Help! I Married the Wrong Person! (Genesis 2:21–23)

What's up? Good morning.

It's nice to see you guys. If we have not yet met, my name

is Cole. I'm going pastor here.

So unfortunately for you, you are stuck with me for the next

45 minutes. So if you've got a Bible, we're

going to jump right into it. We love the Bible here.

Get to chapter 2 of Genesis. If you don't have a Bible, no

pressure will have all the words on the screen for you.

We're only doing 3 verses this morning.

Genesis chapter 2 verses 21 through 23.

Genesis 2:21–23

Before I dive in, thank you. This this last week and a half

my wife and I took a long vacation to Orange Beach, AL and

it was awesome and we got back late Friday night.

Chloe got sick yesterday and so I am still like I'm still stuck

in vacation brain vacation mode. So I might be off the rails this

morning, but when am I ever on the rails?

So Genesis chapter 2 verses 21 through 23.

Genesis 2:21–23

Our text this morning is about the first.

I'm excited to preach on it because our text this morning is

on the 1st wedding in human history.

So look, I don't care where you're at.

If you're not married, if you are married, if you're happily

married, if your marriage is trash right now, if you're

divorced, wherever place you are in life right now, it's going to

be something here for you. Because my ultimate goal in this

sermon isn't to give you a couple marriage tips, although I

might give you a few of those. My ultimate goal is for you to

see the glory of Jesus, to understand his love for you, and

to see how awesome He is to you. So I was since I'm preaching on

the 1st wedding ceremony this morning, Yesterday our family

was going on a little walk together and I was just, I was

just thinking about Chloe and IS own wedding ceremony and I was

kind of reliving some of those memories with with Chloe.

It was an absolutely crazy day. We got married outside in

Spencer, IA on the stormiest day of the year.

I'm not talking like rain, I'm talking like crazy

thunderstorms, storms and wind and all of that stuff.

I woke up on my wedding day in a hotel in Spencer.

I ambled on out to the common space to get some coffee.

Ended up chatting it up and becoming best friends with some

random old dude. You know how I do.

And after after the conversation while we were parting ways, he

said, well, hope you don't have any plans outside today.

I was like, no, not Manny. I'm just looking to get married

outside today. And he said, son, good luck out

there. I'm not kidding you.

This I I've got a picture. That's it.

That's what it looked like all day outside of Spencer, IA.

That's not AII took that picture on our wedding day.

And I swear it's sounding, it's going to sound like I'm being

dramatic, but I swear our friends were watching.

The radar claimed that they could literally see the clouds

part around Spencer, IA for the single hour of our wedding

ceremony that day. It was crazy.

So just like the Red Sea man bam.

And so we were like, we live in some of those memories.

And I thought it would be cute since my 6 year old daughter

Della is obsessed with marriage. She talks about it on a daily

basis. And so I thought it'd be cute to

tell my daughter about what it was like to wait for her mother

on the wedding altar. I told her all the all the

details. I remember being nervous,

standing up there, being anxious, sweating bullets,

feeling like forever had flown by.

I remember feeling like, Oh no, did she run away?

Is she not coming? And so I explained to her what

it was like to feel all those feelings and then to see the

doors open up. We had these makeshift outdoor

doors and see Chloe walk down the aisle.

And for all that emotion to overcome me and for me to burst

into tears of joy and for me to weep my eyes out.

And I was telling because I thought it was a sweet story.

And do you know what my 6 year old daughter said to me?

She said if my husband cried on our wedding day, I'd run away

from him too, which is whatever. It's what every guy wants to

hear when he opens up emotionally, right?

I wonder why guys aren't very good at being in touch with

their feelings, right? So I, I thought, like, man,

there's got to be something sweet and kind in that little

something touching in in that heart.

So I asked my daughter, what do you think it would have been

like to be at the wedding ceremony and to see mommy and

daddy get married? And she said it would probably

make me throw up. So I did whatever any good dad

would do, right? I grabbed her mother, pulled her

in close, gave her a big old kiss on the lips.

And she goes, it's even worse. It would make me pass out.

Like, OK, drama queen, OK, It doesn't matter.

