy will be a blessing to the world. God’s picture is much bigger than. Just you and your spouse and how good you may be doing. And this is the storybook picture that God creates in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and describing and defining what marriage is for us as individuals, and the way and the intentions for which God has created it. In fact, when you read in Genesis chapter two, when God creates Adam, he makes him first, and then he creates Eve and he brings them together. And the Bible tells us that Eve sings her a song the first time he encounters her.
I often, I often think about that passage of scripture when I, uh, do premarital counseling for young couples that are looking to to get married or just couples that are looking to get married. And especially when they’re they’re young, they come in all googly eyed and excited and and then I’ll typically ask the question, why? Why do you love them? Or why do you want to get married? And when they go to find the love that they have for them, the definition something goes like this. Well, I love them because they’ve got blonde hair and they do this and it makes me feel loved. And and when they start to define love, the way it’s typically defined is they do something for me and therefore it makes me feel loved, and therefore I am loved. But but Adam and Eve, they they had this love so deep that when they define love, when Adam talks about love in Genesis chapter two and he sings this song for Eve about love towards her, Adam has no idea what Eve can or can’t do. He has determined within his heart that she was God’s gift to him, and he is just loving her. Because the definition of love isn’t. Isn’t that you love because of what you get. Love is all about what you are going to give. Love is all about lavishing the one who you pursue.
It has nothing to do with what’s been received. Rather what’s been given. Love is sacrificial. Adam defined love this way. In marriage was intended to be, by God’s design, a great experience. Not not a bad one. God made family to to bless the world. And God gives us picture perfect idea of marriage. And then this is where we begin to ask the question in the real world. What’s wrong with my marriage? Or my family. When God defines it this way and it looks like this once upon a time fairy tale story, where is that experience in the relationship that I carry? And sometimes maybe you encounter it. But in other times in this world you recognize that there is tension, there is trouble, there is adversity, there is difficulty. And you look at God’s definition of marriage, knowing it’s supposed to be a wonderful experience and it can be a wonderful experience. But we we need to define when things in our life get difficult within those relationships, in family, what goes wrong? Did I mess up? Where does that tension come from? And sometimes you think about the extent of families. Maybe. Maybe I’m alone in this growing up in West Virginia. But you go go to family reunions and you look around and you think, man, am I the smartest person in this room or what’s going on here? Family’s not always perfect.
The biblical picture of marriage, in fact. When you go to Genesis chapter three, right after God gives the the description of what marriage is all about, God tells him it’s this beautiful thing and multiply and subdue and become become one flesh. And and there your helpmate and and Adam sings this wonderful song, and it doesn’t even take one chapter until their marriage starts to experience the tension in the trouble. In fact, in verse 16 of Genesis three, it says this to the woman God said, or he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. 17 Then to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. This sin that just took place in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve just ate of the fruit that God told them not to, and therefore a curse comes upon the earth, and through that curse, all relationships are affected. John Eldredge, in one of his books, said this in the beginning man chose woman over God, and men have been doing the same ever since. What is recognizing for the life of the lady in the relationships that God has given her, is that there will be adversity.
And it comes to children. There is adversity. When it comes to your marriage relationship. It says your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. That word for desire is not a good word for desire. It is an unhealthy, sinful word for desire. There’s tension within that relationship. When it comes to the husband, he’s saying, and not only is there tension that builds within the relationship, but the husband as he’s toiling and fighting the ground that’s cursed. There comes tension outside of that relationship that he’s experiencing, that he will carry the burden into that relationship. And so the relationship will have its tension. The biblical picture that that God creates of marriage, it finds it finds its adversity in the very beginning of the Bible, as soon as sin is introduced and sin brings this disunity. And if you look throughout the Old Testament to find this picture perfect story, what you find in the Old Testament and marriage relationships and in family relationships is a lot of unhealthy things. As soon as Adam and Eve find this, the very next story tells us about Cain and Abel. You have within the family brother murdering brother. You have Noah’s kids taking advantage of their father. You have Abraham, whose kids can’t get along, who within his own marital relationship has has trouble. You have you have David who comes along. And in his family there is a civil war that splits Israel.
