Generations: Marriage (Part 2)

My name is Josh. My notes are out of order, and I'm working on that. This is why I put page numbers at the top.

I need jeopardy music. All right. Hey. As we jump into things this morning, like I said, my name is Josh, if we've never met, and I'm glad that you're here today. And last week, we dove into a sermon that was all about marriage, but really, we.

It wasn't about marriage. It was about oneness. And I said this week was gonna be super practical, and I have 1 billion things to say, and so we're gonna run really fast. Okay? You ready?

All right. Stop being a baby about that. Okay? I'm glad there's a baby in here. I'm not shaming anyone's mother.

Okay. I'm glad you're here. Hey. Here's the short version of last week. Marriage is not the ultimate goal.

Marriage is not the ultimate goal of the Christian life. But it is the clearest that God gives us on this earth of what it looks like to be in relationship with him, how he feels about us, and what he's done for us in Christ. Ultimately, that's all pointing whether we're single, married, dating, single again, it's all pointing to this inner longing that all of us have for oneness. Jesus actually prayed for this kind of oneness. John 17.

We read about this starting in verse 20. Jesus says, My prayer is not for them alone, not for his disciples alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. That would be us, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me, I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. This is the kind of oneness that we were made for, and this is the kind of oneness that we're longing for. And it's the kind of oneness that actually reveals God's likeness to the world. This means that our relationships as Christians should look distinctly different than the relationships of everyone else in the world. Now, I promise this would be high application.

So that's what today's going to be. I'll start right here with all the singles, whether you're divorced, widowed, young, or old. Here's what the Bible actually says about Singleness. And contrary to what some might believe or assume, singleness isn't a problem to fix. It's not a season to grow out of, it is out.

According to the Apostle Paul, it is actually a strategic advantage and a gift for the kingdom. In First Corinthians 7, Paul's comparing the realities of marriage and singleness, and he drops this line of honesty. He says in verse 28, but those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you of this. He wasn't kidding.

Translation Marriage is beautiful, but it's not easier. It's kind of like the idea of having a boat is awesome. Putting gas in the boat and storing the boat and winterizing the boat and hauling the boat. Not that awesome, right? He says in First Corinthians 7:32, I would like you to be free from concern.

An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs, how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband.

I'm saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. According to Paul, singleness is not a second class status. It's actually a sacred calling. It offers a unique undivided devotion to God with fewer relational responsibilities. You have more energy and time and emotional capacity to invest directly in the things of God.

So if you're single today, whether it's for a season or for a lifetime, please hear this. You're not waiting to become whole. You're not waiting to be useful. You're not waiting to be called. You're already invited into an even special kind of fruitfulness, the kingdom for God.

So are you. Are you. Are you using that extra bandwidth to chase the kingdom, or are you using it to chase something else? Because Paul's saying that singleness is powerful. It's powerful.

And when it's surrendered to God, it is such a strategic asset to the church. So here's your challenge. You use that power and bandwidth to lead and serve. Yes, we want you to lead and serve. Lead a small group, go on one of our go trips together, join one of our volunteer teams, start investing in someone else.

Get connected into relationships, not just with singles, but also with Married couples and with families. Not as a third wheel, not as a token single guy, not as a babysitter, as an active part of a family that God has created and blessed you with. Singleness in the church is not a collection of couples and leftovers. It's a family where everyone belongs. And there's a special kind of intimacy with God that singles uniquely have.

What's awesome about that is you get to see and understand things about God in your singleness that I don't get to taste in my marriedness. And each of us is given special gifts from the Spirit so that we can experience and see God and worship him in different ways. It's a beautiful way that God blesses you in your singleness. So don't wear your singleness as a badge of shame. Step into what Paul is calling to you.

Deep spiritual oneness. Now let me talk to those who are single and hoping for marriage or you're currently dating or engaged. This season is not just about waiting for the next thing. It's about preparing for the right thing. We often focus so much on what we want in a spouse.

We have our list. We want God to make sure that he blesses us with the good gift of a great spouse. That's wonderful. We should absolutely have those desires. But if God is a God who gives good gifts, then here's my question.

Are you the kind of gift that he would want to give to someone else? Are you becoming the kind of person that the kind of person you're praying for would want to marry? God isn't just preparing someone for you. He's preparing you for someone else. So before you ask God to bring you a good gift, ask God to make you a good gift.

Let him refine you. Let him mature you. Let him shape you. Let him build into you the love and humility and devotion that it's going to take for you to have a healthy marriage one day. And don't miss this.

