Controversial Jesus: Jesus and Marriage | Part 4

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Hey, we're continuing our series, Controversial Jesus.

We're actually walking through a significant portion of the Sermon on the Mount.

It's Jesus' really manifesto or explanation of what the kingdom life is like, how to really flourish.

And we began the series with Jesus and Politics.

No light subject there.

Then Jesus and Anger, Jesus and Sexuality.

If you missed any of those, please, wherever you like digest your digital content, podcast, YouTube, or whatever, go especially because where we're going today with Jesus and marriage builds on Jesus and sexuality.

Please go back and listen to that.

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This is gonna be fun, I can already tell.

Jesus and marriage, and to set up this conversation, I just wanna highlight an idea that I think we're all probably familiar with in some way, but here it is.

One of the biggest barriers to actually knowing something is the belief that you already know.

You ever been around someone like that?

Ever been there?

One of the biggest barriers for us to truly knowing is somehow thinking we already know, and so we're not open to learning.

It creates such a closed-mindedness.

We can have a biased confirmation.

The way it's said is this is the illusion of knowledge.

It's the epistemic, you know, arrogance that somehow we've arrived and we own the corner on something.

And so when we're talking about marriage, I want to ask a few questions to maybe kind of get you thinking and processing as we dive in.

The first is simply this how do you define marriage?

Have you thought about this?

How do you define marriage?

And then where did you get that definition from?

Was that maybe from your family of origin?

Was it uh from culture or you know, some show you grew up on?

Was it from TikTok?

Where did you get that definition from?

And then finally, this question: how does the Bible or Jesus inform your understanding of marriage?

Or does it at all?

Do you know what Jesus had to say on the topic?

And that's what we're asking in this series is not really what does Ryan say or what does the Bible say, what does the church in the West say, but what does Jesus say on this topic?

And I want to give us just a few questions to guide our conversation as we dive into this together, that Jesus answers incredibly clearly and well.

And he says, this is actually the framing for flourishing relationships.

Uh first, we're gonna ask and answer the question, what is marriage?

We're gonna define it together.

Then what is marriage for?

Like, what's the purpose of all this?

Is there a point?

Because I know a lot of people opting out of marriage because you look around and go, what in the world is going on?

Which we're gonna deal with that too.

What is the problem with marriage?

Like when over 50% of the marriages in the states end in divorce, both in the church and outside of the church, you're like, what's the deal, right?

What is the problem with it?

Now, something that's interesting to note is that the early followers of Jesus did not try to get the culture to simply embrace Jesus' vision for marriage.

They weren't somehow trying to go to the culture around them, the Greco-Roman world, and say, embrace Jesus' vision for marriage.

Now, the early followers of Jesus did, they did bring their lives into conformity to Jesus' vision of marriage, regardless of their cultural background.

Whether they were of Jewish origin or Greco-Roman or wherever they had, they said, in light of following Jesus, he is now my Lord and Savior, and I am going to bring my life under and into conformity with his vision for marriage.

Okay, so that's where we're going today.

And to like before we dive into exactly what Jesus said, and by the way, we're gonna start in the Sermon on the Mount, and he gives us kind of like a cliff note version, but we're gonna land in Matthew chapter 19, where he gives us an incredible, breathtaking description and view of marriage.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

But to start, I want to make this observation about Jesus, Christianity, marriage, and sexuality.

Uh, that actually is probably a little controversial.

Um, and this is the series we're in, right?

Marriage and sex is not essential to human flourishing.

What?

Are you kidding me?

A single Ryan would have said, uh-uh.

No, no, no.

Marriage and sex are not essential to human flourishing, and this confronts two great idolatries of our day, one in culture and one in the church.

The culture says this to be sexually inactive is to be a less than whole person.

It's the idolatry of sexuality and your gender identity that you are that your sexuality, and to repress it is to be less than a whole person.

And then the church in the West in America has begun to make begun to make marriage idolatrous.

To be single or unmarried is to be less than a whole person.

No, we wouldn't say it that way, but we practice it.

And somehow, like the biggest and greatest thing ever to do is that you are married, and it's like this, it's become an idol in the church.