There’s not a picture perfect example. I mean, even to top it all, when you think about Jesus and the Bible tells us in Luke chapter two that his family goes to the temple to worship, and at 12 years old, they head back from the temple to their hometown. And somewhere along the way, after three days, they’re looking around thinking, Where is Jesus? They they forgot their kid for three days at 12 years old and have to journey back to Jerusalem in order to find him. And if it gives any indication of just how bad Israel is, it tells us that 12 years old, he’s in the temple and all these people are gathered around him, amazed about what he’s teaching. I mean, it’s pretty messed up when when a 12 year old is helping the adults figure it out. There’s not a picture perfect example. When you explore Scripture, you’re hard pressed to find any example of the marriage relationship lived in a in a way that is encouraging, to say the least. Why? And how? Romans chapter eight tells us that all of creation groans. Meaning sin has affected everything. And things don’t naturally get healthier. What they naturally do is deteriorate. A few years ago, I bought a swing set for our kids, and I put it in the back lot and I noticed something not being from the West. Something about this wood as it sat out in the sun.
The sun in Utah really takes a beating on especially wooden materials, right? It wears it out. It. I had to start putting coatings on it to, to protect it. But the sun. Sun really destroys. I mean, what’s interesting about that wood that I’m recognizing in those moments, it’s under a curse. But if I were to take that wood and it were to become a part of a tree again, the same, the same sun that that destroys that swing set. Is the same sun that gives life to that wood or to that tree. And marriage is the same way. Family is the same way. Those relationships that you experience within your family. For some of the closest relationships you’ll have on Earth. Especially in marriage. And when marriage isn’t operating as God designs it, it can really take a beating. You wear each other out like the sun. But if you put into it. What God created it for. It flourishes with the beauty that God created it or the way that God designed it. Understanding God’s picture of marriage is important. It’s really important and understanding that this cursed world, when it comes to relationships, they’re not going to naturally improve themselves. Left to themselves, the sin curse that reigns in this world affects everything, including our relationships. Those things will deteriorate. But understanding it in the way that God has created it, and figuring out how to see that happen within your relationship allows us to experience the joy for which God has designed that relationship.
When it comes to the picture of marriage. God designed marriage and gave us all the ideal. And the truth is, we all need a target. We all need to understand why God designed it and allow our families, our relationships to pursue the design. God has created it. He he designed it for his intents and purposes, and he sets the ideals for us to live in within those relationships. Relationships. Aren’t always easy. In fact, there is adversity in them. And I’m not going to say to you this morning that that we’re going to eliminate all adversity. But what I want us to understand is that when when we begin to get the picture of what God created us for even in city, you can increase the joy in your marriage relationship, in your family’s relationships. One of the beautiful things that an ideal or a goal gives us in relationships is it gives us vision and hope. When I when I do counseling with young couples and they come in for premarital counseling before, before they get married. And I don’t I don’t want to say this in a bad way, but sometimes they’re just so goopy over the way they interact. It’s like, what cloud are you guys on? You know, because because they have all the vision and hope in that relationship and they’re just thinking about their future and they haven’t even taken a step yet.
But what’s guiding them is this is this goal of being together, this this vision and this hope, hope and vision. They just adds life to the relationship. Having a perspective where both of you are on track together. It’s a beautiful thing. But the truth is. When that hope is gone. And the vision fades. So with it, relationship begins to die. On, a joy can start to leave. Reality, though, is though we have a target. Hope isn’t enough. Hope sometimes minimizes the adversity that we face. It sort of lives in the clouds and doesn’t always deal with the real. But it’s important to have the ideal. But it’s also important to to focus on the reality. We. We all need a target. The target in the most adverse times is what helps a family develop a perspective and handling the difficulty in circumstances. For instance, when Jesus went to the cross, it says, for the hope set before him, he he endured the cross. In the midst of adversity. It was the hope of his calling that placed in perspective in the midst of the challenge of what he was about, and it gave him the perspective on how he needed to live through the moment. What hope presents to us? Or excuse me, what challenges present to us in our hope, in our vision, in our ideal of marriage, is the opportunity to let the light of God shine forth.
