Covenant, Not Convenience: God’s Better Word on Marriage

Well, we come to conclude the section of Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus, where he addresses the household codes, speci codes, specifically marriage.

And as you all would agree, I'm sure, and already know, we live in a very interesting age, if I were to speak to our cultural moment.

Or to put it another way, we live in a rather conflicted moment in time.

Here's what I mean.

As I was preparing for this sermon, out of my own curiosity, I looked up a few statistics, and there's a clear trend.

Number one, fewer people are getting married, more people are cohabitating together, and many children are still being born outside of marriage.

Yet, statistically, divorce is trending downward.

There are a good number of children who live with two parents, and married couples tend to report deeper trust and joy and fulfillment in marriage, which means there's two things going on in our culture.

Our culture, on one end, questions marriage and doesn't hold it up highly as a as a sweet value.

But then on the other end, our culture is benefiting from marriage.

There was a recent uh economist, actually, who's not a believer, who wrote a book called The Two Parent Privilege.

It's a really interesting read.

So she's an economist, and she's just giving data showing when two people are in a marriage covenant and committed to each other for life, the children benefit radically.

And there's tons of data that proves that.

Which is always interesting to me when you see information out there that the world is studying and looking at, and then we as Christians say, Yeah, that's what our Bible's been saying all along.

When we do things according to God's design, God blesses it.

And here in Ephesians 5, Paul, or God through Paul, speaks a better word to us, saying that marriage is a covenant and a unfolding mystery and it's a mission.

Now, contextually, Paul roots marriage in God's design from the very beginning.

This is why we've talked about marriage isn't something that's man-made.

It's not something we have the right to change and customize because when we open up the beginning pages of the book of Genesis, and we see that God ordained marriage.

And in Genesis 2.24, the text shows us that God brought Adam and Eve together, and that covenant was meant to mirror in the future this mystery that those under the old covenant didn't fully realize yet, that they are reflecting Christ and his relationship to his bride, the church.

Now, both Paul and even Jesus quote Genesis 2.24, which just shows you if even the savior of the world is quoting Genesis 2.24 and his argument against the Pharisees about the permanence of marriage, then that should show you how significant this institution is.

Now, when we look at our text this morning, so um we're just gonna focus on verses 31 through 33.

I want to highlight the essence of marriage.

What is the essence of this God-ordained institution called marriage and what are the implications of it?

Specifically, when Paul talks about leaving and cleaving.

In verse 31, he says, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

Now, to break down some of these words, Paul is a very sharp theologian.

He's using words for a particular reason to communicate a particular message.

You don't need to know Greek or Hebrew to understand the Bible.

Praise God, we have faith faithful English translations.

But Paul's word choices are very helpful in understanding what message he's trying to communicate.

So, for example, the word he uses for leave, when he says, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother, this word is referring to a deliberate break.

So it's not something accidental, it's a deliberate choice, a decisive step of the man forsaking his family of origin to create a new covenant family with his bride.

Now, in marriage, it doesn't mean that when a man and a woman leave their family of origin, that they're abandoning that family.

But it does mean that there is a reorientation of loyalties.

You are forsaking, so to speak, your family of origin and saying, My new loyalty is now being pledged to my spouse, my partner in life.

So this new covenant bond of husband and wife now takes priority over every other human relationship that you have if you're married.

So that's what Paul means when a man is to leave his father and mother, he's saying, I am now creating a new uh bond of loyalty to my wife and her to her husband.

And now my spouse takes priority in any human relationship I have.

Have you ever thought about that?

If you're a follower of Christ and you're married, your spouse is the most important human relationship you have in your life.

Not your children, not your parents.

Outside of Jesus Christ, the most important relationship you have is with your spouse.

And notice this I never thought about this until studying uh for this sermon.

So even though the Bible in Genesis 2, and even here Paul quoting it, says that a man is to leave his family, Adam didn't have a family to leave, did he?

Adam didn't have any parents to forsake and to cleave to Eve, too, which is just further evidence that God was not giving instructions just to Adam and Eve.

He was giving instructions to all who would come after them and enter into this covenant.

