Family, the Fabric of Society

How important that is to the community.

God put marriage first, and I think we

could do well to learn from that.

It said that families are the fabric of

our society.

And as I was preparing the sermon, In

my mind, I was kinda reflecting on that

and just how

resilient

or delicate

families can be. Right? There's strong ones.

There's there's weaker ones, and there's everything in

between. So if we kinda grasp on to

the idea of fabric,

we would have to reflect on just how

many different types and styles of fabric there

are. It's almost infinite. And and that's true

about families also.

Everyone is unique in their own way. They

all have their individual characteristics,

some are strong. They wear well, summer are

delicate, and just don't stand up to hard

use.

Some look beautiful when they're new, but fade

really fast.

And then there's the tribe and true

fabric that is always reliable. It's always comfortable.

It's ever

resilient and it's always there when you need

it. That's your Blue jeans. Right?

They're good when they're new.

They're good when they're faded.

They're even better apparently when they're ripped and

torn.

So whether you like wearing Blue jeans or

not, doesn't matter. You have to admit that

they are pretty much the gold standard

of reliability when it comes to fabric.

So if family is the fabric of society,

we have a choice of making it from

something resilient and strong like denim,

or

delicate, and fragile, maybe like Lace.

And the Bible has some great instructions

on how to weave a strong

family fabric. And that's just what I wanna

look at this morning. What does the Bible

say

about marriage?

K?

Last month, if you were here. I preached

on the relevancy

of the bible in our modern day times,

and

nowhere

is the bible more relevant than addressing the

fundamentals

of a solid marriage and family.

And marriage in its intended state is ordained

by god and has an impact on so

much more

than just a husband or a wife. It

impacts everybody.

Everybody in this room is impacted by marriage

in some way. If you're a young person,

your parents marriage impacts you. If you're a

senior,

your example of marriage

impacts the generations that follow you.

If you're single, if you're separated, or maybe

divorced, marriage

may gonna be in your future. So marriage

is important to everybody.

My wife, Kelly and I are passionate about

marriage and not just ours, but everybody's,

we messed ours up a long time ago,

but God blessed us with the opportunity of

a fresh start.

Together,

Kelly and I got a chance for a

duo over, and we began to do marriage

differently.

We began

treating our marriage as something precious

because we care for the things that are

precious to us. And when we lose something

that's precious. We freak out. We don't want

that. So we began to treat our marriage

with

a new level of respect because we wanted

it to be around forever.

And that's the way God wants us to

treat our marriages,

like a precious gift from him.

We never get tired of precious things because

they give us joy.

And that's what marriage is meant to be.

It's meant to be joyous. It's meant to

be happy, fruitful,

to be fun.

But unfortunately, that's not what we often see

when we look at marriage today.

We see

that marriage as God intended it is definitely

in trouble.

The world

of marriage doesn't see it as precious.

It doesn't see the beauty in 2

becoming 1. It sees beauty in the individual.

And the world says that it's perfectly okay

to split up. It's no big deal. You

gave it a try, better luck next time.

And that's why we see so many failed

marriages

today. It's just so easy to become complacent

and lose sight. Of how precious

our marriages are.

So the world's got it wrong.

God meant for marriage to be resilient

and precious. He wants it to be strong

and to last,

just like those Blue jeans,

and he gave us all the details we

need on how to do it.

Before I get into that, I know that

there are a lot of people here that

are struggling right now in their marriages.

And I know that there are real life

reasons why some marriages

just can't go on

without major intervention. And my heart aches for

you. I've experienced

that pain,

but I want you to know that God

loves you.

And he has a plan.

Sorry.

He will look after you if you let

him in, and he can fix broken stuff.

That's a sad part but there's a solution

and the solution is in the bible as

always. And let's see what the Bible

says about how to do marriage right. Let's

open our bibles to Genesis 02:24.

Genesis 2:24

In context, Genesis 02:24, this is the first

Genesis 2:24

time God addressed

mankind as a couple. Okay? And it says,

that is why a man leaves his father

and mother and is united to his wife

and they become 1 flesh.