The important thing. Just to make sure your target fits God’s plan for marriage. I would encourage you this morning, we’re going to look at some verses, and we’re going to do this for the next four weeks. But having an ideal for your marriage, this is what you don’t want to do. You don’t want to go home and say, what’s wrong with you? And this is our plan here. You need to jump on board. And we’re doing this now. That’s not going to fly. Especially if you’re here as a as a as a couple over these next few weeks. This is this is really what would probably most helpful for you in your relationship is you’re going to see a verse that says, husbands love your wives. So wives don’t turn your husbands start nagging them about it. Let God use that word to speak to his heart. Husbands, in a few weeks, we’re going to look at a verse that says, wives, submit to your husband. All of you get to watch me culturally squirm through that passage. Um, husbands, don’t go home and just say, hey, wife, submit to me, right? Because I know that’s not going to work. But here’s what he needs to happen. And you’ll see if you if you grabbed a bulletin this morning. At the bottom there are some verses on marriage and family.
And give you an opportunity, your own personal time to go through those. And get a perspective on what you think God’s calling leading your family to, and then go talk to your spouse and say, hey, what do you feel like God has in mutually come to that conclusion together? Don’t dictate what it is. Let God work in your heart through it. Figure it out together. Make sure your target fits in God’s plans together. When when Paul came along in Ephesians chapter five, he wrote in Ephesians chapter five, this definition of marriage, this idea of of relationships within the family. He followed a similar definition in Colossians chapter three around verse 18. So if you wanted to compare those in your free time, you could do that. Ephesians five is where we’re going to look this morning. But he he defines it in Ephesians five. And then he, he he explains it a little more concisely in Colossians chapter three. They parallel one another. But when Paul introduces this idea in Ephesians chapter five, before I, before I read it to us, this is the perspective I want to take into it. What Paul shares in Ephesians chapter five is is revolutionary because in the society in which Paul is writing Ephesians chapter five, what you’re going to see is Paul adds value to the life of of children and women. During the time of the Apostle Paul, women were treated more as property, and children sometimes weren’t even named until they had lived a certain number of years because the death rate was so high.
Jesus himself. When he when he walked around in Israel, he would oftentimes be seen as saying, let the children come unto me. You know, in our society today, we look at a passage like that and we think, Jesus is nice to kids. That’s great. That story is in there. It gives me the warm fuzzies. But when Jesus, when Jesus was making that statement, children weren’t even looked at as having real value. And Jesus comes along and he says things like, don’t enter the kids from coming to me. In fact, anyone who does, I would rather a millstone be tied around their neck and them to be thrown in the bottom of the sea than to stop one of these little ones for coming to me. He who wants to enter the kingdom must receive me as one of these children. He added value to children. He added value to women. I was listening to someone share about this idea and topic and they were saying, you know, when you study. The Christian ideals and society anywhere where Christianity has been. And you can test it anywhere where Christianity has been. The value of women and children go up. They see them as joint heirs. In fact, Peter said that in first Peter chapter three, husbands and loving your wives, treat them as joint heirs of the kingdom of God.
They’re equal. Anywhere where Christianity. It’s pushed aside. The value of women and children have dropped. In fact, the first people group to be shoved under the poverty line when Christianity is left in the dust is women and children. What Paul says here is revolutionary. The fact that he even gains traction in the society is beyond reason, because there was nowhere within society for it to even gain a foothold. And Jesus at his resurrection, the first ones to his tomb are the women. And their testimony in that culture wasn’t even accounted for. Something significant like that. And yet Jesus saw the value. Paul in this passage raises the value of the family. In chapter five. In the NIV translation, it starts in verse 22. It says this wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. I want to say this real quick about this passage. Um, that’s going to be the Father’s Day passage. Uh uh. So husbands come back and wives you’re going to want. Okay, culturally, this is a fun topic to talk about. And maybe I’m weird for calling it fun, but wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives.
Wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy. Cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to herself as a as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. You can put that on your fridge later today. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. And fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Over the next few weeks, this this section of Scripture is exactly what we’re going to talk about. What does this mean? This submission that makes me want to fight? What does the Bible talking about? It’s irrelevant. Toss it aside. How do we deal with this within our family? When God talks about ideals, what do we do? If I if I were to break it down like this, this is what it looks like. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, obey your parents. Dad, not crush your kids. Paul as he. Shares this passage was revolutionizing the idea of marriage and family. You see the storybook picture in the beginning of Genesis, and then you read this section of Scripture that we’ve seen together.
The reality is, it’s just a few verses, a pretty simple target. But here’s us. We can’t even live up to just the simple statements within that relationship on a regular basis. So what do we what do we do when this ideal that God shares with us isn’t the reality within our families? How how do we react? How do we respond? What what, what’s to be our demeanor, even according to Jesus? We can’t even hit the target within those relationships. Matthew five, verse 27. Jesus says, you have heard it said that he who commits adultery is sin. But I tell you, he who has lusted in his heart has committed adultery already. He gave that message at the sermon on the Mount as if to condemn. I’ll just say, for the guys won’t talk to the ladies, but to condemn every guy in the area. In Matthew 19. Some disciples come along and they’re asking Jesus about marriage, and Jesus’s statement on marriage just goes further and beyond anything that’s being practiced within culture today. He says, what God has joined together let no man separate and he just lifts the ideal of marriage and family. So much so that the response of the people standing with Jesus in Matthew chapter 19 and I give it to you, is this they say, if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.
In John seven it’s the story of the adulterous woman. In John four it’s it’s the lady at the well who had had been married several times. And and you look at all this and you recognize God’s ideal for marriage and you ask the question, well, Jesus, Jesus, what are you going to do about all this? I mean, you designed it this way. It’s not being done this way. What are you going to do about this? Jesus. He says this. I’m going to die for it. The ideals. They’re not always real within our relationship. Jesus. Says. That he’s given his life for it. Here’s what happens as we live our lives. Ideal that God creates. And there is the reel of which we live in. And these two perspectives create a tension for all of us, because none of us, none of us can reach the ideal that God said. It is beautiful. It is perfect. It is a joyful experience within those relationships. But then there’s the reality. And how do we take the real. To get to the ideal. This is what I want to encourage you with this morning. Let that tension live in your relationship. Sometimes we look at the idea and we think, you know, I can never achieve it, so I’m just giving up. Ah, sometimes we get so unrealistic in our ideals that we become these legalists that offer no grace within the family.
Jesus comes along after sharing what his ideals are in Matthew 19, and he elevates the idea of the family so far and beyond what anyone in the culture is doing then, and what anyone in the culture is doing today. And then he says, this is this is my desire. And knowing we’re not in that, I’m dying for you. Here’s the truth within our relationship. That grace that Jesus gave breathes life into our relationships so that we can pursue him. And sometimes we are the harshest with the people that we’re supposed to love the most. And we get so fixated on the on the significant this, this problem that we’re calling significant within the relationship that we we fail to recognize the bigger scope of what God has called that relationship to. No one in a marriage relationship that has ever gotten in a fight walked away feeling like that relationship really won that day. You may win a battle, but you lose the war. And here’s what the beauty of grace does within a relationship. When you when you offer that grace real and watching the fact that it needs grace in order to get to the truth. When you offer grace, it’s not about sweeping the problems under the rug. The beauty of grace is that grace gives you the opportunity to discuss what separates you and your relationship, because God’s desire is oneness.
Sometimes when we approach our family, we recognize there’s tension. Let me let me encourage you this way. Rather than go to your spouse or your family member with intensity and say, you did this and you did this and you did this, I just encourage you eliminate the word you from your vocabulary. And try it this way. So when this happens. I feel this way. Don’t dictate to your spouse the way they need to respond. Just help them to recognize the internal challenge you feel. These couples get married. They they get married because they really, genuinely care about each other. Somewhere along the way, we forget that. And so when we approach our spouse, we feel like the person that was designed to be our helpmate is the very person we need to attack in order to get what we achieve. But God created them to be in your corner. And so if they married you because they care about you, when you go to them, rather than approach them to attack them about what they did. You, you, you, you when you just say this, when this happens, when in our relationship, I feel this way letting see how you reflect because they care about you. It gives them a better platform to work on it with you together. There is the ideal. And there’s the real. And grace doesn’t mean you sweep the problems under the rug within the relationship, but the fact that you want to give grace gives you the opportunity to discuss that, because you’re extending forgiveness and grace, that you may experience the oneness for which God has designed your relationship.
