MCC Podcasts
Love - Four Reasons God Wrote Marriage Into Your Life
This is so fun doing a love series. I just think that's the best. I just think it's so fun that we do a thing on love. Love does make the world go around. And it's challenging. And at every turn, we see God's love for us and our love for Him and our call to love the world. I just think it's great. And this February is a little mini series on marriage. And I gave you a little warning about that last week. We're taking four weeks, we're preaching on marriage. Ben, by the way, and actually Ben and Katie are gonna preach together next week. And so don't miss that. And then I'm coming back a week after that in arts preach in the last week in February. We're gonna spend it on marriage. And many of you aren't married. We understand that. And we think that this is gonna be a great experience for all of us because we have married friends. We come from married people. We're products of marriages. Some of us may be getting married or married again. And we also learn about our relationship with God when we talk about marriage. So this is a theme, this mini theme is on marriage. And we think it's gonna be really good for you. And I wanna start with the big picture. We're gonna talk about the big picture, you guys, when we come thinking about marriage. Because the truth is we get lost in our little small pictures. Whether we're married or single, we, our life consists of all these little small details of life and we get lost in those details all the time. And it's hard for us to sort of zoom out and look at the bigger picture. And I wanna do that with marriage. Marriage for sure, marriage and marriage and family for sure. We get lost in the details. There's the chaos of everyday life. Any of you relate to that? Unbelievable. And some of you go, I don't have kids or I'm not even married and my life is chaotic. The small details of my life, we fight the battles of detail after detail after detail. And we lose sometimes the bigger ideas that are a part of that. And I don't want us to get lost in the small things. We wanna look at the big picture. Here's a picture of the small thing. I've read this to you before I think. And I think it's great. So here's a mom and a dad, a wife and a husband. And this is about the end of their day. Mom and dad were watching TV when mom said, I'm tired and it's getting late. I think I'm going to bed. So she went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the next day's lunches and rinsed out the popcorn bowls and took the meat out of the freezer for supper the following evening and checked the cereal box levels and filled the sugar container and put spoons and the bowls on the table and started the coffee pot for brewing the next morning. And then she put some wet clothes in the dryer and put a load of clothes into the wash and she ironed a shirt and fixed a loose button. And then she went to the computer and shut down all the programs and checked a couple of emails and picked up some newspapers and magazines that were stroned on the floor and picked up the game pieces left on the table and put the address book back in the drawer and she watered the plants and emptied a waste basket and hung up a towel to dry. She yawned and stretched and headed for the bedroom. She stopped by the desk and wrote a note to the teacher and counted out some cash for the field trip and pulled a textbook out from underneath the chair and signed a birthday card for a friend addressed it and stamped the envelope, wrote a quick note for the grocery store and put both near her purse. And then she washed her face and put a moisturizer and brushed and flossed her teeth and trimmed her nails. Husbands called, "I thought you were going to bed." "I'm on my way," she said. She put some water into the dog's dish and put the cat outside and then made sure the doors were locked. She looked on each of the kids, turned out a bedside lamp, hung up a shirt, threw some dirty socks in the hamper, had a conversation with one who was still up doing homework. In the bedroom, she set the alarm laid out clothing for the next day, straight in the shoe rack, added three things to her list of things to do for tomorrow. About that time, husband turned off the TV and announced to no one in particular, "I'm going to bed," and he did. (audience laughing) Do you need that right there? That's for you and your growth, brother. These small stories seem to be never ending. And if we don't stop and zoom out and ask some of the bigger questions, we don't get the point of the life that God has called us to, the story that God has written us into. There's always a bigger story, bigger than the small stories, and we ask, "Where is God in all of this stuff?" We ask this big question, "Why did I get married?" Why did I get married? It's not a very theological question. Certainly a practical one and one that we feel, "Why did I get married?" I ask that question about us. Why did I get married? Why did I get, we were young. We were really young. I know, seriously. Babies, it's right. We were tricked. We were tricked. We were young and we were enthusiastic and she was stunning. And I thought I need to have sex. No, that's not all that I thought. I thought all kinds of things, but there was stuff going on inside of me. And we thought of glory and changing the world and we thought of warm fuzzies and flowers and chocolate and romantic. We were tricked. And then