So he says, You leave, and then you are to be joined to your spouse.

So for this reason, verse 31, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.

This could literally be translated to be glued to.

We all get that picture, don't we?

To leave your family of origin and be glued to your new spouse.

So similar to leaving, this is not passive.

This is this is something that's active.

It's an ongoing commitment.

If you grab some super glue, glue something together, and then trying try to tear it apart, you're gonna have a difficult time.

You can do it, but it'll be it'll take great effort.

That's what Paul is trying to communicate here.

You are now glued to your spouse, which means marriage takes effort.

Marriage takes intentional uh love and service, and it takes perseverance.

The picture here Paul is painting is of two lies being bonded so close together that they are one, they are tightly woven together and cannot be pulled apart without causing damage.

I read a story of a pastor from India who officiated a Christian wedding between two believers.

And when he got to the point of saying, you know, what God brings together, let no man tear apart, he looked at the couple and shouted it at the top of his lungs with a dead serious face.

And then he looked at the audience and did the same thing as loud as he could with a dead serious face and just scared everyone in the room.

And he was trying to highlight the severity of two human beings entering into a covenant before God that is one of permanence and reflects the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Don't worry, if you get married here at our Redeemer, I will never do that to you.

Um but he goes on after saying, okay, leave and be joined.

And what happens after this leaving and this joining together in verse 31?

And the two will become one flesh.

When he says one flesh, Paul is not just talking about physical intimacy.

He is saying this is a comprehensive union you create before God.

It's a union of one fleshness that is physical, that is emotional, and spiritual.

You are one when you enter into a covenant of marriage.

Two lives becoming one in every dimension, which also echoes the oneness of God as well, to a lesser extent.

Obviously, we're not the Lord, but you have the Godhead existing as three different persons with three different with they have different roles and different functions, and yet they're all one.

When you enter into a covenant of marriage, you are one flesh, though you have distinct roles and distinct functions to glorify God with, but the Lord sees you as a family unit.

I love how Deuteronomy 6.4, speaking of God, says, The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And we have the privilege in our marriage covenants of reflecting that oneness in how we love each other.

Now, I'm just laying some groundwork here before we get into the practical implications of what Paul is saying.

But friends, marriage is not some kind of contract that is meant to be torn up when it no longer suits us.

Marriage is a covenant, a lifelong, faithful union marked by self-sacrifice and permanence.

To become one flesh is essentially to voluntarily surrender autonomy, to give yourself away for a shared unity with another image-bearer of God.

And Paul reminds us that this marriage bond points us beyond ourselves.

If you look at verse 32, he says, this mystery is profound.

But I am talking about Christ and the church.

Now, he's not saying it's still a mystery now.

He's like, no, we have the gospel.

We know, we know the message of Christ, but long before this was the mystery being that was a we were waiting to be revealed.

The fact that Christ has come to die on the cross for the sins of his church, his bride, and now they are one with him.

And we in our marriages reflect that same gospel union.

That is the mystery that has been revealed.

Now, I'm gonna I'm gonna jump down to verse 30 33 real quick.

So he gives this summary as he moves on past talking about marriage and the role of husband and wife before he gets into uh parents.

He says in verse 33, to sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

Now, as I said last week, whenever we read scripture, you gotta keep in mind this is a section that's found in an entire book.

And so Paul is essentially tying everything together that he has been saying.

So, men, I don't know why, but we get way more verses than the ladies.

The ladies got submit to your husbands and then respect your husband.

We already talked about what it means for a husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church.

But when he talks about wives, respect your husband, I think that goes without saying.

We understand what that means.

It's I would say, I would give some practical implications there by saying a way a wife can respect her husband in a God-honoring way is to honor him as the head of the household.

To not try to, as women are tempted to do because of the fall in Genesis, just like men are tempted to dominate their wives and lead as authoritarians.

The Bible tells us that the wife's temptation will be to oppose her husband's leadership and want to take the reins and wear the pants in the household, so to speak.

One way to honor your husband is to honor and respect his role as the spiritual head of your home.

