What Unity Actually Requires

And there is a very real sense in which as a married

individual, God now relates with you as a unit between you and

your spouse. And what you do as a married

person deeply affects your spouse and vice versa, good and

bad. Let's get into the word.

All right. Well, we, we just finished, yes,

last night. A, a marriage seminar, 3 1/2

days. And I, it was awesome, man.

It was, it was great. And so about it was pushing

10:00, 9/30, 10:00. And I dropped off the speakers

and then I thought, what am I going to preach tomorrow?

Because I'd been spending all my day thinking about marriage and

digging through all that material.

And so I'm going to share with you some things that I was just

chewing on in retrospect. Some of you, we're able to

attend the marriage seminar. You know, it was good.

We're going to we'll be bringing them back.

We'll do this again. And I want to encourage you to

go to this, if you are married, to go to this seminar.

It was it was really good. And it really highlighted

something to me that I was deeply moved by some of the

things that happened in that room and what I was seeing.

And, and here here's the thing. I'm going to give you kind of

the little Cliff notes of or really a summation of what this

seminar was about. It was 3 1/2 days.

It was actually about spiritual warfare surrounding the attack

on unity in marriage, which is very closely connected to

physical intimacy. This the sexual relationship

that a husband and wife have, and there is a warfare by the

enemy against that very thing. Scripture is very clear.

The two shall become one. That's one of the ways in which

the Scriptures sum up the the the concept of sexual intimacy

and husband and wife. It says the two shall become

one. I, I saw a couple in the back

there they were at the conference and she's, she's got

her little baby in her belly. She's becoming great with child.

And I told him I said the two should become one.

And there it is. It's literally one of them.

But you know, one person made of two of them.

It's an amazing thing. The other thing of the

scripture, the other way it talks about is they become one

flesh. And so I, I was really moved

because there's there's such a warfare against that.

It was just highlighted to me on why that happened.

So I want to look at a passage turn with me to Genesis chapter

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

2. We're going to do a little bit

of review on Genesis chapter 2, and I want to show you how this

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

passage, what we're going to read right here, it's a well

known passage and it's reiterated numerous times in the

New Testament. And anytime we see a passage

reiterated where it's repeated again and again in the New

Testament, we can be sure that that is a very, very important

passage that there's a principle God is highlighting.

And there's there's several different dimensions to this

concept that are really important for you and I to

understand. So let's pray.

Father, Lord, I ask that you would make time stand still and

give me two hours squeezed into this next half hour.

And Lord, I ask that you would speak to us, you would encourage

us and challenge us in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, verse 15. Look at this.

The Lord God, this is, this is the expanded edition of the

creation of man and woman. The Lord God said, the Lord God

took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to

keep it. And the Lord God commanded the

man saying, you are you, you are surely, you may surely eat of

every tree in the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil, you shall not eat of it.

For the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

So this, there is so much in this little passage that really

expands throughout the rest of the Bible.

But the first thing God does is God gives out him a job and then

he's going to give him a wife because you don't need to be

getting married if you don't have a job.

So look at our verse 18. That's good preaching.

By the way, verse 18. Then the Lord God said it is not

good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for

him. Beautiful little phrase.

I love the Hebrew Scriptures even more so than the Greek New

Testament. The Hebrew Old Testament has

layers of meaning and there's, there's like hyperlinks all

throughout the Old Testament that if you, you begin to look,

there's so much being said underneath the surface that if

we slow down, we'll find that God is communicating layers of

truth to us. And in this little passage is

one of them. It's right at the beginning.

The the word Genesis literally means beginnings and God is

laying the foundation for all the rest of what He's going to

do and he starts with the man and he says it is not good.

Now if you look previous to this, God has already worked 5

days and like any guy, I don't know how it is.

I've never been a woman, never plan on being, I will never be

one. But as a guy I know how it is.

You work hard and at the end of the day there's something feels

good about being tired and stepping back and looking at

what you accomplished. Isn't that true guys?

And God's the same way we're made in his image.

God says it's good, it's good works 5 days.

