Real Relationships - A good thing.
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22 A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
Last week we started into a series on relationships. And I warned that this series may feel very pointed. It may feel like I am telling the whole church about your problems, and dealing with them from the pulpit in a way that doesn’t feel very fair to you. So I want to explain myself before we get to that point, again.
Why is this going to feel pointed? Because it is.
Everyone in this room is affected by the stuff we are going to get into in the next few weeks, as we look at the relationships that we are already in, the ones we are trying to start, and the ones we have already or want to end.
We have people in this church who are still trying to figure themselves out - going through a season of singleness while they discover who they are in Jesus.
We have people in this church who are ready to start dating, they are looking for someone to marry.
We have people in this church who are planning weddings.
We have people in this church who have been married a couple of years, we celebrated marriages twice as old as I am. Ross and Rhonda just celebrated their anniversary last week-
We have people in this church who have been divorced. In fact, we are in double digits for divorces represented in our family here.
This is something that needs to be addressed at our church, in this season that we are in, with the people that are here.
So this is a pointed series. These messages are from your pastor, to you. Knowing, for the most part, where you’re at.
Our church exists for three purposes.
To Glorify God.
To Equip the Saints.
To Share the Gospel.
This series comes from the heart of the second purpose. If we hear these words, and we make necessary changes in our lives, we will accomplish the first purpose. To Give God glory in our marriages, in our homes, in our lives.
Last week, we looked at what the Bible says is God’s standpoint on marriage. The origin of marriage being that God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, that God has graced certain people to live like Paul. In a way that they live holy, single lives. Not connected to a spouse, and therefore able to spend even more time on mission. I attempted to get to a point where we are thinking about if we are not in a marriage relationship - if we would be ready for one, and if we are married - are we who we are supposed to be in that.
My desire today is to deal with the beginning and the end of marriages. To understand how we get into this relationship and how we get out of them. We need to wrestle with divorce and death today.
Marriage is a good thing.
God created marriage as a response to seeing Adam. He saw that Adam was alone, and determined that it wasn’t good for him to be alone, and so he created Eve. In creating Eve, God gave us a desire in our heart for relationships.
22 A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
I want to break that verse down for us this morning to begin to understand what marriage is.
There is some looking required. Wives don’t grow on trees. Husbands don’t sprout up next door, usually. Once we determine that we are in a place in our lives that we are ready to pursue marriage, we have to actually start looking.
Most of us don’t do that right. We don’t get to a point where we are ready, we don’t look for an appropriate starting point. We start our romantic relationships as soon as we are biologically interested, and we just keep those going until we die. I am going to talk about that more.
There should be standards in who we are looking for.
Physical attraction is part of the equation, but should only be a part.
A comedian I enjoy listening to said “Out of all of the women in the world, I chose her to be my wife” And then went on to say that that is a pretty ridiculous way to think about it, because the reality is “It is a significantly smaller sub-set of women who live near to me and would say yes”
As we are looking, we should be looking for: Godly characteristics: Do they know and love Jesus?
We should commit ourselves in those relationships to marriage.
Out of that - we receive favor from the Lord.
This is what our God has declared is good and wonderful for us and it is a relationship that - if pursued correctly, if managed rightly, God will bless it. God will give favor in it.
IT IS GOOD.
Life - Sex - raising children. All things safer in marriage.
Life:
Eve was created literally as a help meet for Adam. She was to fill the missing parts of who he was. In marriage, we benefit from the characteristics of our spouse, and so life becomes safer, married.
A person who is disorganized, benefits from the person who is more organized. We don’t have this in our house, will someone please help me find my keys.
Social interactions, financial responsibilities, community interactions - all easier, and safer, with someone else with you.
I went to a wedding last night, and Eden couldn’t go. We got away for the wedding rehearsal, but not for the actual wedding. So I got to sit by myself, in a room full of people. And I missed my wife terribly.
Life is easier and safer within a marriage.
Built in excuses, get out of situations free card, etc.
Sex:
Sex is incredible - in a marriage.
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs): This entire book in the Bible is a poetic and allegorical celebration of love and desire between a husband and wife. It portrays the beauty and intimacy of marital love.
4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.
18 Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.
Outside of marriage, all of the pleasure is there, with none of the security.
In a marriage, if you conceive, yeah it may not have been the plan, but oh well.
alone - it can be catastrophic. Not even to mention the concern for disease.
don’t want to get into the hows and why’s of these scientific discovery - but there are some things that we should know.
During sex, parts of your brain that are otherwise dormant - activate.
Parts of your brain that are otherwise active - seem to shut off.
Your brain releases a whole host of chemical reactions to sex:
Oxytocin, vasopressin, Serotonin, and norepinephrine.
Raising children:
I have been a part of a single parent household, and a married household. Married is better.
READ Eden’s text from last night.
“Been making the kids clean the yard and they weren't doing it seriously. And i kept telling them and obviously it wasn't going well. So i laughingly said to them that i was done trying to get them to clean up the yard and that when you came home you would have them clean the yard and would have to deal with your wrath. And i am not kidding they have never moved faster. They made codes (red green and yellow) and have someone watching out for you and yelling the codes.”
That is the way we were created.
A man who finds a wife, finds a good thing.
Marriage is a good thing.
And it is supposed to end, when one or both of us dies - and goes to be with the lord.
We live in a broken world.
No one goes into a marriage thinking - this is going to go super well for a few years and then we are just going to nuke it all by treating each other really terribly and then spend a bunch of money splitting up. And yet nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. So it wasn’t what we were planning, but it sure is what we got.
Breakups - Divorces.
8 He told them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning.
9 I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”
This issue is a hardened heart. Because he does something that frustrates you. So your heart hardens.
And you do something that hurts him, and his heart hardens.
We treat this like any other sin. Repent. Praise God. Move on.
There are still natural, earthly consequences. Which is a part of what makes marriage so wonderful.
The two became one.
The two corded rope twisted together.
The
Moving forward:
The christian should decide in their hearts and in their minds that this marriage that they are in, right now, is the one that they will be in for the rest of their lives.
Next week, we are going to dig into the responsibilities of a husband in a marriage, and the week after that - the responsibilities of a wife. If you are not married, it will be good to see more in depth the things that you aught to be looking for in a spouse, and if you are married already, it will help us to know the things that we are supposed to be doing in a marriage that God has said is good.