Just like as the bride of Christ, we seek to, as flawed sinners, we seek with the Lord's help to faithfully honor our Savior as the head of our marriage union to him.

That's how wives can honor and respect their husbands.

But going back to verses 31 through 32, I want us to focus on the essence of marriage as a covenant and what that means when it comes to leaving and cleaving.

The first time you see the word covenant used in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 6, verse 18.

Genesis 6:18

When God says, But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives.

So you know the story there of Noah and the ark and God creating a rainbow as a sign for the covenant he made that he will never destroy the earth again with a flood.

That's how serious a covenant is.

If God were to go against that covenant, he would be a liar, therefore he would cease to be God.

When we enter into a covenant, it's one of permanence and commitment and perseverance, just like when the Lord makes a covenant with us.

Malachi 2 14 says this, because even though the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, you have acted treacherously against her.

She was your marriage partner and your wife by covenant.

So according to the biblical data, marriage is a God-ordained uh ordinance that is a covenant union between two people.

Now, if we bring our text to Paul's day, the day he's writing in, in Paul's day, marriage was more about status.

It was more about convenience, it was about self-fulfillment.

But Genesis and Ephesians show us in God's design, marriage is a sacred covenant commitment.

It is covenantal and it is meant to display Christ's love for his church.

Now, for those of us who are Christ followers here in 2025, we got some cultural work to do because we have a culture that is working against us, trying to teach us what marriage is, what is the purpose of marriage, how we should even pursue marriage and function within it.

The Bible's vision of marriage runs against the grain of our culture's idols when it comes to marriage.

Let me just give a few that I'm sure you could resonate with.

Culture says that marriage is about finding the right person.

But God says it's about being the right person.

The world treats marriage like a contract.

But God says marriage is a covenant.

So marriage isn't like the military or like a sports player where it's like your contract runs up, and as the deadline's coming up, you're like, all right, how's my wife been doing lately?

Do I want to re-up for a new contract?

Or maybe I'm gonna test out, you know, the free agency market.

That's not how it works.

It's like the military without terms, though.

When you sign up, you go to war forever until someone dies.

Um romance, the culture says, lights the spark and leads to true love.

But covenant-keeping love is what keeps the fire burning, so to speak.

The culture says that marriage is primarily built on feelings.

However, if that's the case, feelings always fail.

But if marriage is built on covenant-keeping faithfulness, it will last through anything for a lifetime.

The culture says stay in the relationship as long as it works, as long as it's mutually beneficial, the person makes you feel fulfilled and loves and serves you exactly how you desire them to, and vice versa, then stay in the relationship.

Scripture says stay because Christ never leaves his bride.

Imagine what our culture would look like if people love the way Christ loves his church.

When we are most unlovable, when we are rebellious, when we are unkind, when we are self-centered, Christ looks at us and says, That's why I hung on the cross.

But scripture says marriage is about giving yourself to the one God has sovereignly given you for his glory and their good.

And let me just bust this myth in case anyone believes in the whole like there's the one out there for you, and you have to find the one, like the Lord is sending you out to play spiritual where as Waldo.

There's nothing in the Bible that supports that.

The biblical data says essentially choose someone who loves Jesus.

Outside of that, you got a lot of liberty.

But choose among the saints whom you will enter into this covenant with.

But it's not about finding the one who completes you.

It's rather finding someone who is on fire for Jesus and is willing to enter into a covenant and stick to that covenant they make before God.

Now, with all this covenant language I'm using, talking about marriage, we've got to ask the question: what creates a marriage?

Maybe some of you have never even thought about this.

Like, what creates a marriage?

For example, the Roman Catholic Church says they have the authority to create a marriage because they see it as a sacrament of the church, and it must be officiated by either a priest or a deacon in the Catholic Church.

That's what creates a marriage.

There's no biblical data for that.

To create a marriage, must it be officiated by a pastor or a judge or a captain at sea?

Or is it the judicial system?

So when you receive a certificate of marriage, does that make a Christian marriage?

I could go on and on on this, but I'll say no.

Not passion for someone because you love them deeply doesn't create a marriage.