And on the 6th day he created man formed him, stuck his

finger. That's where we got our belly

button, stuck his finger and said OK it's and he looked at he

said but it's not good. It's the first time in all of

creation that God declare something not good.

And the lack of goodness was because he was alone.

It says it's not good that man should be alone.

And if you read this passage, it can feel like God has ADHD

because he's talking about Adam being single and all of a sudden

it said, God says it's not good for a man to be alone.

I'll make a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord

God had formed every beast in the field and every bird of the

heaven and brought them before Adam to see what he would call

them. And it talks about God marching

the animal Kingdom before him so that Adam would call and name

them. And you think, well, what does

that have to do with Adam needing a wife?

But here's the thing. And this is a picture of how God

operates in our life. This is how he's operated with

every one of us. God sees our need before we do.

We don't recognize our need until God highlights our need.

So God recognized something that wasn't good in Adam's life.

And so he needed Adam to agree with him.

And So what he did is he orchestrated events so that Adam

would become aware of his aloneness.

In essence, he marched the animal Kingdom by him.

And Adam realized I'm the only guy without a date to the ball.

I'm the only single one here. And he realized there's no

helper suitable for him. And that's what's going on.

God is an awakening, an awareness in Adam's heart as to

his need, and that's how God always operates.

God knows what you need before you do.

And what he will do is he will orchestrate events to bring you

to an awareness so he can get you to agree with his assessment

on your situation. And it's better to agree on the

front end because he'll keep ratcheting up the situation to

bring you to agreement. Been there, done that.

So he was awakening this awareness.

And then finally it says that there was no helper suitable for

him, found for him. And, and it insinuates that Adam

was aware. He this this awareness came up

within him and he was looking throughout the creation and he

couldn't find something there. What it wasn't found.

And and then God, it says, caused a deep sleep to come over

at him. And out of his sleep, he created

the very thing that Adam needed and presented it back to him.

And it's a picture of redemption.

God saw you needed him before you did.

He allowed events to be orchestrated to bring you to an

awareness of your need for him. And then when you tried to solve

your own problems on your own, like Adam, there was no solution

found for you. And in the Hebrew that that

sleep, it's like a languid passivity.

It's like he just gave up. He was at the end of himself and

out of his rest. God formed the answer and

presented it to him. And then when God presented it

to him, Adam's like, hey, this is awesome, this is great, I

like this. And so God was orchestrating

this. But listen to what he says.

This is fascinating. And understand again, this is

right at the beginning of creation.

So God is laying the groundwork. And this was before the fall,

sin had not yet entered into the world and God already said

there's that's not good. Man is alone and it's not good

for man to be alone. And you know what?

God has never changed his mind about that.

You cannot exist and become all God created you to be alone.

You need others. You've got to have people in

your life. And in fact, it's talking

specifically about marriage here.

But the fact is we need other people in their life.

The Bible is very clear. We're going to go to the book of

Ephesians in a few moments here. There are two specific verses in

Ephesians. We don't have time to really dig

into this, but just suffice it to say this, it's the second to

the last verse of chapter 1 and then again in chapter 4.

It says that the fullness of Christ is the body of Christ.

So if you want all that God has for you, you want a revelation

of him, then you will not get it alone in your prayer closet.

You will not get it alone in your in your Bible.

You have to connect with other believers because there are

facets of him He puts in them that He will never give to you

outside of relationship with them.

And So what happens is as we get in relationship, and, and I

would even push this a little farther, sometimes what grants

you the revelation of the revelation that he wants to give

you in them is conflict with them.

Sometimes the thing you need most is packaged in the person

you want to hang around the least, and sometimes momentarily

that can be your spouse. Don't look at me that way.

I know I'm not the only one that's ever had an argument with

my wife. But there are things that are in

you that God has placed there, and there's things in other

people in the body of Christ that God wants to get to you and

He will withhold it from you as an individual.

It's very clear God has put everything under Christ's feet,

comma for the church, comma the fullness of Him.

The church is the fullness of Christ.

And Ephesians chapter 4 is very clear.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

You've been given a measure of the gift of Christ, but the only

way you can get the fullness, you've got a piece of the

puzzle. You've got a little piece in it.