Don't miss this. Don't you dare settle for someone out of fear, lust, desperation or. Or greed. Don't do it. Don't settle for someone who pulls you away from Jesus, confuses your worth, or treats you like a commodity.

Don't date someone and cross your fingers that they will eventually come to love Jesus one day. Start having those conversations now and get to the bottom of it. Start having faith conversations. God's desire is that you would be equally yoked with someone in true oneness who points you to Jesus next. This is a big one for those who are not married you cannot faithfully walk in biblical singleness without practicing abstinence.

Let me say that again for the people in the back. You cannot practice faithful biblical singleness without practicing abstinence. Sex is not casual. It's not casual. Bodies are not disposable and intimacy gives something away that you can't ever get back.

You were made for more. You were made for more. You were made for soul level oneness and not momentary pleasure that leaves you emptier than you started. Guys, listen to me. If you think that practicing, pursuing women as real life replacements for your pornography addiction is going to somehow prepare you for your future wife to be able to love her like Christ loves the church, you are lying to yourself.

Let me put it this way. If you fumble the ball every time you get it in practice, do you think the coach is going to hand it to you in the championship game?

Women are not objects. They are daughters of the king. Ladies, if you're dating a guy who treats you like an object and you think that one day he's going to wake up and start loving you like Christ loves you, you've lost your mind.

Every time you give yourself away as a commodity to someone who will not wholly give themselves to you in marriage, you devalue yourself. Stop it. Stop it. Sex belongs inside of marriage. Not because God is lame, but because he knows what it costs.

He knows its value. He knows what's at stake. Don't miss this. A relationship that's built on a foundation of momentary pleasure will always crack under the weight of real life. But don't miss this either.

God's not here to shame you. He's here to call you to more, to a better way. And the same God who created your body also knows how to heal it. He knows how to restore it and use it for his glory. So if sex outside of marriage is your story, if it's part of your past, if it's part of this weekend, bring it to Jesus.

He's not distressed by it. He's not disgusted by it. He's not surprised by it. He has already carried it to the cross on your behalf. He's inviting you to a better story.

Now, specifically for those who are currently divorced, I want you to hear very clearly. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. That's not how it works. There is grace enough for you, too. Plenty more than you could ever need.

There is grace for you, however. Divorce leaves wreckage in its wake. It does. And those of you who have experienced it know you know. It leaves wreckage and baggage and if you're in the middle of that and you need some help healing, that's okay.

That's okay. If you need some help, if you want to be a part of a community of people who get it, who are also going through it, who understand what this is like, I want to encourage you to do one thing to join Divorce Care. Divorce Care is an incredible program. It's a nationwide program. It's helped thousands of people heal through divorce.

We're gonna have a meeting in two weeks on June 8th. Is that two weeks? Yes, June 8th. On June 8th, it'll be between the services. You can find information on that and sign up for it on the events page.

Please do that. Don't miss is not the unforgivable sin. Next, some statistics. 57% of adults are in America have cohabited, lived together with a significant other outside of marriage. 65% of adults say that they think this is a good idea.

And 84% of the people who do live together outside of marriage say it's a great way to test the relationship. Here's the other studies. 80% of those people who lived together prior to being married, who go on to get married, 80% of them divorce. Hear me out. You would never hop on a plane with a pilot that has an 80% crash rate.

You would never go out to eat at a restaurant that has an 80% food poisoning rate. You're not the magical fairy that fits into the 20%. This is a lie. The world has told us a lie. That you can test this stuff out and be non committed and then hope that it'll flip on its head and you'll suddenly be in a committed relationship.

This is not how it works if you're dating or living with someone that you would not marry. Hear me out. Stop wasting your time. I'm not saying you shouldn't get to know people, okay? But let's be honest.

You know, I know you know you know you know. Stop wasting your time. All right? If you're engaged. Told you I was going to move fast.

Three things if you're engaged. First, don't spend more time planning your wedding than preparing your heart for marriage. You're already losing weight to fit into that dress or to fit into that tux or to look good on your honeymoon. I'm asking you to make sure that your spiritual body looks as good in a bathing suit as your physical body. Okay?

Second, get solid Christian premarital counseling. Do it. It invites someone else into the mix who is not blinded by love. It prepares you with some indicator flags on the health of your relationship. And it helps you to talk about things before they happen.

It puts handles on things that later you can pick up and do something with. Don't, don't skip this step. It's too valuable. Third, I'm not here to talk you out of marriage, but I cannot count the number of people divorced people who have said to me, my whole family told me this was a bad idea. I knew that I was settling.