Marriage is awesome. It doesn't matter how good, how

healthy your marriage is, every marriage ever is just going to

have those seasons where your marriage makes you want to throw

up, where things get hard, where it feels like, Oh my goodness,

did I marry the wrong person? There was actually a phenomenal

article that went viral in 2016 called Why You Will Marry the

Wrong Person. It's written by a dude named

Elaine Debaton. Dude's not even a Christian, but

it might be the best article on marriage that I've ever read.

Listen to this quote. Here's what he says.

It's one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us.

We go to great lengths to avoid it, and yet we do it all the

same. We marry the wrong person.

Now the good news is that it doesn't matter if we find we

have married the wrong person. We don't need to abandon him or

her. We only need to abandon the

founding romantic idea upon which the Western understanding

of marriage has been based on the last 250 years.

What's that idea? That some perfect being exists

who can meet all our needs and satisfy every yearning.

Now, theologically, of course, you married the right person,

right? If you want to know whether or

not you married the right person, ask yourself one

question. Am I married to them?

Theologically, God's got that person for you if you're

married. Practically though, in terms of

fitness and compatibility, we all marry the wrong person.

We're all sinners, we're all jacked up, we're all screwed up.

And So what do you do when you hit those seasons, man?

What do you do when you hit those seasons and you're like,

Oh my gosh, somebody help me. I married the wrong person.

What do you do in those seasons where your marriage, which is

supposed to be your greatest source of joy, makes you want to

throw up? Why is marriage like that?

Why is it hard? Is there any design behind it

all? And can the book of Genesis help

us at all? The answer to that question is

yes. So if you're able to, go ahead

and stand for the reading of God's Word. 3 verses.

Those of you who grew up in church, you think you know this

story. I don't think you do.

Here are the verses. So the Lord God caused a deep

sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, this is pretty

sneaky, while he slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up

the place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from

the man, he made it into a woman and brought her to the man.

And then the man explodes with poetry.

This is Hebrew poetry. The man said This at last is

bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of

man. There's one central detail that

is the greatest clue in those three verses as to what the

nature and design of marriage truly is.

And I bet if you grew up in the church, you've missed it.

So let me pray and we'll dig in. Heavenly Father, I pray that you

will bless my preaching, help me say things that are helpful.

Anything that's unhelpful, just strike it from from my lips.

But ultimately I feel the pressure to, you know, perform

and that's really unhelpful. So Lord, take that away from me

and let me just authentically and genuinely be in love with

you. And whatever pours out of that,

I pray would just be life to people that they would know and

love Jesus and get this fact that at the center of the

universe is a God loves them. So it's in the precious name of

Jesus that all God's people prayed.

Amen. You can have a seat.

Look, we're doing a slow army crawl all the way through the

book of Genesis. And so we're like 10/11/12

sermons deep. And so if this is your first

Sunday, if you miss those other ones, let's play some ketchup

ball really quickly. Here's what you miss.

God creates the heavens of the earth and the earth by the word

of his mouth. He creates everything by

speaking things into existence. And then God creates Adam, the

man in his own image. And then he gives Adam the job

of working and keeping this Garden of Eden and ultimately

taking the Garden of Eden global, transforming the entire

world into a Garden of Eden. Now this is a, this is a job

that's too big for Adam to be alone.

So God says, OK, it's not good that Adam's alone, so I'll make

a helper fit for him. That's where we wind up today.

And how this is profound. This is so profound.

How does God make woman? How does God make Eve?

And if you've been reading the book of Genesis so far, you've

probably got a really good guess.

God's created everything so far by the power of the word of his

mouth. He speaks boom, creation

explodes into existence. He speaks boom, heavens, earth,

sun, moon, stars. Simple speech is painlessly,

painlessly makes everything explode into creation.

It's a little bit different with Adam.

He scoops up a handful of dust. He goes, breathes his spirit

into Adam and man exists as a living creature.

And so if you're a close reader and I know you are, what you're

thinking when it comes to the creation of woman, Eve is, I

know how God's going to make her.

He's going to speak. Oh, she'll explode into

existence. It's a good guess, but you'd be

wrong. Maybe he's going to do it like

he made Adam scoop another handful of dust up, breathe into

it, and boom, there's a woman. That'd be a really good guess.

It's not how God creates Eve. This is beautiful.