Wow, I got this beautiful picture of the foot.

I've got, you know, look at this beautiful foot.

But that's not all of Jesus. I mean, he's got amazing feet,

but he there's more to him. And you've got to take your

picture of the foot and put it with the picture of the ankle

and the knee and the rest of Jesus so you can have the

fullness of Christ. And there are a lot of

believers. You'll hear people say, well, I

don't need to go to church to be be a Christian.

Yeah, but you're just going to think Jesus is a foot, you're

going to think your little portion is the whole and you're

going to be at a disadvantage. And furthermore, there's things

in you that will never be pulled out of you outside of

relationships. And so when God says it's not

good for man to be alone, there's a lot to that phrase.

We we have to be in relationship with the body of Christ.

And so he says it's not good for man to be alone.

And so look verse 21. So the Lord God caused a deep

sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, he took one

of his ribs, closed its place up with flesh and that and the rib

that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and

brought her to the man. And the man said this at last.

You hear that Adam's like finally I've got one at my

heart. There's been this desire that

woke up in my heart and I looked everywhere.

I couldn't find it. God put me to sleep, took

something. I got a pain in my side, but

it's worth it because look at this.

And God presents and he says finally, at last, this is bone

of my bones, flesh of my flesh. And she should be called woman

for all she was taken out of man.

That word bone of my bone, that phrase bone of my bone, flesh of

my flesh, it literally means in the Hebrew self of my very self.

I recognize my counterpart. I recognize the other part of me

standing across from me. I see that the one, the one that

my heart's long for. I recognize that in them.

That's what he's saying. And so he says.

Then verse 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and

mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one

flesh. And the man and his wife were

both naked, and they were not ashamed.

Or if you're from Missouri, it's naked.

They were both naked and they were not ashamed.

Now that word 1 flesh in the Hebrew is ahad.

It refers to the smallest whole number, but it's also used to

refer to a singular person or thing.

So the two shall become a single unit.

And there is a very real sense in which as a married

individual, God now relates with you as a unit between you and

your spouse. And what you do as a married

person deeply affects your spouse and vice versa, good and

bad, because the two become one flesh.

And God relates with us. There is a corporate identity.

Now I'm going to stand before God as an individual, but I will

answer to God for how I was as a husband.

And there is a a shared existence that we have that God

literally deals with us as one flesh.

That's a heavy thing, and one of the things that I walked away

with from this conference was that there is a whole lot more

available. When we talk about oneness,

there is a unity that we can enjoy that a lot of us have left

on the table. God looked at us in our single

state and said it's not good. So he made a spouse, he made

marriage presents it to us and God says that's very good.

And then arguments happened. Little things come in the way

and we settle for less. We say it's good enough.

And what God is wanting to do is for us to fight for a deeper

level of unity in our marriages. As I heard Barry and Lori, the,

the, the ones that we're doing the conference, they were

talking about how God began to deal with them years ago about

just these little things that would stand between them.

And it was during a season of tremendous revival.

They were attending John Wimbers Church back in the day and there

was a tremendous outpouring and God was doing a lot in their

life. And there was this sensitivity

that they had. And Barry was saying, man, he

went to bed one night and he just felt like then there's

something between US and he rolled out and they had to work

through that stuff. And I was convicted, I'm

thinking, how many times have I just brushed past that?

But there's there's a level of unity and oneness that God

desires for us. And yes, that does speak of

sexual intimacy. But the problem is the reason a

lot of people struggle with their sexual intimacy in

marriage is because they're not dealing with those emotional

barriers. Those little grievances that

come up are those little misunderstandings.

And we just brush and we'll get to them later.

We're busy and they're not dealing with that and it hinders

that oneness that we're supposed to live in.

There should be an A sensitivity that we have with our spouse

that when something's bothering her, I can be at the office and

I know, hey, what's going on, Kath, I just, I, I felt

something that we really walk as one flesh.

That's what God has for us and we need to fight for oneness in

marriage. And again, it just, it was

really interesting to me because they started the seminar out

with recognizing the voice of the enemy.

You know, the enemy usually talks in your voice.