I'll say that again. Now as why a

man leaves his father and mother,

and the united to his wife and they

become 1 flesh.

There's there's a lot in that verse.

There's actually 3 separate statements in that 1

verse.

Man

leaving his father and mother, pretty straightforward. A,

man needs to become his own man and

it can't do that living in the shadow

of his father generally. And, this is not

saying that parents

are a a bad influence. What it is

saying is in preparing for marriage,

there's only room for 2 in the boat.

And parents can make

steering the boat a little more difficult.

God's intent as always is to start everything

with a clean slate.

And that's the first statement. The next statement

in there is be united

to his wife.

That word united in Hebrews

is the back, and it translates as to

cling to stick,

stay close,

cl to and to stay with.

And I think you'll agree that those words

are in pretty stark contrast to a world

where we're told to be penn

and rely on nobody but ourself Right? You

know, in the worldly context of independence, clingy,

close,

cl,

sounds weak.

It sounds c dependent, but in the context

of godly marriage,

those characteristics are the very essence

of intimacy.

In intimacy is the goal of godly marriage.

And then lastly, in that verse there's description

of 1 flesh

since they became

1 flesh.

What does that? Really mean? 1 flesh. Are

we to be tied at the hip all

the time, never alone, never away from 1

another that actually sounds more creepy than anything

else.

But the intent of that 1 flesh condition

is that it describes 2 people so closely

ent and emotionally connected that they act as

1?

Sharing a common state of intimacy.

And I think most of us have probably

experienced at 1 time

take has tasted this type of closeness, maybe

when they first fell in love. It's when

you wanna share every experience.

And moment together.

Maybe not unlike when we as new Christians

just wanna know god better, right? To be

closer to Jesus and to read his words

and

it's a beautiful thing.

That's the intimacy of 1 flesh.

But unfortunately, something happens over time because we're

people

and we tend to do dumb things. We

become complacent.

And we stop reminding ourselves of the precious

of what we have.

And we relax

from our best behavior and slowly begin to

move into different directions.

It's the most common excuse for break or

divorce

we'll just sort of drifted apart. Right? We've

all heard that. And that's what happens when

we forget

about how precious

our marriage is.

When we

start defining our pathways separately.

They will always diver to a point where

you can no longer find your way back.

You're hopeless far apart.

The pathway through life

as a couple of godly marriage is a

pathway that's designed by both of you together

and 1 that you continually

walk

together as 1.

That diver pathway

is Satan's attempt to break that 1 flesh

covenant, that relationship and into divide and conquer

marriages.

Right? Divide and conquer. There's a common misconception

the Divide and conquer means to be

efficient. Like, let's divide up you do your

list. I'll do my list and at the

end of the day, we'll have got more

done. Right? But that's not what it means.

Divide and conquer is a military term. It

says, if you divide your enemy,

you will conquer him and folks.

I think that's what Satan is doing to

marriage.

He's saying it's okay. Go you separate ways.

He says, you should look after yourself first.

Don't rely on anybody else. You have to

be independent.

Right. You shouldn't need to be dependent on

a spouse. You're your own person.

Satan wants to divide and conquer marriage, and

he's doing a pretty good job of. Unfortunately,

being dependent on somebody,

especially your spouse is not a bad thing.

Sure. You should be capable of the independence,

I think, but

you don't you might need that someday day.

Right? But what a shame to not be

dependent on the most important person in your

life.

Your partner in marriage. And for him or

her to not be dependent on you,

what a shame that would be?

So those 3 statements from Genesis 02:24

Genesis 2:24

are kinda like the setup for godly marriage,

if you will. They're the conditions that are

required to get a husband and wife into

the same boat, metaphorically

speaking.

Like Metaphors because they provide us a good

mental image of something, and the something in

this case is the word marriage.

You're probably wondering how on earth can I

put boat as a metaphor for marriage, but

stick with me? I'm gonna try. Okay? The

word marriage is a noun

if you've ever thought about it, which means

it's either a person or a place or

a thing. Right? Grammar school, 01:01.

Well, it's not a place, you know, a

place where the marriage maybe was created.