We need to walk in the tension. The idea on the real to realize the ideal is not always going to be successful within the relationship. But God at the same time doesn’t want us to let go of those ideals, but to keep that perspective together with one another and walking in unison. How does that work? Let me give you a couple examples from my life. The last few weeks of just knowing that this is coming up, just been observing. And I had my son came to me a few weeks ago at night, and he just looks at me and says, dad, do you think I’m a good boy? And he set the ideal out there. There’s this ideal that he felt like he needed to be a good boy. I love the fact that he he has this ideal of of who he thinks he should be. And so I didn’t want to break out theology with him. On being four years old in the sense of saying, well, son, we live in a sin cursed world and technically every heart is bent towards sin. But but I wanted to explain it in a in a way that his four year old mind could understand.
And I said, son. Dealing with the real. I think you’re a great boy. And I think getting an idea of what God wants you to be as good. But the truth is. You’re not always going to be that way. Sometimes you’re going to mess up. And what’s important is that you. I told him, own it. And he said, dad, what’s own it? Whenever you mess up. Can I tell you one of the best things that you can do in your relationship? Is to go confess it before your family. I’m not saying every time you mess up, grab all your family members together and just say, hey everyone, I’m messed up. You know, that could get old fast. But what I’m saying is, when you make a mistake in front of your family or in front of your spouse because you know what the ideal is, you help them in the real moment to understand how to deal with it and move on. So this is what you do as a dad. You humble yourself and you come and you say, listen, this is not what. I should have done this. But to get to this. Because I’ve done this. I need your Grace. This is what daddy’s on together with you as a family. And I’m sorry where my mistake is. And I kind of tell you parents, even. Even when you blow it. You’re still teaching your kids what it looks like to walk with Jesus.
Probably more so when you blow it. I told my son, son, you’re going to blow it. You need to own it. And I just gave him some examples of how he does that, even with his little brother today or his mom or. But as a dad, I see as I tell that to my kid, it’s always something I want to model too. And so a few nights ago, I was upstairs and I had been working a lot, and I felt like my family didn’t get the what they had deserved. And and my wife being as gracious to me, she didn’t nag me about it. She didn’t yell at me about it. She didn’t even say anything about it. And I’m glad she didn’t, because I’m the kind of person that I want to be a good husband. And I’ll obsess over that. And she says one little thing about it. She could just say it real simple and just in jest. She doesn’t have to be direct about it. And I would just I’ll contemplate it and think about it. And this night she went to bed and she didn’t say anything. And I was sitting upstairs, still continuing to work into the wee hours. And I just realized I didn’t I didn’t hit my goal today. And so I as a dad, I decided the book of Ephesians, chapter four and five, marriage we’re in Ephesians 522.
I was going to take those passages from Ephesians chapter four and Ephesians chapter five, and I wanted that to be the theme that I carried in my relationship with my family. And so as I’m sitting there realizing I blow it, I just said to her, honey, I feel like I failed you in this way today. And I just started quoting her those verses. I just, I was texting her because she was downstairs putting her kids to bed, and and she was responding back to me, and I just I just set the ideal out there. This is the verse of the kind of husband he. And this is my goal. And setting those verses out the same, same token, I’m also asking for her grace because I know I’m not always there. The truth is, neither is your family. The tension of the ideal and real. It’s important. And God gives us the storybook in the beginning. And you look throughout Scripture and you see every family. But don’t let that tension cause you to let go of the ideal. And don’t let your pursuit of ideal. Value in holding on to what’s real. You need the grace within your family. You need the opportunity to talk about it together and get back on goal together and keep looking towards that. It’s the hope and the vision that allows us to pursue. Your family will not get where God calls you without grace and without the truth. The real and the ideal.