the story of voluntary and the kids and the, right? Why did I get married? We have to zoom out and look at the bigger picture of all of this thing. This is my title this morning. My title for our sermon this morning is Four Reasons Why God Wrote Marriage Into Your Story. Four Reasons Why God Wrote Marriage Into Your Story. And I actually really liked that language that God wrote marriage into your story. God ordained it, friends. I can actually picture myself on this side of the stage. I think it was during the sermon on the mountain two years ago or whatever. When I said something like, here's a reality. And for some reason I just recalled this this morning. I could picture the view of the you from where I was preaching when I said something. God made marriage and you picked it. So now you're in it. That's a reality. But God's the one that ordained it. You go, well, I picked it. Well, you know what? Not in the world that I believe that there's a sovereign God who orchestrates and even takes your stupid decisions. Some of them were dumb. And he goes, and now I've got that as my will. And God's will that you're married in that situation that you're in right now. Four Reasons Why God Wrote Marriage Into Your Story. He ordained it. He created it. You picked it, but he brought you together. Stop. Do you believe that? God brought you together. And some of you have these really super romantic stories and you go, I know. We floated on a clown of angels wings to the, you know, into our engagement and now we're married. And that's your story. And so you get that God brought you together. And others, that's not your story. And that's not the reality you're living in right now. And you think, I don't know that God brought me together because how would God want me to wrestle the way that we're struggling right now. I'm here to tell you, in the economy of our sovereign God, creator of the universe, He brought you together. And we want to ask the big question. Why? Why would God have brought you together? Why would He write marriage into our story? Biblically, I came up with four things. I think there's probably more. There's at least four. Two, I'm going to zoom through. And two, I'm going to spend a little more time on. And given the fact that we're running a little late, Michael and Ben, I think we won't take the time to do that last song. So we'll make sure that we take full time to get this preached and be out of here on time. Does that make sense? If Michael's not in the room, somebody could tell him. So here's the four reasons why God wrote marriage into your story. Number one, procreation. Procreation, that's right in the scriptural text. Genesis 1, 27, and 28, look at that text. And in fact, there's a couple of places I'm going to have you look this morning, and some of them are going to be upfront, some won't. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, He created them. Male and female, He created them. Verse 28, what's next verse? God blessed them and told them, be fruitful and increase the number, fill the earth and subdue it. That's a call to Adam and Eve to have children. One of the reasons God writes marriage into your story is so that you would be fruitful and multiply. And this is not an absolute, of course, as many broken hearts can testify. Not everybody's able to have children. And we weep with you if that's been your longing and it's not happened. But for the majority of people, and in the purity of the vision of marriage and the purity of our creation, there's all kinds of stuff wrong with our bodies now that's such a bummer. But in the purity of the deal, God designed for us to be able to have children. And so many of us are able to do that and choose to do that. And that's one of the reasons God may have written it. And that's one of the bigger pictures. I want to tell you that, because it's so beautiful. Sometimes we think, man, I got married for love. And now we just have this family that we're messing with. And it's a small story that we get embedded in. Do you guys get offended when I talk about kids? Like, they're really a lot of trouble. And they're sort of in our way. Because it's sort of true. And we get lost in that. And we think, this couldn't be why God had me get married, but procreation is part of it. And it's a beautiful thing. We're like God in procreation. He said, we key created us in his image. And then he said, bless Adam and Eve. And he said, now you go and you created your image. You create out of your love. Let your love create this little being of love. That's beautiful, man. I love that idea. We're like God when we procreate and have kids. And we're filling the earth with God honoring people, loving kingdom, bringing little creatures. That doesn't describe most of your children, does it? (audience laughs) But that's the ideal. And that's what we're working toward. And that's the job that God has given us. It isn't easy. Sometimes it's not even pleasurable, but I wanna remind us friends, listen, marriage again. It's, and procreation in particular, it's not for us. It's not even for the kid. Do you know that? Let's talk about this. You did not have children for you. You may have, but in God's sovereignty, that's not why we procreate. That's not why we multiply and fill the earth. We didn't do it for us. If we did, we would have had better kids or something. (audience laughs) We're not doing it for them. Do you know that? You didn't have kids