All those other methods, and this is important, All those

other methods of creating Eve would have been pain free, would

have been labor saving, and would have been time saving.

But that's not how God makes Eve Bro, this is beautiful.

God says hey Adam, come here. You're take a little nap son.

Then he puts him down to sleep. I don't know how maybe a right

hook Bam sleeps him sleeper chokehold.

I don't know. That's how I imagine it puts

Adam down and then look what happens in verse 21.

The Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and and while

he slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up its place

with flesh. He doesn't cause a sleep upon

Adam. Did you read the text closely?

Causes a deep sleep. Some translations actually

render it as a death sleep. It's not a literal death for

Adam, but perhaps it's a symbolic death for Adam and then

God Literally performs surgery. Side note, I've done a lot of

weddings and I like to do them a lot.

I think there should be some tradition that imitates this.

Like maybe like some tradition where like the best man is

responsible for like knocking out the groom on the day of the

wedding with like a write up just bam.

And then like when when he wakes up right at his wedding party,

he's like, welcome to marriage bro.

Something like that, right? No, you're right.

That would actually have legal consequences.

So that's assault. So we shouldn't do that.

But still God puts him down, puts him into a deep sleep.

And I want you to notice the pattern here.

Adam goes down into a death sleep or a deep sleep.

Adam's side, it's cut open. Eve is created out of Adam's

side. That's the pattern.

You guys with me. Can we go deeper?

OK, let's go deeper. OK, what in the heck is actually

going on? Are we serious?

We'll look at verse 22. The rib that the Lord God had

taken from the man he made into a woman and then brought her to

the man. She comes out of his side from

his rib. Why?

She's not taken from Adam's head to stand above him as his

superior. She's not taken from Adam's foot

to stand below him as his inferior.

Just taken out of Adam's side, his rib.

Why? To stand next to him as his

companion? This is profound and it gets

even better. Adam see, Adam sees the creation

of Eve and he goes, he goes finally, that's the literal like

look at look at verse 23. Then the man said this at last,

which I love that phrase because it means literally finally, I

love that phrase because Adam's literally been single for one

day in his entire life. It's like, cry me a river, bro.

Not even a single day. And he's like, finally, I've

been waiting my whole life for you, which I guess is true, but

he's actually the first groom to bawl his eyes out at the at the

wedding altar. It's just, I don't know if you

noticed this, but up until this point in the text, Adam hasn't

said a single word. Not, not one, not one yet, not

one that's recorded. And then we see the first

recorded speech in human history, and it's actually a

love poem, right? Which is great because he hasn't

said a word his entire life. Then bro sees a woman for the

first time and all of a sudden he thinks he's Shakespeare,

which is relatable. I get that explodes.

He explodes into poetry because he's never seen anything like

her. And there's also probably some

other relevant textual details that I don't need to go into too

much depth for as to why he explodes into a love poem.

But we'll just suffice it to say that Eve didn't spend a lot of

time stressing out about her wedding dress, right?

You want something way more natural, timeless.

You know what I'm saying, Jay? It's kind of the perfect wedding

ceremony, right? Because like, look at Adam.

Great. I mean, dude didn't even have to

worry about invites or a guest list.

The guest list is entirely exclusive.

Just God, Adam and Eve. It's perfect.

He goes ah at last and he explodes into poetry.

Here's the poem. He says this at last.

This is gooey stop man like this is Shakespearean.

It doesn't feel that way if you don't know Hebrew poetry at

first, but he did this is he's dropping some bars.

He says this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of

man. This doesn't seem romantic, but

it it really is. But it doesn't seem romantic.

But you also have to keep you got to recognize the fact that

Adam at least didn't mention to the fact that to Eve that she

was his only option. So kudos for him to not

including that in in the poem. But here's why.

Here's why this is so romantic. The other religion stories in

the ancient world did not teach what Adam is saying.

It's actually amazing that Dana brought up Greek mythology this

morning because if you look at all the other ancient Near

Eastern creation stories and creation myths, there's a lot

out there and none of them taught what Adam here is

teaching in the Greek creation story.

For instance, what the creation of woman, you know how it

happens? I don't know if you guys know

this. What happens is humans steal

fire from the gods, take off the gods and then the gods in order

to punish men ends up creating woman.