It's not a person,

although there are 2 people in the marriage,

So it must be a thing. And in

order for it to be a thing, it

has to exist

on its own.

So Marriage is something that actually has to

be created and to be built. And it's

built over time

by man, a woman who have committed themselves

to use those tools of Genesis 02:24. We

Genesis 2:24

just talked about To build a vessel. Here

comes the boat, Algae.

That is their marriage to protect them from

what the world have to throw of them.

That's the boat or the vessel. It has

to be built.

The boat represents that thing that is your

marriage, A vessel

that houses you and protects you from the

elements.

And if you've taken the time to build

it strong and to maintain it with care

and love,

that vessel

will protect you from anything that the world

can throw at you.

That's the boat metaphor.

And there's there's a bible passage that

explains

why

it is so so worth it to put

the effort

into that strong marriage

vessel, if you will. And we find it

in ec,

chapter 4,

versus 9 through 12. This is a wonderful

set of versus that speaks

to being alone or to be in partnership.

It says,

2 are better than 1 because they have

a good return for their labor.

If either m falls down, 1 can help

the other up, but pity

anyone who falls and has no 1 to

help them up.

Also, if 2 lie down together, they will

keep warm, but how can 1 keep warm

alone.

The 1 may be overpowered,

2 can defend themselves.

The chord of 3 strands

is not quickly broken.

So the boat analogy here is a perfect

fit to these verses because when 2 are

united

as in 1 flash.

In a strong marriage that they built together,

the vessel or the boat

has room for 1 more.

And that's the third strand because when God

sees us fulfilling his will in our marriages,

he joins us. He's like a crew member.

He is the third strand.

So now there's you,

there's your spouse

and god in that marriage vessel,

that you built together using his home blueprints.

It's beautiful thing.

Just imagine for a moment

what that would be like. And I know

some of you don't have to because you

already know what it is like. But imagine

you and your spouse and God alone in

this little vessel. Do you think it would

influence

the way you interact as a couple

each day,

knowing that god is a witness to everything

that you do and say in that vessel.

Kinda scary.

So let's make him proud by showing him

that we honor our marriages in the way

that he showed us. With it. We're doing

it United. We're doing it as 1 flash

in an ind vessel that we built together,

and we're willing

to prioritize it.

Above anything else in our lives other than

god himself.

We must prioritize

our marriages.

It has to remain your highest priority in

life because if we let anything else creep

in above it,

we begin to divide.

And this is where most people particularly men

struggle is prioritizing their marriage second

only to God.

And you might be thinking at this time

Well, wait a minute. That's so kinda unrealistic.

There's a lot of other things in this

life that we have to take care. Right?

We've have kids to raise. We have careers.

There's bills to pay our marriage. We'll be

fine when we have all those things in

order.

We'll be happy when the mortgage is paid.

We'll be happy when the kids are in

college. When we get all that done,

we can really start working on our marriage.

No.

Because by then,

the damage is done.

By then the ship is not only leaking,

it's sinking.

And that

describes this sort of elusive battle that married

couples around the world fight, balancing everything that

life is throwing at them all the time

while trying

to maintain this thing

called marriage.

Keep the priority up. It it's a classic

what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Great? It's it's gonna be... Is it gonna

be all the things of life that distract

us? Or is it gonna be your marriage?

What comes first?

The things of life are never gonna go

away. They'll be here forever,

but unfortunately, your marriage might.

So let's check back with the bible here,

and let's

we're gonna turn to the new testament. Should

be on the screen above us, and we're

gonna look in the book of ephesians.

Ephesians 05:25.

Ephesians 5:25

I think you guys have heard this 1.

It says husbands

love your wives.

Just as Christ also loved the church and

gave himself up for her.

Husbands love your wives just as Christ also

loved the church and gave himself up for

her.

This is Paul, the the apostle

drawing

another metaphor between marriage

and the church. And he's saying husbands

put your wives ahead of everything else except

God because that's what Christ did with his

church. Christ was the ultimate example.

Of doing that un love, literally putting his

life

his church. Ahead of his own life. Right?