The judicial system does not create a marriage, though we are to obey civil government as long as they're not commanding us to do anything sinful.

But according to the Bible, it seems clear to me that it's the covenant vows that two people make before God is what creates a marriage.

You can do that in the middle of the forests in Honduras, or you can do it in a ceremony in a church sanctuary.

But what creates a marriage, a Christian marriage specifically, would be two individuals voluntarily making covenant vows before God and their community.

That's why Paul backs this up in Genesis 2.24 when he says, A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

God officiated the first marriage ceremony.

The Godhead were the witnesses, and Adam and Eve entered into a covenant.

I guess you could say the first arranged marriage, because God brought Eve to Adam, but Adam didn't oppose, so you can't say, well, man, Adam didn't even get a choice.

Praise God.

God is wise.

God did not say, Adam, what would you like in a wife?

I know you've been naming the animals, and you see the, you know, there's male and female animals.

Like, what would work for you?

Adam was asleep, and he woke up and had a spouse.

It's like you're in a covenant of marriage.

But notice Adam never opposes God's choice.

What does he do?

He praises and rejoices in what God has done.

He names his wife.

This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

So when Adam woke up and found that he was married, he started praising God and the wife because he realized she was made specifically for him.

Now, here's how we can make marriage difficult.

If you follow the way of the culture and you make marriage about self-fulfillment and personal happiness, you actually will make marriage harder.

Because if you're a Christ follower, that is polar opposite to what we're called to.

We're not we're never called to be self-centered, we're called to be others-centered.

We're called to find our joy in promoting joy in others, especially our spouses.

But if we make marriage about self-fulfillment and personal happiness, you literally turn marriage into an impossible task.

There is not a single human being who will ever fulfill you, who will ever truly bring you personal happiness and joy for a lifetime, because that's something only the Savior can provide.

So you make your marriage more difficult if you put your spouse up on a pedestal and say, you exist to make me happy and fulfilled and to give me identity.

That is the most unloving thing you can do to your spouse, because that is not the role God has given them.

And you may be training yourself to go down a path of idolatry, of placing your spouse on a pedestal and say, My joy in the Lord is determined by how well my spouse is performing towards me.

If you make me happy, if you make me fulfilled, then my walk with Christ is thriving.

I feel God's favor and love.

But if they're sinning and if they're not leading or loving the way I think they should be, then my joy in Christ starts to wane.

If that's happening, something terrible has happened in your heart.

So the culture says, place yourself at the center of marriage.

But the Bible says no, self at the center makes marriage hard, but Christ at the center makes it hopeful.

And let's just be honest, especially if you're married this morning, marriage is hard, right?

It's okay, we can say that as Christians.

It's hard.

It's like war.

Some of you, you might see some stuff in marriage that some won't even experience their entire lifetime.

It is a battle.

And get this, you never truly know the person you marry.

Think about it if you've been married for five plus years and you go back to the day you started dating your spouse, are they the Same person?

Absolutely not.

Because we are growing and changing human beings.

So you never truly even know the person you're marrying.

Think about that, all the singles in the room.

As long as you date and get to know each other, you don't truly know each other.

Because once you get married, guess what?

Now you live with the person 24-7.

You get to see all their flaws and shortcomings and weaknesses.

And listen, when we were dating, all of us earned a degree in marketing and promotion.

Because when you're dating, even when you're engaged, you're putting your best foot forward.

You're trying to win the prize, right?

And then once you enter into the covenant, you get more comfortable.

The things you never would have done when you were dating, all of a sudden you have no issue doing.

And then you start having conflict.

And that's when you get to test that covenant bond and how strong it is and how persevering it is.

But the model for our covenant keeping love in marriage is the gospel.

The gospel is Christ demonstrating a radical act of generosity and predetermined kindness for the glory of God in saving us.

Like that, if I can just put that in one sentence, like what should be the foundation of our marriages?

It is an act of recognizing that the gospel is an act of radical generosity and predetermined kindness in God saving us, and we are to go love like that.