I knew this was a bad idea and I did it anyway. I believed they would change. Here's the truth. You don't marry potential. You marry patterns.

You marry patterns. Emotional health, spiritual maturity, shared values and family history all matter. And saying I do doesn't turn any of those off. So if you're seeing red flags now, pay attention. The best time to end a bad marriage is before it starts.

And if that's you again, deep down you know, you know God has more in mind for you than just making it work. God has in mind generational oneness. Don't settle. All right, let's move on to married people. And all the single people can exhale.

Now, before we go any further, I want to put a giant asterisk on this. God's design for marriage is that it is lifelong. That's his plan. However, if you are in a marriage that is abusive, violent, emotionally manipulative, or you are truly anxious for your safety, I'm not asking you to stay. I'm not giving your very broken spouse permission to continue to bully you and scare you and emotionally manipulate you if you're feeling unsafe.

Recent data says that one in three women experience an environment like that. And if that's you today, God does not require you to live that way in the name of submission or promise. And if you're the one causing the harm, this is your warning. This is your wake up call. You are doing real generational damage.

And if you think there won't be consequences, you are a fool. But the answer isn't just run and find a divorce lawyer either. Often the healthiest move is just create some space, get into a safe environment, and invite some professional help into your marriage to see if you can bring healing into this situation.

So if that's you today, please don't leave without talking to one of us. We would love to help you. All right, with that in place, let me address married couples. Marriage is like two people in a canoe paddling up river and we're either in one of three positions. We're either aggressively working to move Forward, we're barely holding place, or we are going backwards.

That's how marriage works. And one thing's for sure. You can't stop paddling. Because if you do, you will eventually look up and ask yourself, how the heck did we get here? Just ask anyone who was divorced after 25, 30 years of marriage, and they'll tell you they woke up one day and said, how did we get here?

Marriage isn't a 5050 deal. It's a 100. 100 deal. On the hardest days, it might even be a 1000 deal. Because your spouse can't give anything.

This is the kind of commitment that real covenant oneness requires. No one walks down the aisle. I know no one walks down the aisle thinking, In 10 years, I hope to be cutting checks to a divorce lawyer, fighting over the house, and trying to figure out who gets the kids this weekend. But it happens a lot. Because the enemy loves it when marriage is destroyed.

Why? Because of everything we've been talking about. Because marriage is the picture of what it looks like for God to love us. And if Satan can distort that and break that, he can break all kinds of things in the process. I think if some of us were honest, our wedding vows might sound like little more.

Like this. I promise to love you as long as you make me feel love first. I pledge to work through our problems by blaming you for most of them. I vow to be faithful unless I get bored or feel misunderstood or reconnect with my ex on Instagram. I promise to grow old with you unless you get fat, unless you change, unless you go through a thing that I can't understand.

I commit to stay unless staying feels too hard or inconvenient or not as fun as I thought this should be. When we get married, our vows are that through good and bad, through rich and poor, through sickness and health, we're all in. Those are the vows. So maybe it's time today for you to re up on the promises that you made in front of God and your whole family. But what if you married the wrong person?

I mean, Josh, you just told the dating people, get out. Well, I should have gotten out, but I didn't. Well, Zig Ziglar famously said, I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person. But I do know that if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all.

So how do we do better? Well, I could go on for days on this. This is just going to scratch the surface But I'm going to smash through some advice that has really affected and grown our marriage, Heidi and me, over the last 24 years. First is this. Go to bed together and end each day with praying out loud together with and for each other.

Heidi and I have done this since day one, and it has been such an important part of our relationship. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It could be a very simple prayer. God, thank you so much for Heidi. She's such a gift to me.

Help me to love her like you love her. It could be that simple. And if you make this habit every night, I promise you, you'll run into a day like this. You woke up in a foul mood. He did that thing you hate that he does.

And she said that thing that just sends you over the edge. You had a crazy day at work, a crazy day with the kids. You left and came home in a huff. And then after a long afternoon of quietly fighting in front of the kids, then you put them to bed. And then you argue louder.

And then the day is ending. And as you get ready for bed, you're brushing your teeth in front of the same mirror, making sure that you don't make eye contact. And you crawl into bed facing opposite directions. And you breathe in that way that lets the other person know that you are not happy with them. Of course, this is all made up.

This has definitely never happened in my house. But at the end of that, if you have established this habit every day of your life, you'll have to ask yourself, are we going to do that thing that we always do? Are we going to pray tonight? And man, that moment of stubborn silence when you would much rather ignore your spouse and ignore God, it will call you to humility. And when you finally give in and you pray out loud, something softens inside of you.