You ever seen the movie? What was it that the Prince of

Egypt, and I think it was Val Kilmer, that was Moses.

If no, it was Joseph. It was the one, the one about

Joseph. No, it was the one about Moses.

So anyways, so Moses, it was Val Kilmer and Moses, what?

It was voiced over by Val Kilmer.

But when he goes to the burning Bush, God speaks to Moses.

And the writers were trying to figure out, you know, how do we

do this? Who should we, You know, who

should we hire James Earl Jones to be God?

You know, that'd be great. And then they decide, you know

what, we're going to have Val Kilmer voice God as well because

what they said is God speaks to us in our own voice.

Not interesting. And that's true.

You know, God uses my lingo. Somebody be like, no, yeah, he

does. He'll use slang with me because

he's he's relating with me as a friend.

And he speaks to you and your voice there.

God will. But The thing is, the enemy also

speaks to you and your voice, and he wants you to own what

he's saying. And that often happens in

marriage. And if we pick that up and own

it, there becomes that veil. And if we allow those things to

stack up, pretty soon it sabotages our relationship.

And we've got to fight for that. We've got to recognize I was

just, I was just stirred in my heart to realize that what's

happened in the body of Christ is we've allowed the enemy to

attack unity and marriage, and it affects the entire body.

And we've got to fight for this, that there's a oneness God's

talking about here that is extremely valuable.

And God says it's not good if we don't have it, and it's very

good if we do. And most of us settle for a good

enough and we're not really accessing all God has for us.

Now, I know some of you are single and you say, well,

pastor, does that mean I just get to get the picture of God's

foot, you know, and I don't, I don't really get to revelate.

No, you got to have relationships.

It doesn't have to be marriage, but there isn't there is a

dimension to this thing that you enter into in marriage.

And so you need to get married, aspire to marriage.

And God does give grace to some. It's called the gift of

celibacy. It's not one that a lot of

people fast for, but some people, you know, some people

have it gift from God. And you young guys ask some

girls out, OK. And you, young lady, say Amen.

Hallelujah. Wave your hanky seriously, in

this, in this culture and this culture and guys just aren't

asking women out enough. You don't text them, You don't

send them a Facebook message. Hey, I saw you at church.

Think you're attractive. Would you want to go out, walk

up to them and ask them out. Hey, man, you've got, you've got

to, you've got to get out of your comfort zone.

Put yourself out there because marriage is important and we

need to lead the way as the body of Christ.

We can go home now. Hallelujah.

OK, now listen to this. It says, some of you man, you

were ready to come to the altar. I could feel it.

So it says for this reason a man shall leave his father and

mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one

flesh. And the man and his wife were

both naked and unashamed. Turn with me to Ephesians,

Ephesians chapter 5. I want to show you just one

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

passage where this passage is reiterated, and there are

several others. Jesus quoted that passage

several times. And again, I want to stress to

you, if this one phrase is being repeated so many times, it

should cause us to think, hey, this is pretty important, right?

That this is an important passage.

This isn't just something mentioned in Scripture moved on

from it's spoken about again and again and again.

Now look at what it says in Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Let's look at verse 22 and we're going to read through this very

quick. Wives submit to your own

husband's as to the Lord. Notice it doesn't say women

submit to men. Let me just let that settle for

a second. It says wives submit to your

husbands. It doesn't say women submit to

men. Wives, submit to your husbands.

That's what sermon for another day.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the

head of the church's body and himself its Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should

submit and everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave

himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed

her by the washing of water, washing of water with the Word,

so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor,

without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

That she might be holy and without blemish in the same way

that Christ has done that with the church.

Husbands, love your wives. Well, that makes sense.

If we're one, then I can't just be thinking about me.

I've got to be thinking about her.

We're one. That'd be like me just thinking

about my left foot. I'm going to buy some new shoes,

but I only get one for my left foot.

No, I got a pair of shoes and there's a pair of people in this

oneness and so we got to give attention to it.

So he says husbands love your wives in the same way husbands

love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

That goes without saying. We're not going to dig in there

for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and

cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are

members of his body. And now he quotes that verse,

verse 31. Therefore a man shall leave his

father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall

become one flesh. And then Paul says this mystery

is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the

church. Isn't that interesting?