Or to put it in a different way, our covenant with our spouses should reflect our covenant with Jesus Christ.

If you're a disciple of Jesus Christ this morning, you are a part of the bride of Christ, the household of God.

Well, what does that mean?

Jesus Christ, great Jesus Christ graciously has taken us, his church, as his bride.

And we have taken him as our husband forever.

Our union was accomplished through his sacrifice, his death on the cross, which was sealed by his blood and applied by the Spirit.

And we take the Lord's Supper as what?

As a visual symbol of that covenant communion we entered into with our husband Christ.

Christ will never forsake his church, his bride.

He will never stiff arm us away at a distance because we had a fight and now he's given us the cold shoulder.

Christ is always committed to loving us faithfully, and that's what we are to reflect in our marriages.

Now, what does it mean now that we got that foundation of covenant-keeping, faithfulness, and love in marriage for Christians?

What does Paul mean when he says leaving and cleaving?

And what are the practical implications of that?

I don't know your guys' story, but I remember when my wife and I got married and we went through premarital training, which was whatever, and we didn't get a whole lot of training on what does it like the longer you're a Christian, the more you're in church and you read your Bible, you get familiar with a lot of Christianese, like the husband's the head, the wife's to submit, and leave and cleave.

But then if you ask us, like, well, what does that mean though?

Like, what does it look like?

A lot of us are like deer in a headlight.

And it's like, yeah, because we haven't been taught.

So I want to give some practical implications of what does it mean to leave and to cleave if you enter into a marriage covenant.

So in marriage, when you leave and cleave to a spouse, what's happening is that your core loyalty shifts.

Your core human loyalty shifts from your parents to your spouse.

Your primary human devotion is now to the person you just married.

Now, friends, the Bible is very clear.

You still honor your parents, but you don't obey them.

You honor your parents, but you no longer live under their authority once you leave and cleave to your spouse.

Let me illustrate this way.

I used to do track and field.

Think of it as a relay race, like a four by four, four by one.

Parents, originally, as they raised you, they carry the baton.

They're running the race ahead of you.

They they carry the baton of care and authority while you're under their roof.

You're under their authority and influence.

But in marriage, the baton is passed.

And from that point on, you and your spouse run together as partners side by side for the rest of the race while the parents now move into the stands and cheer you on.

They're now your support.

They're no longer the ones setting the pace and taking the lead because the baton has been passed.

And this is where I think a lot of us get in trouble or have difficulties in our marriages and not understanding what are the practical implications of leaving and cleaving and becoming one flesh with my spouse.

So I've heard sayings like this from uh couples whose children are getting married.

They'll say, When you get married, you not only marry your spouse, you marry their family.

That is not biblically accurate.

Or I've heard, I feel like, this is the in-law speaking, I feel like I'm not losing a daughter, but gaining a son.

That's not technically accurate either.

You are losing a child.

They are creating their own family unit.

They're still your child biologically, absolutely, but they're now a new family unit of their own.

So, yes, you're gaining a son in the sense of, yes, my son-in-law, but they're their own family unit.

So I uh as I was preparing, I was trying to think through okay, what are what are some common pitfalls we can fall into so that we can learn how we can honor our marriage covenants, uh, especially not just when it comes to in-laws, but just in general.

How can we make sure that we are prioritizing this most important human relationship in our lives as spouses, whether that's in the workplace, whether it's in-law relationships, whoever it may be.

And so here's what I came up with: bylaws for in-laws.

Now, I don't like the word, I've been struggling in the past month.

I don't like the word boundaries as Christians.

That sounds like self-protective, as if we are kind of viewing people negatively.

So I'm gonna use the word commitments.

By laws for in-laws.

Here's 10 commitments that honor the marriage covenant.

And I'd be happy to email this to you, so don't try to write all these down.

But I'm gonna walk through 10 of these.

Number one, so I'm speaking both to married people today.

Uh, if you're the one who you're a parent and maybe your kids are gonna be married one day, I'm speaking to the whole room.

Number one, if you are married, one way you honor your marriage covenant and cleave to your spouse is to commit to never speak poorly of your spouse to your parents.