I mean, did you know that um we follow a single celibate, Middle Eastern rabbi?

He never married, he never had sex.

And and he was the full vision of human flourishing, complete in every way.

I like how Deborah Hirsch says it in her book, Redeeming Sexuality.

She notes it this way: one particularly beautiful thing about Jesus is that his life is a testament to the fact that being single doesn't have to equate to being lonely, nor does it exclude enjoying deep levels of intimacy.

Jesus, just like us, lived within the relational fabric of community in order to sustain his full humanity.

Jesus perfectly embodies God's vision for humanity.

Perfectly complete human as a single person.

Scripture elsewhere elevates singleness and puts it on par with marriage.

In fact, Christianity, Jesus in particular, is the first religion in human history to elevate singleness as a way of life that is about this single rabbi.

Interesting, isn't it?

Why?

Because marriage and sex is not essential to human foraging.

Those are we have to have them in their proper place.

The Apostle Paul would say, actually, your singleness is a gift to be steward, and if you can be single, do it because you can leverage it for the kingdom in ways that married people cannot.

Now, what is marriage?

What is marriage for?

And what is the problem with marriage, according to Jesus?

What does he have to say?

We'll begin with the Sermon on the Mount, but like I said, we're going to jump over to Matthew 19, where he unpacks and expounds on this.

In the Sermon on the Mount, he says this, uh, chapter 5, verse 31 of Matthew.

It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.

Uh, in the ancient day, divorce was pretty easy.

Uh, it wasn't in the legal terms.

You literally just wrote a one-sentence line.

We're good.

I mean, it really was really, it was, and you and you handed it, and uh, you know, you gave your wife back her dowry, and you're done.

It's just write this certificate of divorce.

Not as complicated as you think of today, but I tell you, anyone who divorced his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her a victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Now, Jesus is confronting some decidedly sexist practices of his day where men were using women and discarding them.

And and let me just unpack maybe the framework for this.

Um, ancient Judaism had the highest view of marriage there was of any nation.

Um, the Greco-Romans, they they they loved marriage, but they were not monogamous in marriage.

In fact, a Greco-Roman man often had three people or women in his life, his wife to have a rightful heir, a mistress just for intellectual and fun, and then you had your temple prostitutes and priestess, and yes, even uh pederasty that was going on.

And so there wasn't this kind of idea of sanctity of marriage.

Marriage was simply for the structure of legal heirs.

However, Judaism in the ancient day, uh, there was this idea that marriage, when it began, uh, and Jesus will get into this in a little bit, but it's just high view and sacredness of marriage.

And so then there was this great discussion going on about what Jesus is talking about.

It's actually Deuteronomy 24, 1, if you want to look it up.

It's Moses' concession for why one could get divorced.

And in Jesus' day, they're arguing and wondering what is the reason for someone to be able to get divorced.

And there's one camp, there's a rabbi uh before Jesus' day called Shemmai, uh Rabbi Shemai, or the house of Shemai.

This was his understanding.

He said, if anything, you can only get divorced except for sexual immorality.

If someone was unfaithful sexually, then you could have a divorce.

Well, the house of Hillel uh interpreted the writings of Moses, Deuteronomy 24, 1, a little bit more liberally.

And the house of Hillel, Hillel, Rabbi Hillel would say this: um, if she burns your fish and bread at dinner, you can divorce her.

If she does anything that just kind of displeases you.

In fact, there was another rabbi that took it even further.

If you just don't like the way she looks, you can divorce her.

Now you can only imagine between the two houses where the majority of men began to land in Jesus' day.

So what started out as this high view of marriage by the time Jesus' day had devolved into this practice where men would just write their wife divorce and they would marry and remarry and go on and on, and they had created uh just an incredible, incredible mistreatment of women.

And Jesus is addressing this very thing.

Now, when Jesus begins to talk about this and address this, he be unpacks his theology of marriage and sexuality more fully later on, where the Pharisees come and actually ask him more specifically, because again, this is a debate in their day.

You're like, we ain't debating it, I know.

But this was hotly debated in their day because adultery was such a big thing, and they wanted to excuse themselves of their bad behavior.