It's a terrible story. He literally like Zeus literally

in the text. If you read the Greek

mythological text he literally describes women in the creation

myth as quote a beautiful evil and men.

I hope your view of women is more Christian than Greek Pagan.

So where? The reason why this is so

touching of a poem is because the world that Adam lives in,

where this was written, in the ancient world, women were viewed

oftentimes in other religions as made of inferior stuff.

And what Adam is saying is, oh, she's made of the same stuff as

me. Bone of my bone.

Flash of my flash. What's he saying?

He's saying she's me, but other she's saying she's made of the

same substance as me, the same clay, the same stuff, the same

worth, the same value. That's the poem that Adam

recites like Romeo when he first sees Juliet.

And those are our 3 verses this morning.

And that's our text this morning.

You guys ready to pack it in? Yeah.

Can we go deeper? What did we miss?

Did we miss anything in that story?

Here's what you might have missed.

I'm just going to read verses 21 through 23 again.

I want you to see if you notice that pattern.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon.

The man goes down into a death sleep and while he slept, took

one of his ribs out of his side and closed up its place with

flesh. And the rib that the Lord God

had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to

the man. And then the man says this.

It lasts as bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of

man. Did you notice the pattern that

I emphasized? Here's the pattern.

You got to see this. Don't sleep on this, OK?

You got to see this. Adam goes down and do a death

sleep. His side is cut open.

Eve is created from the rib that comes out of the side of Adam.

Does that sound familiar to any of you?

OK, if you're not tracking with me, one theologian named Peter

Lighthart, he can get us a little bit closer to a profound

observation. This is the I, I think this is

the thing that even if you know this story well, you missed it.

Here's what Lighthart says. He says what happens is Adam is

put into a state near death, and his body is divided in two.

That's what happens to animals offered on the altar in the Old

Testament. They're slaughtered and their

bodies are cut into two. Adam also is divided into two

pieces, but the final aim is to reunite as one flesh with the

woman made from his rib. What happens is Adam passes

through a figurative death and dismemberment to be glorified.

He dies in order to rise in a new resurrected form that in the

Old Testament that is a sacrifice.

Did you notice that that's the first sacrifice in an entire

book about sacrifices? Here's the point.

Adam and Eve's marriage begins in death, and it ends in death.

Here's the point. Marriage is not sacrificial.

It is literal. Sacrifice comes from a

sacrifice. That's why the Bible says that

marriage is a reflection of the gospel, because the gospel is

the story of the greatest sacrifice ever made.

What it symbolizes, Mike. I got a 2 year old animal.

His name is Jack. And I love him a lot.

Yeah, he's got a lot of big fans in this church.

He's he's crazy. I love him.

He's got my energy. He's got these little Vans shoes

that have flames on them, and I don't know if you guys know the

Vans squiggly pattern. It's got that on them too.

And he loves them. And he's absolutely convinced

that they are his fire truck shoes.

Fire truck shoes. And don't you dare call them

anything else because you're not going to win an argument.

This is the same kid who last night at 8:00 PM got mad at the

sun for going down. I was like, he's like, I don't

like it. I was like, I can't do anything

about that dude. So you're not going to win an

argument with this kid, but he's absolutely convinced that they

are his fire truck shoes. They're not van shoes.

They're not even fireman shoes. They're fire truck shoes.

And the reason why is obvious. The flames are obvious.

But if you know the Vans symbol, it's it's called the the vans

jazz stripe on the shoe. He's convinced that that's a

road for fire trucks. And it's like, sure, man,

whatever gets you to put your shoes on.

But I tried to explain it to him the other week.

I was like, actually, buddy, it's not actually a road for

your fire truck. That was designed by somebody.

And it's called the Vans Jazz stripe.

It's actually supposed to feel, if you look at it's supposed to

feel like the motion that skateboarders experience or

surfers experience when they're surfing, right?

It's supposed to look and feel like motion.

That's what the symbol is there for.

And he said, what's your source? Well, he didn't say that.

He's too. He said no fire truck shoes.

So I was like OK, sure, whatever gets them on your feet, they're

fire truck shoes. And look, it's it's cute when a

2 year old misinterprets symbols because of his own interests.