for them. You had kids because God gave you the mandate to create God honoring Jesus knowing, world loving, little kingdom creatures. Fill the earth with these. And then we get focused on, I'm not happy 'cause my kids are hard, or my kid needs to be happy, and so it's everything I'm all about it. Instead of this bigger picture, which is God wrote it into your story because he said you create these children to be these kingdom people. We had kids for God's kingdom. It's part of the bigger picture. So one of the reasons God wrote marriage into our story is that he told us to go create these kids. And God bless you as you do that. To hold it, I just did three weeks at MCCU on parenting, and we didn't even scratch the surface good luck with that. Procreation. Number two, the second reason God wrote marriage into your story. Number two is for partnership. Again, in Genesis, Genesis 2 18 through 25 starts with, the Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. So I will make a helper suitable for him. In fact, I'd like to look at this text 'cause I don't think I put the rest of the verses up there on the PowerPoint. You have your Bible, you should look at this with me very quickly. Genesis chapter two, 18 and following. The Lord God said it's not good for man to be alone. By the way, I always think this. Oh, duh. So I will make a helper suitable for him. See, the Lord God, verse 19, had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would name them and whatever the man called each living creature was its name, so the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh, and then the Lord God made woman from the rib. He had taken out of the man, and when he brought her to the man, the man said, "Whoa, man, that's how she got her name, did you know that?" (congregation laughing) Just kidding, it doesn't say that. (congregation laughing) But kind of, he said, "This is now bone of my bone, "and flesh of my flesh. "She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." Remember what God said, "He would create "a partner suitable for him." If you're on our Couples Retreat last November, we talked about this Hebrew word, that partner suitable for him. It's the Hebrew word, ezzar, connecto. And it means a corresponding strength, an appropriate power to walk with you. Come on now. Somehow in there we get, she's supposed to be my helper, and so we get this weird, on her Lord kind of saying, Christians did traditionally out of this. You know, the other, the other, only other place that that Hebrew word, ezzar, connecto, is used, is of God. He is our strength, appropriate strength for us. He is our ezzar, connecto. And so is our spouse. And so of course, then we are created for partnership. It is so like God to have this kind of intimacy and this kind of connection. That's the image of God, isn't it? The Trinity in relationship. Marriage is the sort of pinnacle of human intimacy and connection because of the physical one flesh idea. So this reflects God's heart for us to be in relationship. So one of the reasons why God wrote marriage into your story is to give you that suitable partner. It's not like the animals, it's not even like friends. God has a heart for us to be in relationship. So if you're single, you know the power of that. It's beautiful, but marriage becomes this intimate of all intimate relationships. And so it's one reason God has that suitable partner to come along with you, not the same as you, but corresponding to you equal to you in power and strength. Love that. Just go to a challenge and reminder, isn't that, shouldn't it be to us? If you're living with somebody who is equal to you in power and strength, the corresponding presence, this is not gonna be easy. But that's what makes it so rich, is your partnership, that equal. Now we're gonna highlight that in a couple of ways. These two that I wanna do before I run out of time and we quit. Third reason God wrote marriage into your story was for purification. For purification or for transformation. If I was trying not to stay with peace, I would say something along the lines. If he did it for your transformation to be like Christ, we know guys, we get the idea that if two people live together in fellowship, then iron will sharpen iron. You know that from Proverbs 27, right? As iron sharpens iron, so living with your wife will make you stronger. That's what it says in Proverbs 27. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. You know that from being in intimate relationships, don't you? That when you live that closely with somebody, this happens and it strengthens you. I wanna talk about that a little bit because we tend to marry for happiness and end up staying married because of the unbelievable growth that it produces in our life. Or sometimes ending marriages because of how coarse that rubbing together can be. And this is the reason why we feel all this young, youthful romance and hormones and all those things 'cause God tricks us into getting married. You see, don't forget you guys that God wants to write marriage into you because in everything that God does, He's longing to transform you into the likeness of Jesus in everything you do. That's His heart, that you would become more redeemed and more healed and more restored and more like Christ and closer to God that God has that for you in everything you do. That's part of this big picture, isn't it? We can never live our lives looking at the small