This crucial foundational truth. Now he says, yeah, it's about

husbands, wives, but it's also about the church.

You see God when God's creating everything, he creates for five

days. On the 6th day he creates a guy

and he says that ain't good guy needs a wife.

And so he makes a wife. He pulls he, he puts him in a

deep sleep, pulls a rib out, forms it into a woman and

presents it back to him and said, now the two shall become

one flesh. And Adam's like, wow, God,

you're amazing. This is this is the greatest

gift I've been given. This is awesome until their

first argument. And all of a sudden, Adam's

wondering, God, wait a minute. I was already one with her.

I, my rib and I were in unison. We didn't have arguments.

My rib and I always got along. And now you took my rib out,

formed it into something I'm attracted to, gave her own

opinions, and then now she's coming to me with those opinions

that don't line up with my opinions.

And this oneness thing ain't working too well.

And in fact, that was God's plan.

God is brilliant. God said it's not good for man

to be alone. He needed a wife and he gave her

own opinions, brought her back to him.

And I would propose to you, marriage is one of the primary

discipleship tools God uses. And what he does is he gives you

the reward, unity and oneness. There there's a, there's a

oneness and a unity that is connected to physical intimacy

with your spouse that we enter into.

And God says, if you want this, you got to deal with you.

You've got to humble yourself and work through your issues so

that you can walk in the oneness that I made for you.

And a lot of times people are trying to deal with the physical

intimacy issues without dealing with the emotional issues that

have stacked up and they can't get that and they, they give up.

Well, I guess we're the exception to the rule and it's a

lie from the bit of hell. It's because they've got to deal

with them and their issues. And as we do, we can move into

that. And you know what happens?

We grow up and we become better people, better representations

of, of the gospel and of, of Jesus Christ himself.

We grow into all that we're called to be.

And so God uses relational and it's, that's not isolated to

marriage. God uses relational conflict to

grow you up. Often the thing you need the

most is in the people that irritate you the most.

And God will put it there so that he can deal with something

in you and if you will pay the price to work through those

relational conflicts. And so here's here's where I'm

going with all this. There's this phenomenal

revelation of what marriage is supposed to be.

It's a gift from God where two people become one.

And there's a level of oneness that God is offering us that

very few, if any, have ever touched.

And God is inviting you. He wants to give you more.

And we need to work at this. It's work.

So I want us to understand that. But the other thing I want us to

understand is this. That's also true of the church.

Paul just said, he said this mystery is profound, but I'm

saying it refers to Christ and the church and then he goes

back. He says, however, let it be.

Let him let you let one of you love his wife as himself and let

the wife that she respect her husband make sure that happens.

Yes, we're talking about marriage, but what he's saying

is, listen, there is a oneness and a unity and a revelation of

Jesus Christ in the corporate body that is so much more than

we already experienced. But what it demands of us is to

work through these issues. And what I'm saying is that the

reason people's marriages aren't what they should be is because

they're not dealing with the little relational stuff that

stacks up. Some of that stuff has nothing

to do with our spouse. We brought it with us when we

got married. I already had my own baggage.

Whenever I do marriage pre marriage counseling, I tell

those of you that I've done that with, you know, we've we've gone

through one of the sessions is you marry their past.

There is a history you are joining yourself too.

So the more you're aware of that and you begin to unravel that

stuff and really deal with the stuff, it doesn't have to cause

problems, but if you don't, it will.

And so we've got it. We've got to sift through this

stuff, and that's what keeps us from the relationship.

And here's my concern. Paul says he's also talking

about Christ in the church, and we do the same thing in the body

of Christ. I believe that there is a lot of

things that stack up between brothers and sisters in this

church. Let's not talk about the church

at large. Yeah, I'm talking about that

church across the street or up the road.

You know not. No, it's us.

We've got to be so very careful that we don't allow that stuff

to stack up because it will rob you of what God has for you.