And when your spouse here, you ask God to help you love them better despite what's going on, something softens in them. Walls come down, prayer disarms and heals. This can't happen if you are down in the basement watching the end of a sports ball game that will never affect the future of your life. This can't happen if you're sitting on the couch scrolling through social media for hours when your spouse goes to bed. Also, there's another benefit of going to bed at the same time.

Let's say extracurricular activities. I'm going to keep this pg, okay? Speaking of those types of activities, they are a gift from God for procreation and recreation. And let me be very Clear. There is only one well you should be drinking from when it comes to extracurricular activities and that is your spouse.

All extracurricular activities belong only inside of marriage between you and your spouse in front of your spouse. All extracurricular activities inside of marriage between you and your spouse is in front of your spouse. That means all images, novels, videos, other people and replacement practices without your spouse are off limits. Why? Because all of that stuff only leads to objectification and self gratification, not oneness.

God has more in mind for you. Also hear me out. If you are the only well that your spouse should be drinking from and your well is only ever closed with a padlock, then a healthy God given thirst quickly makes way into something very unhealthy.

Intimacy inside of marriage was never designed to be offense and defense. It was designed to be mutual intimacy. And maybe like many marriages, you have never experienced that in your marriage because the world has so twisted sexual intimacy that that is a very common thing. And if that's you today, there's more there. There is more.

It's time that you have a very solid conversation with your spouse and maybe even invite some professional Christian counseling into that relationship because God has so much more in mind for you. Next, something that applies to all relationships. Don't let the story win. Here's what I mean. This advice comes from Dr. Brene Brown.

If you don't know who she is, she writes amazing stuff. It's simple, but it's powerful. It shifts the conversation from accusation. It puts the problem out in front of you rather than in between you. It's a game changing sentence starter.

This is it. The story I'm telling myself is. And you fill in the blank. The story I'm telling myself is. So instead of you don't care about me, you say, the story I'm telling myself is that when we were disagreeing with each other and you walked out and slammed the door, that I don't matter enough to you to stick in and figure this out together.

And it's amazing how often the story that's going on in our head where we fit all the things together and made everything up, isn't at all what's reality. Your spouse can't correct or compete with a story they don't know exists. This is a great tool to have safer conversations. The story I'm telling myself is. Next.

Date each other. Date each other and pursue each other. You used to do that by the way. That's how you got here. Okay.

Date each other, flirt, laugh together, go do Fun stuff together, like you used to, and ask your spouse, what is it right now, today, that makes them feel loved and appreciated? Don't just depend on something that you did, and it worked 10 years ago. Okay? Date each other. You pursued each other before.

Keep doing it. Next. Fight on the same team. Fight on the same team. Conflict in marriage is guaranteed.

It's guaranteed. And Satan is a master at making us believe that our spouse is the enemy that really messes things up. We're already up against our finances and our family dynamics and our job and mowing the grass and keeping the house clean. The very last thing in the world that we need is the one person who's won with us to be against us. God intended for us to be on the same team.

Fight shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. Shoulder to shoulder, rather than face to face. I cannot tell you how many times as Heidi and I have been in a spirited disagreement with one another, that one of us paused and looked at the other and said, I'm on your team. I'm on your team. And sometimes that's all it takes to reset.

Next. If half of your body isn't working, your body isn't working. If you wake up tomorrow morning and the right half of your body does not work, you're not gonna say to yourself, well, I got a whole other half of my body. I think I'll be fine. You're gonna call an ambulance.

If your spouse does not feel like your marriage is okay, your marriage is not okay. We have to stop using the excuse. I'm gonna point at men here. Cause we're good at this. Ah, she's just emotional.

I feel fine about our marriage. Your marriage is not okay. If half your body's not working, your body's not working. Don't make excuses. Get help.

Now, I could go on and on with tons of things that we have learned over the years, but I gotta land the plane. We're already out of time. There's this great scene in a movie called Forrest Gump, if you've ever seen that. Forrest and his buddy Bubba, they're in the jungle in Vietnam. They're at war.

It's been raining and raining and raining for days. And it's nighttime. They're exhausted. They're sitting on the wet ground back to back. And here's what Bubba says to Forrest.

He says, I'll lean up against you, and you just lean up against me. That way we don't have to sleep with our heads in the mud. And you know what? There's a Lot of days. That's what marriage is.

Sitting back to back, staying in, leaned up against each other. And the best we get is that our heads aren't in the mud. And that's beautiful. That's what oneness looks like. And that's the stuff that galvanizes and makes our marriages strong.