It's cute. It's less cute when adults

misinterpret symbols because of their own personal interests as

well. There's going to be a moment,

hopefully, where Jack grows up and learns that symbols have

objective meanings because they have intelligent designers.

It's not. It's not actually a road for the

fire truck. The van symbol is a jazz strike

for motion. It's with the symbols there.

It was designed by somebody too many.

Way too many, way too many adults have not grown up and

they still interpret the symbol of marriage according to their

own interests. It's fire truck shoes.

Or marriage exists because he completes me.

Barf. Marriage exists because I'm a

Disney Princess and I deserve my happily ever after.

Or worse. Worse, interpreting the symbol

of marriage according to our consumeristic world that we live

in. Marriage is like anything that I

purchase and consume in our world.

It's like the new iPhone. I like it when it's sparkly and

new and doesn't tick me off. But as soon as there's a new

model on the market, as soon as I become bored of this one, I'll

just throw it away. Way too many adults misinterpret

the symbol of marriage as it exists to complete me.

I enjoy it while I've got it and I'll throw it away when I'm done

with it. The Bible says no, Grow up.

Symbols have meanings because symbols have designers.

God's the designer and the scriptures say that.

The mystery of marriage. This is Ephesians 5.

The mystery of marriage refers to Christ and the Church.

So why is God designed marriage to function the way it does?

Because it's a symbol that when people look at it, it's supposed

to reflect the gospel. OK, what's the gospel?

And the gospel is the story of the greatest sacrifice that's

ever been made. It's the story of Jesus Christ

being crucified on a cross and being put to death for our sins

to take away our crap, take away our mistakes, to cover us in his

righteousness to be forgiven so that we could be made into the

bride of Christ. That's the gospel.

And what these 3 verses all the way back in your Old Testament,

all the way back in the 2nd chapter the Bible is doing, is

it is hinting at you this first wedding ceremony between Adam

and Eve. It's reflecting to you the

gospel in like a million ways, right?

We can do this all day. I'll just give you 3 simple ways

that those 3 verses reflect the gospel.

First, Jesus is also put to death to earn his bride.

Adam goes into a deep sleep to earn his bride.

Jesus goes into a literal death sleep.

He's crucified on a cross, goes 6 feet deep, truly dies.

And when he's resurrected, he obtains the church as his bride.

It's the same story, Dope right? Or #2 Jesus bride is also

created from his side. When Jesus is crucified on a

cross and he dies, a soldier comes up to him, puts a spear in

his side, pulls it out. You ever wonder why that detail

is there? What's going on?

What comes out of Jesus aside blood and water?

Why? Because it's the blood that

covers us in his righteousness and the water that washes away

our sin and makes us into the bride of Christ.

Just like Adam and Eve, the church is also made out of the

rib of Jesus and pours forth from his side.

Is this cool? This is so cool as your Old

Testament right? Or #3 Jesus also loves his bride

apart from her weak works. Notice what did what did Eve do

to earn Adam's love? Nothing.

Not a darn thing. She just woke up.

That's all she did. She just woke up.

She's she hasn't even put makeup on.

She's not. She didn't do her hair yet.

She probably still has morning breath.

She didn't do anything. It's the mere sight.

A sight of her alone. No works that makes Adam explode

with affection. Adam loves Eve apart from her

weird works. He loves her before she does

anything for him. Does that sound like anybody to

you? Exactly the same way that Jesus

loves you. Jesus loves the church, you, his

bride, apart from your works. You can't earn Jesus's love

through works. You can't earn it through trying

to be a really religious person doesn't impress God.

You can't earn it because you don't.

You don't cuss, you don't chew, and you don't date girls who do.

Can't earn it that way. You can't earn it by acting like

Ned Flunders from The Simpsons. None of that stuff impresses

God. You know what impresses God?

The death of Jesus on a cross. And you get that by faith alone.

You can't earn it. Jesus loves us because of grace

alone, just like Adam loves Eve. Guys, this is so massive.

This is so massive, even before the fall, before sin, marriage

in paradise. Get this, in paradise, marriage

still required sacrifice. So of course in a fallen world

with sin, it's like 100 times more true that marriage requires

sacrifice, right? Like cars run on gas, lights run

on electricity, I run on caffeine, human bodies run on

oxygen, marriages run on sacrifice.