When I was talking to Barry, the guy that was doing the, the

conference, the seminar, he, I picked him up him and his wife

the second day and he said, man, I just love that you guys are

one of these churches are going after revival and you know,

believe in the Kingdom and signs and wonders and supernatural,

but you have healthy community. And I thought that's, that's

just an interesting statement. Man.

I started thinking about that. It just kind of weighed on me

and I've been just mulling this over before the Lord and I was

still mulling it over early this morning.

And this is what I felt like the Lord began to talk to me about

that if we are just a revival center, if we're just a sending

Center for just a Resource Center for everybody to come and

get something outside, then we, we become like people who want

to have kids but neglect their marriage.

We want to see all this stuff happen out here.

But the, the, the, the, the, the, the essence of it.

My family's only as healthy as my wife and I are.

Man, I could I could hit it out of the ballpark with my kids.

But if I fail here, it's I'm not going to hit it out of the

ballpark with my kids. We could I knew I knew I'm going

to be careful here. I knew of a house somewhere

within 50 miles of here. Really, really nice house.

I remember driving by that wow, that is quite a house.

He had a beautiful acreage on this turn out out on some

blacktop, but it was out in the country.

I don't know how many acres they had, but this was a gorgeous

home. And I thought, man, that just

wow, just the setting that that is really just striking.

Few years later I heard that this husband and wife that built

this beautiful home got into such conflict.

They just began to hate each other and neither one of them

were willing to move out of the house.

So they literally drilled holes in the the door frames and put

padlocks on doors within the house.

They're still living in the house, hating each other and

locking doors on each other. This is my room and that's your

room. Can you imagine living like

that? A beautiful home, living with

someone you hate and you're ruining your home because you

can't? I would rather live in a shack

with someone I love. I mean, that would be hell.

It's horrible and a lot of people live.

Maybe that's an extreme, but the fact is, if we're, we can build

beautiful homes and neglect our marriage, we can have a, you

know, oh, we have a kid. I got a great career and neglect

our marriage and we can go after revival and signs and wonders.

But if we lose this, then it's all for not because this the,

the relationship here between us as the body of Christ really

running together. Those of you that were in the

seminar, I I OK, I, I'm receiving and I'm I, I learned a

lot man. It was great.

But I'm also as the pastor, I'm analyzing kind of how they're

doing this and watching the people around the rooms.

And man, several times I just brought to tears watching people

connecting around the room and all the testimonies.

It was beautiful people getting up and just sharing what God had

done in their life. It was a beautiful, beautiful

thing. And people would, they would be

learning things at the table that they never knew about

themselves. And two seconds later they're

sharing it with people that 2 days ago they didn't even know.

And I'm talking some pretty intimate stuff and they're

sharing. And by the end of those few

days, people were close. Why?

Because for a few days they did life together.

It's amazing. I mean, you guys are sitting

together, you know, I mean, it's, it's it's amazing thing.

And that's the way the body of Christ is supposed to work.

It's not good enough to just come to church and look at the

back of someone's head. And then every now and top of

Hey, nice haircut. I noticed last week is a little

longer. Whoa, that's intimacy.

Intimacy there. You're really going deep.

We we need to have relationships with you can't know everybody,

but you better know somebody and somebody better know you because

the level of your intimacy is the level of your maturity and

the level even of your purity. First John chapter 1 is very

1 John 1 · chapter mention

clear. Walk in the light as He is in

the light. Transparency.

Then you have fellowship with one another, intimacy, and then

the blood of Jesus will cleanse you from all unrighteousness,

purity. Isn't it interesting that God

ties the deliverance from sin to relating with one another.

We think I just need Jesus. No, you need Jesus through other

people. We all do and so I just, man,

I've been burdened just the last few days feeling like God turn

up the love one for another in this house.

Lord, let us, Lord, begin to develop relationships.

Nobody can do that for you, but you can.

You can resist it or you can choose to do it, but I just, I'm

telling you, it's not good enough to know your Bible and

have a prayer life. Do you know his people and do

they know you? Hey, thanks for watching.

At Heartland Church, we love to worship the Lord and we love his

word. In fact, if you could jump on

and subscribe to our YouTube channel, you could make sure

that you don't miss any of the services.

We'd love to have you join us live or in person every week.

See you next time.