Because when two people decide to keep leaning in through hardship and conflict and dry seasons and wet seasons and all of that, we're reflecting oneness back to the world. Heidi and I hit our lowest point in our marriage at year 10. Heidi. We had two little kids 14 months apart. And Heidi is full, but, like, full pregnant with number three.

And we are tired. We're both working full time. We got two kids in diapers and car seats and chasing our tail all the time. And it felt like we were at odds for months, just months. Like, we would have these little moments where our heads would poke out of the top and something good would happen.

But we were just stuck, man. We were stuck. And instead of giving up, instead of giving up, we said, we gotta do something about this. And we sat down face to face and said, I'm still in. Are you still in?

I'm still in. Are you still in? And what it looked like for us, we just did something. We went on a marriage retreat. It was marriage weekend, and my sister watched the older kids, and it was called Weekend to Remember.

They still do them. There's one coming up in Cincinnati here next February. They're great. They're all over the country. It's super simple.

Here's the thing. I hardly remember anything that they taught us. What mattered the most is that we took the time and we did it. We separated the chaos and paused for a minute, and we got face to face with each other, and we reset. And it was the most pivotal moment in our marriage to getting it to the beautiful place that it is today.

And I'll promise you, this week, as I was working on this sermon, Satan was loving poking us this week.

So don't think for a second that my marriage is perfect. It's not, but one that says we're all in.

I want to just do something. I want to pray. I want this to be participatory. There's basically two people, two groups of people in the room today. There are those who are married, and there are those who are single or single again.

And so whichever category you're in, I'd love to separate those out and just pray for you. So if you're married, would you stand? If you're married, and if you're not married, would you. If you got somebody around you who is married, just reach out a hand, put your hand on them, just reach out a hand to them, if you're comfortable with that. And I'd just like to pray over these marriages.

Will you pray with me? God, we come to you today thanking you for the gift of marriage. And it is way harder than all of us set out thinking it was going to be, because it is the thing that most forms us and most makes us be confronted with our selfishness and our ego and our sin and brokenness. God, we thank you for that gift. We thank you for that gift.

So we ask for your help. Help us paddle together. Help us give 100%. And when hard days come, God, when they come, remind us that you're still with us in the middle of the mess. God, oh, God, I pray against budding relationships that are going to destroy marriages right now.

God, if they are in this room, I pray in the name of Jesus by the power of the resurrection that you would convict and break this chain of this lie that says the grass is greener. God, I pray against anyone, everything that is coming up against these marriages, especially this little lure that's going to catch and kill.

Gotta pray for those who are remarried.

Would you heal what's been broken? Would you restore what needs restored? Would you redeem what needs redeemed? And would you allow the baggage of previous relationships to be left behind in healing in its place? God, I pray for those whose marriages are in trouble, the ones who crawled in today and put a nice face on.

But they know. They know. They feel like I'm seeing through them right now. I can't see them, but you can see them. Restore what cannot be restored, heal what cannot be healed.

Because you are the God of the impossible.

Bring healing to these marriages. Lord, protect our marriages from apathy, from resentment, from the enemy, from lies, and make our home safe places of oneness. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Will you be seated?

And if you are single or single again, would you stand and just reach out a hand, place a hand on them? Will you pray with me? God, I thank you.

I thank you for these people, these people who feel very often like they are alone. I thank you that their value and their worth, both in the kingdom and with you, has nothing to do with their relationship status. And I pray today that you would release them from that lie that says that they are something other than what you say they are. And whatever brought them here, whether this is a lifelong decision, or they didn't mean to be here, or they just found themselves here. God, I pray that you will bring healing and that you will draw them into you that they could live this life that Paul promises can exist this beautiful extra intimacy with you.

Call them out of the shadows and call them into your family. They would know you and serve you and live for you. God, I pray for those who are divorced.

Pray that you'll bring healing where there's heartbreak, restoration where there's regret. God, surround them with people who see their pain and can help them move toward you. I pray for those who feel pressured right now to settle. They're afraid that it's too late for them. Remind them that you are for them, that you are forming them and you have a perfect plan for their lives.

And God, I pray for those who feel called to lifelong singleness. God, we celebrate that. Use them powerfully, lift their head. And in all of this, would you teach us to long for all of us, to long for the kind of oneness that you have in mind. In Jesus name, amen.

Would you all stand now we're gonna sing this beautiful song, the Blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. In the Bible, there's this beautiful gift that we can speak blessing and that God does something with that.

And so if you just want to stand in this and let it be sung over you, if you want to sing it together, let's receive his blessing now.