So, what is Jesus' theology of marriage and sexuality?

Matthew 19, we pick up the story.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him.

They asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?

Now you're hearing the house of Hillel.

Any and every reason?

That was Hillel's argument.

For any and every reason, is it lawful?

What do you say?

And I love this.

The way Jesus addresses divorce is he returns to what how God originally envisioned marriage.

He's not gonna delve in.

Let's talk about that argument and let's parse this word.

And what exactly did Moses mean?

He's not, he's going, he's gonna go all the way back to the very beginning of Jesus' vision or God's vision for marriage.

Verse 4 says, Haven't you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?

This is Genesis 127, and said, and then he skips to Genesis 2, they didn't have chapters back in the day.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, the two will become one flesh.

So they're no longer two but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Now, Pharisees did not like this answer.

So they said, Why then?

They asked, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?

Did Moses command someone to get divorced?

Okay, you guys are kind of looking at me, I'm not really sure.

That's no.

I command you to get divorced.

No.

Like, isn't it funny how we twist things to fit what we really want?

And we shift it, like, well, why did Moses command that?

Notice what Jesus says.

Jesus replied, Moses permitted, not commanded, you divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.

But it's not this way from the beginning.

I tell you that anyone who divorced his wife, except for sexual immorality, there you see it again, and marries another woman, commits adultery.

This big, sweeping, grand, beautiful, and challenging view of marriage.

What is marriage?

What is it for?

And then what's the problem of marriage?

Let's begin with what is marriage according to Jesus.

First, the first the first thing I want you to notice is according to Jesus, God created marriage.

You notice that?

Haven't you read that in the beginning, creator, uh he made them male and female, that marriage was actually God's original design.

It's not just a social construct, but God had a plan in mind from the very beginning of time.

In fact, the Bible begins with a wedding, Adam and Eve, and it actually ends with a wedding between Christ and the church.

This is his plan.

He invented it, he designed it, and as such, then he is the one to tell us, according to Jesus, how we are to go about this marriage relationship.

So God created it.

So what is it?

Marriage is a holy covenant, not a contract.

A covenant is a promise or a pledge to another person that is irrevocable.

When uh it's a beautiful thing, you see these um this I love like bride and grooms on the front.

It's like they look so beautiful and so good, right?

They is, I mean, they're amazing.

You're like, oh, this is wonderful.

And I and I often tell them, this is the best you'll ever look.

Um that's true.

But in that moment, we often confuse this.

They are not just proclaiming their love towards another, they are professing and promising future love till death do us part in sickness and in health.

I am promising from this moment when you look so beautiful, when everything is amazing, I'm promising that when hard times come, when we're not sure what to do, when the feelings fade, I'm promising you, I'm making a covenant commitment to you.

I'm in it forever.

And there is no back door, I'm not getting out, there is no exit, there is no eject.

That's marriage.

That's a covenant that brings safety and security.

We treat it much like a contract.

I think of it like a phone contract where they tell you a really good deal and then they change the terms on you, and then they add the secret fees, and then you show up and you're like, wait, this isn't what I signed up for, and then you feel stuck.

You're like, well, I have two years on this contract to get through.

And Jesus says, No, it's a holy covenant.

Notice he says, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

And so the church, for 2,000 years across the globe and across all generations, has defined marriage this way according to Jesus.

Preston Sprinkles does a great job defining that.

He says marriage is a lifelong one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons, a male and a female, from different families, united with the purpose of telling God's story of faithfulness and creativity, and sexual relationships outside this covenant union are sin.

In fact, you notice Jesus used the word sexual immorality.

That's the Greek word pornea.

It is uh the word that uh the gospel writers, the apostle Paul will use, uh, is the broadest term for anything outside uh any sex that sexual activity outside the bounds of God's intended design for marriage.

It says this is the place that marri for marriage uh that sex is intended to be.

And outside of that, it breaks God's design.

Now, when we're talking about this, and then we think about our LGBTQ plus brothers and sisters.

I have a good friend.

He helped me so long ago as we were talking, and he said, Ryan, he loves the Lord, same sex attracted, honoring Jesus with his sexuality, recognizing I agree with that, which means a profound no to some of my deepest longings and desires.