Never speak poorly of your spouse to your parents.

Once you invite your parents into your frustrations and marital conflict, you weaken your marriage and you dishonor your spouse.

So if you're the type before you get married, you got a real good close relationship with mom or dad, and you talk to them about anything and everything, and you give a summary of your day almost every day or every week, when you get married, that that should stop.

That doesn't mean you don't still love mom and dad, but now your spouse becomes that primary relationship.

And if you have a conflict with your spouse and you run to your parent and you share all the details of what was said and what was done and not done, that's dishonoring your spouse.

And it's also unloving to your parent.

Because now you're putting them in a position to be tempted to look poorly at your spouse.

But guess what?

You're gonna go home and eventually reconcile with your spouse, but now your parent still has all this data that really is none of their business.

And now you're helping create a hindrance in your spouse and their relationship with your parent.

So we must be edifying, we must honor our spouses and not to speak poorly of one another.

It's just a form of gossip.

Even if you are blessed with godly parents who are going to counsel you to say, go be reconciled with your spouse, you gotta be careful because none of us are ever truly biased.

Unbiased, I mean.

Objective.

There we go.

Number two, bylaws for in-laws, commitments that honor the covenant of marriage.

Remember, your family of origin is no longer your uh primary family.

You've begun a new household, which means your rhythms, your priorities in your household, your tradition should grow from your marriage covenant and not be dictated by the past.

So, for example, just because one spouse maybe came from a family where every Thanksgiving, everyone came to mom and dad's house and had Thanksgiving dinner, when you get married, that doesn't mean you are obligated to continue the same tradition.

It would be completely appropriate if you said, as a family, we would like to blank.

It's already getting quiet.

We just had number two.

Your rhythms, your priorities, and your tradition should grow from your marriage covenant, not be dictated by the past.

And let me be clear, I'm not saying we don't value anything from our families of origin.

Like, no, we celebrate any gift that the Lord has blessed us with in our upbringings.

What I'm getting at is we're not obligated to be dictated by those things to bring them into our new marriage covenant.

Number three, wives, your husband, not your father, is your spiritual head.

You are to honor your earthly father, but recognize your husband as the one God has called to lead you.

So if you enter into a difficult situation as a married couple and wife, your first thought is, what would my dad think or say before you talk to your husband?

That's not honoring and respecting your head.

That is to place your father in the place of your husband and could cause conflict in your marriage.

Number four, husband, your wife, not your mother, is your closest partner.

If you grew up a mama's boy, praise God.

When you get married, get over it.

Your wife is now your closest female relationship.

You still honor your mother, but your wife is now your chief companion, your chief counselor, your chief partner, and your chief ally in life.

Number five, establish loving commitments with extended family, or boundaries if you like the boundaries word.

Establish loving commitments with extended family.

What I mean here is not not walls that re-erect, but practices of love that protect your marriage covenant and honors your parents and extending family by keeping your marriage first.

And all kinds of things can fall into that category.

But the general principle is establish loving commitments with extended family to guard your family and your marriage covenant.

Number six, strive to always, as a married couple, present a united front.

Strive to always present a united front.

What I mean is handle disagreements in private as a couple, but present a united front with your family with your yeses and your no.

So for example, if you as a family decide on something and you need to announce that with family, it should never be, well, Tom doesn't want us to come over this Thanksgiving because he wants us to do our own thing.

Well, now you just threw your husband under the bus.

Instead, mom, dad, we have decided we're just gonna have Thanksgiving with ourselves and some church family this year.

Always present a united front.

Number seven, move toward healthy independence as soon as possible.

Move toward healthy independence as soon as possible.

I think some Christians think leaving and cleaving is simply physically moving out of your parents' house.

You can be in another country and still haven't cut the umbilical cord and truly left and cleaved to your spouse.

Marriage, entering into a marriage covenant for a believer means leaving your family financially, emotionally, and detaching from any spiritual dependency on your parents.

It doesn't mean you stop receiving wisdom or help where appropriate, but it means you are moving away from relying on your parents in ways that keep you from depending on the Lord and each other as a married couple.