That's the gasoline that makes them drive.

Every good marriage you've ever encountered is a living

graveyard. It's a living graveyard that's

filled with millions of little invisible deaths, deaths of

preference, opinions, even dreams.

Every time you see a marriage of 30 years And she still looks at

him with a glimmer in his eyes and the guy still makes her

laugh and they still burn for each other 30 years, then you

know what you're witnessing. You're witnessing like a little,

just a little flower that grew out of a graveyard of a million

deaths. Everyone.

It's a secret sauce to marriage. Everyone is.

And so every marriage is sacrifice, Adam and Eve's, Jesus

and the churches, yours, your future. 1 And so if every

marriage is a sacrifice, it doesn't matter whether you're 60

years or six days and you're going to hit a point where both

spouses think, Oh my gosh, somebody help.

I married the wrong person. So what do you do when you hit

that point in your marriage? I had a list of seven things.

I willed it down for two because I love you guys first.

The first thing you need to do is admit that you married the

wrong person. I don't mean this theologically.

Theologically, if you're married, that's the right person

for you. I mean it practically.

We all practically marry the wrong person.

They frustrate us. They sin against us.

They're not compatible. They take you off.

And why do those actual moments of frustration and sin and

marital hardship happen? They happen because those are

the actual moments where you have to sacrifice.

We got to start to understand as modern people that the fact that

your marriage demands sacrifice is not a defect in the marriage.

Most modern people think that when their marriage puts them in

a spot, but they got to give something up, make a tough

sacrifice, their preference, their time, their opinions,

their money. They freak out and they think,

Oh my God, something's wrong with my marriage.

No, sacrifice is not a bug in the system of marriage.

It's the feature. It's the feature because it's

the only thing that makes you become like Jesus.

Nobody ever drifts into Christ likeness.

It's only through 1,000,000 little sacrificial daily deaths.

And that's what marriage is. When you married, you doubled

the likelihood of getting cancer because if she gets it, you do

too. You doubled the likelihood of an

anxiety disorder because if he gets it, you do too.

It becomes your life. That's what it's like.

If you married, I don't know, say a wrestling coach, you just

double the likelihood of you getting ringworm, if you know

what I'm saying. Tripled, quadrupled.

Chloe's a champ. Say thanks to her the next time

you see her. You double all the possibilities

of human suffering. But also you get to reflect the

beauty and worth of Jesus and the good times also get better.

But this is the pattern. Adam was put into a deep sleep

to obtain his wife. Adam and Eve's marriage begins

and ends in death. Jesus was put into a literal

death to obtain the church. And so I would encourage you to

not think that your marriage is going to be all picking daisies

and beach cruises because not only did you marry the wrong

person, we are all the wrong person to marry.

We're all screwed up and jacked up.

We've got to admit. And that brings me to my second

thing. Admit you marry the wrong person

and then commit to dying to yourself.

And this is how you become the right person every.

This is so important. The the biggest mindset shift

you can make in your marriage is simple.

You have to commit to really believing that your biggest

marriage problem is yourself and not your spouse.

It's massive. This is the biggest mindset

shift you could possibly make. You got to suck it up and be

convinced to treat your own stuff, your own failures, your

own sins more seriously than you treat your spouses.

We usually do the opposite. We treat their sins really

seriously. And then with our sins, we're

like, well, you know, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace,

grace. And of course, there is grace.

But the key here, the key is to treat your own more seriously.

And for a really simple reason. Because because your sins are

the only sins that you have the power to change, right?

And because your sins are the only sins that have the power to

send you to hell, your spouse's sins don't have the power to do

that. And so definitionally your sins,

your weaknesses, your stuff, you should take that more seriously

than your spouse's. And So what ends up happening in

an awesome marriage, you know, like a marriage where like 40

years and they still have fun together, right?

And like this type of marriage where their when their kids are

teenagers like mom and dad's PDA makes them go, you know like

those those awesome marriages that they like radiate with joy.

Those marriages are possible but only happens when both spouses

default reaction. When stuff gets hard is to start

by asking what needs to die in me?