picture that life is just about what? Going to work and succeeding and being able to pay the bills. And life is about walking with God and having Him shape us into the likeness of His Son. And marriage, God writes it into your story to do that, to the nth degree, to transform you. Marriage is hard. All intimate relationships are hard. Marriage is hard because you take a man and a woman who, by the way, are fundamentally different. You know, I believe they're completely equal, but friends, we cannot miss the fact how different men and women are. And even if you didn't go with the men and women piece, you take two unique human individuals and you make them live together. One's a man, one's a woman. They have two completely different personalities. They come from two different families with different kinds of traditions and different kinds of expectations. They often come opposite one another. How many of you that are married married and opposite person in some way? Some of you guys marry opposites? What? You were tricked by Jesus. What is that? It is a divine conspiracy. I'm not joking. It is a divine conspiracy for God to be able to shape you. And so you marry somebody that has strengths that you couldn't even conceive of and weaknesses that cause you to depend on the Lord and to grow. This is what God does. It's, and then we're, on top of all that, every one of us is a mess to some degree. So, and then God goes, you live together. Go do that. It's hard. Mike Nolan, I quote Mike Nolan more than anybody in our church. Mike Nolan has said famously, my wife has done everything well in her life except here's your one mistake. She married a knucklehead. It was her one downfall. And I thought, you know what? If Kathy was gonna get married, she was gonna marry a knucklehead. Marriage is rough like that. And iron starts to sharpen iron. But the good news is God is in that for us, for our transformation and our growth. And he's written it as his conspiracy. He's written it into our story so that we would be more like Jesus. It turns out marriage is not for our happiness. Does that sound like a downer? I don't mean to say that it's a downer. Because we'll find incredible happiness in our partnership, in our creating little kingdom rugrats. In our being sharpened by someone becoming more like Christ. In walking with somebody with, we'll find incredible happiness. But the point was not for our happiness. The point was for our purification. Like everything that God does. He is longing to transform us to be more like Christ. And he uses marriage to do that. You know what? I'm gonna look at quickly at a scripture in Ephesians that you may be somewhat familiar with. And it starts with Ephesians 5.21. And it says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And I really wanna lean into you right now to grab a Bible and open this in our last couple minutes together. Ephesians 5, can you do that? 'Cause I didn't put it up on the screen. But I wanna talk about this idea. And I'm gonna maybe look at something in a way that you've not seen in this way before. As you're turning to it. I wanna talk about how hard marriage can be and that God is growing us in it. And having you experience that by the way, being in every relationship. Every relationship you have of any intimacy. You experience growth, don't you? Do you know why have you thought that through? You've grown up as an adult because you had a kid. You've grown up as part of being married. You've grown up having to work for somebody. Why is that? Do you know? Because you have to be less self-centered. It's as simple as that. And when we look at this text, it's sort of a famous text in Ephesians chapter five starting in verse 21. I want you to look at just a couple of quick things for me. Ephesians 5, 20, would submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is this famous passage on rolls of husbands and wives. And look at what he says. Wives, this is Paul right into the Ephesian church. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For your husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. And now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Now listen, we get all lost in this passage and we're like, what does that mean? What does that mean? Look it, wives submit to your husbands. How? What does the text say? Wives submit to your husbands. How is the wife supposed to submit to the husband? What are the words? As to the Lord and in everything. As to the Lord, wives submit to your husband, as to the Lord. How do we submit to the Lord? We say, you're the savior. And I will give my life to you. And I will die to myself for what you have for me, Jesus. And he's basically trying to say, when we get all lost in what this could possibly mean, he's basically trying to say, this is about becoming less of you and more about the other person considering their needs better than your own. That is how we grow toward maturity when we die to ourself and consider another better than ourselves. That's what it is. And he goes, wives, you wanna know how to be married? Die to yourself. Consider your husband's needs. Love him. Be less self-focused, be more others-focused, be more servant-hearted. That's what he says to the wife. Now, before you get all up tight about that, notice the verse 21 says, you each submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, okay? This isn't just about, hey, wives, you die to yourself while your husband's the Lord of the manor. There's a mutual submission going on and he's creating a point. He's saying, especially in that culture, where wives really were, it was a hierarchical relationship in their society. He's making a point is he's saying in marriage, you will be shaped by dying to yourself. Just the way the church says to Jesus, what do you have for me? I'll give my life to you. Now, before you think that's unfair, go on to the other one. Husbands, love your wives, how? Look at the text. You see it, don't you? Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and what gave himself up for her to make her holy. Husbands, how are we supposed to love? We're supposed to love like Christ, which is to give ourself up, which is about less of me, which is what marriage constant requires, which is about being more about the other person and about their needs and about being less self-centered and more sacrificial and more focused on others and more servant-hearted. It's about dying to ourself, which is like Christ. It's the same thing, the message in the text, how do husbands and wives live together? He said, it's this mirror of Christ in the church where the wife says, I'm all about you, I'll give you my life. And the husband says, no, not if I can do it first because I will die for you and give my life for you. Do you hear me? And that will always produce growth in our lives because it's less about us and more about the other person. Friends, God wrote marriage into your story, not because that person was going to complete you, although they may in some ways. They'll probably complete you because they will bring stuff into your life that challenges the heck out of you and you will have to die to yourself and see what God has for you in that and you will become more like Christ in the process. Wow, I'm glad no teenagers are here to hear this because none of them are gonna get married. But I did put it in my notes and there is extreme happiness in that because as we submit ourselves to the work of God in us and we die to ourselves, we find life. Marriage is the thing that brings us toward that naturally. Here's the challenge. Have you wondered why it's not all rainbows and sunshine and thought maybe your marriage was broken? Friends, if you're struggling right now, you're struggling that there's no spark, you're struggling because you've got anger, you're struggling because it's hard to live with them, you're struggling because you're irritated, you're struggling because protecting intimacy is just an incredible amount of work. All kinds of struggles we have, if you're thinking that somehow you're broken and everybody else is all fat and happy, I'm telling you right now, God has written marriage into every one of our stories to transform us, to heal our souls, to free us from ourselves and we're all normal in that. Is there a glimpse of hope that some of you guys might need in that right there? That some of you have, some of you may be on that slope toward going, I just think ours is over. And some of you go, no, I never even, I won't consider divorce, but I've resolved myself that I married someone that I don't even like very much anymore, that I don't really enjoy being with and I'm incredibly brokenhearted about the place that my marriage is in right now. My friends, I am not minimizing that. But I wanna tell you that the sovereign God who brought you together, is wants to use this difficulty to manifest his power, to shape and transform you into the likeness of his son and there is hope for your marriage. It won't always be that hard. Submit yourselves then to God and receive his healing. Submit yourself to the other person and see what God wants to do in you. And may God bring life and light and more joy sooner rather than later. And our hearts break with you if you're not in that season right this moment. Why has God written marriage into your story because he is shaping you? The fourth thing that I don't want you to miss, the God has written marriage into your story is that you are married for a purpose. You're married for a purpose. If you go back to Ephesians five, the interesting thing about Ephesians five is that whole passage, the context of that passage starts up a little higher in verse 15 where it says you be very careful how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Every last one of us must look at the big picture in every area of our lives and say, what is the Lord's will? Where are you at work here, God? I don't want to be foolish. I don't want to miss the opportunity. I don't want to see what you're doing. I want to be very careful how I live. You see, it matters how we live and what we do and what our days consist of. There is a purpose to everything that God has called us into. When you go back to the Genesis story that we looked at, Adam and Eve were brought together by God and then he said, he put them in the garden, right? To till it, to steward it. And he said, now you multiply and you fill this place and you subdue it. In other words, he said, I have something significant for you to do together. That's what God was saying to Adam and Eve. I'm not just gonna go throwing this garden, you're gonna have some fun and then the end's gonna come. He says, I want you to do kingdom work. They became agents of God. Do you hear this church? Marriage was the very first picture of God saying, you go together and you impact this world. We're married for a