I want to be careful with this one because I I mean I'm not saying parents can't help their children out and things like that, but we got to be careful.

I've seen some sad situations where maybe parents help their uh a married uh child financially and then they hold that over the kid later on.

It's like, well, we helped you get your house or your car and all these things, and they use it to manipulate their the children, and that's just unloving.

So if you're truly leaving and cleaving, then you are detaching from dependency on your parents financially, emotionally, and spiritually, and you're relying on the Lord and your spouse.

Number eight, honor your parents, but don't obey them.

Honor, and I'm talking about married couples for all the kids in the room.

Talking about when you get married, honor your parents, but don't obey them.

So there is a command to honor our parents that does not end when you get married.

So, for example, Paul talks about a man who doesn't provide for his household is worse than an unbeliever because he's saying even unbelievers keep uh uh accountability and taking care of their family.

So if your mom is aging, there's biblical precedent.

Like, no, you still honor her and love and serve her or your father, but you don't obey your parents once you enter into a marriage covenant.

So when you are under their household, under their authority, absolutely, you follow their leadership, you obey your parents.

But the command to obey belongs to childhood, not to marriage.

Adult sons and daughters are commanded to honor their parents, but their ultimate loyalty now lies within their spouse.

So obedience shifts from parents to the covenant you've entered before God with your spouse.

So we gotta be careful here.

If you feel your parents are persuading you forcefully to do something that you don't want to do, you can honor them, but you don't have to obey.

And I've seen I've seen couples get in trouble there where they think, well, if I don't fulfill what my parents are asking me to do, I'm sinning.

It's like, well, no, because you don't have to obey them, number one.

And number two, it's not a sin issue.

They're probably placing a human expectation on you that's not biblical, anyways.

I can do sermons on each and every one of these, but I'm trying to keep it tight.

Number nine, parents, don't place burdens on your married children that you don't have biblical authority to place.

Don't place burdens on your married children that you don't have biblical authority to place.

Parents love your married children or your future Lord willing married children enough to release them.

To truly let them leave and cleave.

Don't demand their constant presence, control their decisions, or use guilt to get your way.

Because Scripture gives you no authority to run your children's marriage or household.

So when we try to give in to that temptation, we're actually making our children's marriages more difficult by inviting a conflict that God never intended.

Scripture gives us as parents no authority to run our children's marriage.

Instead, we are to have this privileged role of being their cheerleaders, to encourage them, to support them and pray for them, but we don't want to place burdens on them that weigh them down and make their new covenant of marriage difficult rather than flourishing.

Lastly, number 10, parents prepare for your future demotion now.

Every parent in this room, if you're raising kids now, you need to remember your role is temporary.

I think some Christian parents just love on their kids well.

And then 24 hours before the wedding, it's like, so here's what it's like to be a wife and a mom.

God be with you.

We, as parents, have the privilege of raising future husbands and wives who, Lord willing, if they desire, will one day enter into a marriage covenant.

And your job is to prepare them now to leave you then, to cleave to their spouse and to walk with the Lord.

And when that day comes, when your children stand before their future spouse and say, I do, and make those covenant vows before the Lord, you are now promoted to the family consultant or advisor.

You're still their parent.

That's never going to change, and they're still called to honor you and glorify God in that.

But wise parents raise their children to leave them, not to keep them.

Sometimes we can burden children by trying to tell them how to raise their kids, how they should love their spouse.

And sometimes it's great biblical counseling.

We should celebrate that, especially if you have godly parents who are telling you the same things the scriptures are telling you, rejoice in that.

But sometimes we can overstep and subtly, manipulatively give parenting advice.

And the spouse might be saying, I raised one of your kids and they still need work.

So how are you gonna give us advice?

But friends, prepare, I don't care how young your children are, prepare them now to one day be a future husband or wife.

And prepare your own heart to be demoted, sounds negative, to be promoted to advisor or consultant to your children.

How does a consultant work?

They give their wisdom and advice when called upon, right?

When their services are requested.

That they can come alongside and help follow Jesus.