How do my own stupid stuff create this problem?

That's when the magic starts to happen.

There was a researcher named John Gottman and he spent

decades on researching marriages.

He observed not a small sample size, over 3000 couples and he

became notorious for being able to predict whether the marriage

would implode or survive. Check this out Within 15 minutes

of meeting the couple with 96% accuracy. 15 minutes how he

spent the 1st 15 minutes asking the husband, check this out

asking the husband, Hey, tell me about a time when you really had

to work on yourself. And if the husband had an

answer, if he said, you know, I, man, I, I went down this deep

porn addiction. I fought my way out of it or

man, I had this drug addiction and it was brutal.

The withdrawals were terrible, but I got out of it.

Or even like I had this personality thing that I needed

to conform to. Like, whatever it was, if the

husband had something he worked on, he'd predict that marriage

is going to make it. But if the husband said, you

know, I'm just, I'm just not really into working on myself.

He predicted that the marriage would implode.

The results of his research, Statistically speaking, when the

man is not willing to work on himself.

And look, both spouses need to work on themselves.

It's just the statistical likelihood points to the

evidence that men tend to be worse at marriage. 10.

So statistically speaking, when the man is not willing to work

on himself, there is an 81% chance that the marriage will

self destruct. So look, everybody in a

marriage, yes, doubly so. Men.

Men, you don't want to work on yourself, That's fine.

You won't be convinced that all your problems in life is always

somebody else's fault, that's fine.

You don't want to work on yourself?

Fine. You're coward.

You're turd. That's fine.

Jesus loves turds. Don't tweet that.

That sounds bad out of context, you know what I'm saying?

Just don't get married. And if you're like, if you're

one of those dudes who's like, you know, I'm not really into

self improvement or spirituality, that's fine.

But you should. It's better for you to not work

on yourself alone than for you to not work on yourself and drag

a woman or God forbid, kids down into hell with you.

Because if you're hell bent on not changing 81%, statistically

speaking chance that the marriage is going to implode,

you got to be willing to work on yourself to change, grow,

reinvent on all those things require what they all require

sacrifice. In worldly marriages, when the

marriage is bad and something has to die in the marriage,

idiots say you do it. In Christian marriages, when

something has to die, both spouses say me, I'll do it

right. A famous comedian one time said

a good marriage isn't 5050. A good marriage is 6040 with

both spouses trying to be the 60.

It's good advice, but you're married, man.

There's just like there's just got to be this dog in you that

says like I, I, I said till death do us part.

And I said it in front of God and I said it in front of people

and you, my spouse, you're pissing me off.

But we're going to stick to it, not because of my feelings.

But because of God's design and marriage, we'll get help, we'll

get pastor and we'll read books, we'll try shock therapy.

I don't care. Try plastic surgery, whatever it

takes. I'm not going to tell the world

with my marriage that I don't care about the gospel.

That's that's the thing you got to have in you, man.

Like I even think about it when I hit the hit the weights.

It's like if you want to take off your wedding ring when you

go to the gym, that's fine. I would rather my ring finger

get ripped off in a lifting accident than not wear my ring

to the gym. You just got to have this thing

in you. That's like, I'm fighting for

this marriage, right? The difference between marriages

that make it and marriages that don't, right?

With three exceptions of biblical cases for divorce,

adultery, physical abuse, and desertion, those things happen

and those things are valid. But outside of that, the

difference between marriages that make it and those that

don't isn't compatibility. It's not like the ones who made

it, they just had similar personality.

No, it's not compatibility. The difference is that marriages

that make it are filled with two people.

Who says I will not tell the world with my marriage that I

don't care about the gospel. My marriage is about Jesus.

It's not ultimately about my feelings.

It's not about personal fulfillment.

I want to put the glory of Jesus on display.

I want it to be a symbol to the world that shows how much Jesus

loves the world. I want it to be this 3D portrait

of the gospel. I want people to see that Jesus

is awesome and that is everything.

That's you got two people in marriage with that viewpoint,

you can make it, but I saw a meme on Instagram that I

actually liked, which is rare. There it is.

This is marriage. You disagree, Don't get married.

The hands that are being held on the left are getting nailed

together on the right. That's true.