purpose. And this Ephesians five text says, be very careful how you live. I did not give you marriage for no reason. I gave you marriage for a purpose. It's a divine calling to live out God's will in this big story and to do it together. Here's something I wanna tell you. You were brought together with your current spouse. You were brought together with your spouse right now to do something for God better together as a married couple. Do you hear that? Why would God have you be married if you were gonna serve him worse? God's got some plan for you. And some of you go, well, man, you don't know my spouse or my spouse isn't supportive of me serving God at all. There's all kinds of details in there friends, but you know what? It's still the truth. God has brought you together and God always says, be very careful how you live. Do not miss my will and I have something significant for you to do. And so if he brought you together then you're gonna be able to do that better. And I think it's incumbent upon us to go, how, how do I do something better together? It's funny because we're used to hearing somebody say that they're single for a reason. You ever heard that? Like, man, I'm single so I'm free to be able to serve the Lord or I'm single so that I have this, like we're single for Christ and we're married for a mortgage. Like that's the big contrast that we have. Like I'm all fired, I'm single, I get to go serve Jesus. But then when we get married, we get to turn all inward and we get to do the picket fence and we get to be all about ourselves and all about soccer and all about our car and all about our image and all about our life. And that's, it's a world that's met us. And we become this little idol God didn't give us one another to make our family an idol. God gave us one another because we can serve the kingdom of God better. How are we gonna do that? By the way, the single person piece, we just scored. We just landed Karen Halberg who's a covenant pastor, who's a single woman to preach on March 3rd on love and the single person. And so she's gonna bring it. So that's gonna be awesome. So make sure you're here for March 3rd. Well, except for some of us guys will be gone on the retreat. But Karen's gonna be here for that. Why can't we then be married for Christ and serve Him better? We should be of course, but we're tempted to live in those smaller stories. So we gotta ask, why has God brought us together? Why did I get married? Why has God brought me together with this person at this time? Why would He need me to be married to Linda for His purposes in our world? What's that about? And I'll tell you what, Linda and I have gone so far as to write a marriage mission statement because we want the big story to inform our small stories. We don't wanna get up and go, God, just gotta get through today. Man, we just got laundry and bills and hoping like heck at the end of the day, there might be a little intimacy. God has called us to be together. And our mission statement is something like this. Mine and Linda's is something like, we have the unique gifts to encourage and inspire each other, to make Jesus remind ourselves that Jesus is the thing of greatest value and then be able to lead and inspire other people toward that end as well. Do you see that in how me and Linda work together? And the way we figure that out is we are different complimentary gifts and how that all works. And I got the gift of knowledge. You know what the gift of knowledge says? Man, bring some spiritual truth. I can figure out spiritual truth. I love it, I love God's word. I love spiritual truth. I can figure that out. And my wife has the spiritual gift of wisdom and she goes and then this is how we apply it. And together we recognize that we're able to serve God better together. For a long time in our life, our mission statement was more along the lines of Linda's like, I got it. I got the four children. I got the diapers. I got the vacuuming. I got the laundry. I got the shopping. You go serve Jesus. You go build your gifts. God's gonna use you. Miley, we got 70 years together to do this in ministry. I got this right now, right? And I'm like, you got it? I got it. Why would God put you together? I challenge you this morning to determine the mission and the calling of your marriage. And if you're not married, if you hope to be married, you'd be very careful how you live. Making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. You don't get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but you be filled with the spirit. You find out what the Lord's will is. The text is for all of us, for everything he's called us to. The big picture is kingdom life. And our marriage falls into that as well. As you go out from here, let the big story of God's involvement. Inform your small stories. Every day, every morning you get up, God put you in this place to serve him. Let it inspire your small stories. When those small stories are difficult and you realize that you've complained most of the day, God has put you in this place and called you to be with this person for his purposes. Let it inspire and let it direct your small stories. What do you do with your finances? What do you do with your time? What do you do with your actions? What do you do with your spiritual gifts? Who do you spend time with? Let the big story that were God's people in God's kingdom and direct how you live, including your marriage. [BLANK_AUDIO]