So Paul is saying to the men of

ethic emphasis in this case, guys, if you

want a happy marriage,

make your wife and your marriage, your highest

priority second only to god.

I'm guessing most of the wives in the

room today are probably thinking, yeah. Yeah. Right

on.

And some of the husbands might be thinking

what where's golf and hunting fit into that.

Right?

Well,

pro tip here guys is we can hunt

golf with our wives too.

But it really folks. This is where

the rubber meets the road, if you will.

If you want any of what we've been

talking about, to work

in your marriage. You need to elevate your

marriage

above all else,

except God. And the couples that figure that

out,

are the happiest couples on the planet.

And if you doubt it,

try it. The result will amaze you because

it's god's result. It's god's intent. Husbands

love your wives just as Christ also loved

the church and gave himself up for her.

So that there is the challenge for the

husbands.

But what about the wives?

Paul addresses the wives in this passage too,

but we gotta backup up couple of verses

with infusions,

verse 22

says, wives submit to your husbands

as to the Lord. And I know that

verse can generate some hate mail, but

Ladies, let me explain that this passage is

nowhere near as controversial as what many had

been led to believe. What these versus our

saying has to be taken in context with

this entire section of verse, not just 1

sentence.

If we back up 1 more verse into

verse 21,

It says it starts to submit to 1

another out of reverence for Christ.

And then it goes on to describe that

This is a mutual submission because it requires

husbands to prioritize their wives above all else,

especially themselves. Husbands love your wives. Just as

Christ, love the church.

So the question for Christian women,

as you're reading this section, if your husband

or future husband is doing what God asks

and is putting your well being, your physical,

your mental,

your emotional well being ahead of his own

in a godly manner,

why would you not submit yourself to a

husband?

Like that. A Christ like man.

See, the pressure comes right back onto us

the husbands. Unfortunately,

and sorry, guys, but it it really is.

It begins with us. It's our covenant

promise to our wives

to do that. So

If that's kinda where the rubber meets the

road, how do we start getting traction to

the tires?

I think there are 4

simple

keys to unlocking the door of Godly marriage.

I've talked about them before, and we've just

talked about 3 of them.

The first in Genesis,

the importance with husband and wife facing life

in Unity is 1 flash, flash. Sorry. And

the second ec, we see the reasons why

a godly marriage just makes so much sense

and the importance of God joining us in

that partnership.

And 3 in ephesians 5, we learned about

this un love and prioritizing our marriage second

only to God

himself.

And the covenant

relationship that starts with this mutual submission to

1 another.

And finally, there's first corinthians 13.

I would say this is sort of the

final the fourth key. And first Corinthians 13

says this. If

if I speak in the tongues of men

or of Angels but do not have love.

I'm only a resounding gong or clan symbol.

If I have the gift of prophecy and

can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and

if I have a faith that can move

mountains,

but do not have love.

I'm nothing.

If I give all I possess to the

poor and give over my body to hardship

that I may boast, but do not have

love.

I gain

nothing.

And that is kinda

the why folks. It's love.

This love in its most profound

state

And then what follows

in verse 4 sort of the how?

How do we do it day to day?

How do we do it well? So in

verse 4, it continues on, this is love

as patient. Love is kind. It does not

envy. It does not boast.

It's not proud.

It does not honor others.

It's not self seeking.

It's not easily angered,

keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not

delight and evil, but rejoice with the truth.

It always protects.

Always trusts

always hopes,

always persevere.

There's 14

conditions in those last verses 7 positives

and 7 negatives.

And when you make the decision to pursue

godly marriage, you simply start by eliminating the

negatives.

It's that easy and practicing the positives

every day.

Incorporating those loving behaviors

is that fourth and final key to unlock

that door to truly

godly marriage.

1 that'll be a shiny example of that

fabric of society that family is and that

God

intended

for the world to see.

And close them prayer. Father, thank you.

For your gift of marriage, Lord, help us

incorporate

your ideals of marriage into our families. You've

given us the tools,

father,

Please teach us to use them. Please give

us the will to do so.

We wanna make you proud father

and we pray this

and your sung name.

Amen.

Worship team.