When husband and wife stand together as one, no in-law can tear apart what God has joined together.

But for those of you who are married, your in-laws are not your enemy.

Your in-laws receive this this morning.

Your in-laws are not your enemy.

Your sinful heart is your enemy.

Sin is your enemy.

A room this size, I know many of you probably have difficult human relationships, whether it's in-laws, relatives, whoever it may be.

We are Christians and as Christ followers, that should be shaping how we love those who bring difficulty into our lives.

I want to just briefly, since we've been talking a lot about the essence of marriage and this covenant of faithful love and sacrifice, I do want to speak briefly to the singles in the room.

Number one, I want to give four, just four exhortations.

Number one, friends, you already know this, but it's good to hear it sometimes.

God is sovereign over your singleness.

Psalm 8411 tells us, no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

If you're single, it is not by accident.

It is under your father's wise and loving care.

I wish God would give me a Bible that had my name on it and just told me, like, Cam, when you hit this age, you're gonna run into this season of life and just do this thing, and then this will happen.

Unfortunately, that's not how the faith works.

I know God is sovereign, I know he's writing my story, and I'm just along for the ride.

We have to trust in God's sovereignty and know that your father is not some stingy father in the sky who's withholding good gifts from you.

He delights in lavishing his children with every blessing he has for you.

But it's always according to his means and his timing.

Number two, singleness is also a gift with a purpose.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 that singleness allows for a unique freedom that married people don't have, an undivided devotion to serving the Lord without the obligations of marriage.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

Now, despite that, even though that's true, we got to address that there's a lot of singles in churches who long to be married.

They see God's design for the home and for parenting, and they say, Yes, I rejoice in my God's plan, and I desire that, Lord.

So I want to acknowledge this.

Unwanted singleness can be, excuse me, can be, and I believe is a form of suffering.

Unwanted, prolonged singleness can be a form of suffering.

At times it can feel heavy, but friends, for any Christian, our suffering is never wasted, it's never meaningless.

God uses it to test and refine our faith, to refine our hope, and to grow Christ-like maturity in us.

But lastly, friends, this is for all of us.

Single Christians are a spiritual blessing to the body of Christ.

Every church needs single brothers and sisters who model godly devotion, hospitality, God-glorifying service, because at one point, if you are married, you were single.

And that's going to be the reality on the new heaven and the new earth.

Their lives now remind us that our ultimate family is not our spouse, but the household of God.

So whenever we see single people in our church, we should rejoice and realize you are a picture of a future reality in which we all will not be married anymore, but we will be married to Christ.

And we all will be spiritual siblings, brothers, and sisters in Christ.

Because for every last one of us in this room, whether you're married or not, marriage is temporary.

But singleness reminds us that Christ and his covenant-keeping love towards his bride is forever.

And praise be to God that marriage is not the Christian's identity.

Being a husband or a wife is not your identity.

How your spouse loves you is not your identity.

Whether you're married or not, or single is not your identity.

Our identity is in a savior who hung on a cross over 2,000 years ago to shed his righteous blood to marry to us.

That is where we find our identity.

So whether you're single, whether you're a widow, no matter where you find yourself, Christ is the one we look to.

I want to close with this quote from Tim Keller in his book, The Meaning of Marriage, where he unpacks the beauty of Christ-like covenant keeping love and faithfulness.

He says this within this Christian view of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love.

It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating and to say, I see what God is making you, and it excites me.

I want to be a part of that.

I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne.

And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, I always knew you could be like this.

I got glimpses of it on earth, but now I look at you.

May we seek the Lord's help to talk like that in our marriages.

We might say the opposite.

Like, I don't know if the Lord's working in you.

Based on what I see, I need to go pray, right?

But no, when you understand that Jesus will keep his promise to complete the work he's begun in every single child of God, you truly can't look at your spouse and see future glory.

It's like, man, I know you're messed up right now, and you keep doing the same stuff that gets on my nerves.

But one day I will see you in glory, and you will be magnificent and precious.

And that is what I want to be a worker for now on this side of heaven, until the Lord returns.

Let's pray, church.