That's what I've been trying to say this entire sermon, man, you

can, you can have an awesome marriage, but you can't drift

and do it. You got to fight for it.

Like like I'm convinced, I'm convinced that more than any

other thing that I do in life, my biggest purpose in life is to

fight for my life's joy and to fight for my marriage.

I know that's true. Like I'm telling you guys, if I

die before Chloe, which seems very likely, let's be honest, if

I die before Chloe and get to heaven, I'm convinced that the

first question Jesus is going to ask me is not hey, how big did

you grow the church? No, he's not going to ask me.

Hey, how many awards did you win?

No, fully convinced that the first question Jesus is going to

ask me when I get to heaven is how's Chloe?

How's my girl, How's my daughter?

Like on my, on my best days, I don't operate in this mode as

much as I should. But on my best days, like when

I'm on sabbatical and have a lot of space and time to think, I've

got this. I have this visual in my head

and it's really vivid. It's, it's a portrait of Chloe

and I's wedding day where we're both together and I can still

see it. We've got a picture of it.

She's in her white dress and I'm blurred out in the background,

which is what makes it a really good picture.

But I'm whispering something in her ear, and that was 10 years

ago. I don't even know what I was

saying. It was probably really funny.

Maybe it was a joke, maybe it was something.

Maybe I was just being goofy. I'm whispering something in her

ear and the face that Chloe is making in that picture on her

wedding dress, the face that she's making, guys, it's like

it's this face that flirts with a massive smile and all out

laughter. And when I'm thinking right,

when I'm in a good space, when I'm in step with the Lord, the

main question I ask myself is how do I get that face?

What's it take to put that face on her?

What's it take? What do I got to be?

What can I do to get that face right?

At wedding ceremonies? I love doing them.

When that moment where the bride is Googling at the groom and the

groom is wide eyed with the bride.

Peter, Megan, you guys know what I'm talking about.

You guys had Googoo eyes for each other just the other month,

rather Googling each other. When people see that on TV

shows, movies, or in real life, everybody feels the same thing.

Thing that everybody feels is God.

I wish somebody would look at me that way.

Everybody feels that way. And if that's the way you feel,

I have really good news for you because that's a symbol of the

gospel. And that means that you do have

somebody that looks at you like that.

That's precisely the way that God looks at you.

That's the gospel. The gospel is the good news that

Jesus is looking at you right now.

That way. He died to take away all your

sins, to cover you in his righteousness.

And you gain that righteousness not by earning it, but by faith

alone. And so right now, like a husband

looks at his wife on their wedding day, Jesus is looking at

you like that. You know he's looking at you.

He's not like, ah, man, I got to put up with that part.

No, he's beaming at you, sparkles in his eyes, foam

finger on your name painted on his chest.

He's a big fan of you, crazy about you.

He loves it you. He's looking at you with tears

in his eyes like a groom on his wedding day.

That is what marriage symbolizes.

That's the design. And does your marriage symbolize

that? Does it?

Because if it doesn't, if your marriage is mediocre, if your

marriage sucks right now, that's OK.

But today's the day. Start today.

Just change today. You can do it.

Just change today. Ask God for faith and strength

and then change today. Renew your love for your spouse.

Do whatever it takes to burn for her again.

Do whatever it takes to burn for him again.

Get a different job if you have to.

Throw away your phone if you have to.

Get new friends if you have to. Get rid of your hobbies if you

have to. Drain your bank account.

Take her on a date if you have to.

I don't care. Just remember, Adam was put into

a deep sleep for Eve. Adam and Eve's marriage begins

in death and it ends in death. Jesus was put to literal death

for the church. So whatever it takes, you

didn't. You didn't think you were going

to get out of your marriage alive, did you?

Now it begins and ends in death. Heavenly Father, I pray for

faith this morning. I think there were some helpful

things in that message, maybe some hard things in that

message. So for the helpful things, just

drive them super deep into our hearts and help that drive us

towards Christ likeness. For the hard things, the things

that landed maybe not well or with too much force or broke us,

just pray for memory of the gospel, the the fact that you

love us apart from any of our works and that all you say and

all you do to us is only done out of love because that's all

you have for those who are in Christ is love.

And so it's in the precious name of Jesus that all God's people

prayed. Amen.