And he said, Ryan, the thing that you need to know about uh those of us in the LGBTQ plus that love Jesus, following him, honoring him, is one of our greatest fears is to die alone.

And the church is intended to be the family of God.

Where all of us struggling and wrestling and experience that we need love and where we walk alongside that that would never, ever be a concern of a follower of Jesus.

Marriage is to be this holy covenant, not a contract.

Jesus actually helps us see it in three words leave, united, and then one flesh.

Will you say that with me?

Leave, united, one flesh.

One more time.

Leave, united, one flesh.

This is the process upon which our covenant relationship in marriage is to be.

First, leave.

Did you notice this idea of maturity?

Jesus says this for this reason, well, God said it in Genesis 1, for this reason, a man will leave his mother and father, meaning that this new marriage relationship supersedes your biological family relationship.

This is important for some of you because you're still clinging on to mom, you're still clinging on to dad, you're still bringing them into your marriage.

They're the source of your strength, they're the source of your comfort, and then you're kind of over here.

It says, No, you're leaving and you're stepping into a new unit altogether.

Something new has happened.

And then this idea of being united, it comes with this deep commitment that something happens.

In fact, the Apostle Paul would say, something happens so deeply spiritually and emotionally that when we unite sexually, it can only be described as a deep unity.

In fact, the the old English word uh for united in the King James is the word cleave.

In Greek, this word literally means to be glued together.

That when we engage in in a sexual intimacy with another person, it's a gluing.

There is nothing casual about it.

It's deeply emotional, it's deeply spiritual.

And there's this gluing, and then as you do that and there's this breaking, it's literally the picture of different parts of you are left with them and they with you.

That there's this united, and it that united happens in the context of where we're in it forever and become one flesh.

This idea of intimacy, spiritually, emotionally, relationally.

That that something amazing happens.

Happens that when one man and one woman unite under God in marriage, that He says the two don't be become, or the two become one.

There's a third new reality of oneness.

And so what is marriage?

It's a God-invented covenant between man and woman.

It's to be permanent and pure.

Now, here's what happens though.

Our culture flips this paradigm, doesn't it?

Our culture starts with intimacy, then moves to commitment, and then eventually you just leave.

Right?

Yeah, right, right, right.

Come on.

Intimacy, hook up.

We just hook up with whoever.

Sex on the first, you know, date?

Maybe.

Third, fourth date, well, expected.

Who paid?

I don't know.

Right?

We hook up and then we shack up.

Don't we know?

And we we can read the studies that when you cohabitate together, it increases your likelihood of divorce like twofold.

It's crazy.

So we hook up, we shack up, and then we break up.

And we are in this cycle as a society, and it's devastating to our relationships.

What is marriage?

It is God created, it is a holy covenant, permanent and pure.

What is marriage for?

Well, Jesus says, Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

In fact, if you have your Bibles above, join, write the word yoked.

That's this word.

It's what God has yoked together.

Now, today we want a marriage in which we can receive emotional sexual satisfaction from someone who simply let us be ourselves.

Don't change me, just love me.

Looking for personal fulfillment and self-actualization.

Stanley Hauer, an ethics professor at Duke University, writes this: destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment necessary for us to become whole and happy.

The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry, and that if we look close enough, we'll find the right person.

This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect of marriage.

It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.

You're like, nu-uh.

Listen, he goes on.

He explains.

We never know whom we marry.

We just think we do.

Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while, and he or she will change.

For marriage, being the enormous thing that it is, means we are not the same person after we have entered it.

The primary problem is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.

But we buy into this all the time.

It's the perfect person myth.

When I find the right person, then everything will work out right.

And we're constantly looking for the right person, and we get in a relationship, and when things aren't working out right, they must have been wrong.

And we get caught in this cycle.

And marriage is far less about falling in love and more about growing in love.

So, what is marriage for?

Let me just give you three words.

These are historic through the ages of the church.

Symbolism, procreation, and commission.

Symbolism, first, marriage is a beautiful and powerful picture intended to represent the unity and intimacy we were designed for with our Creator.

All the way back into the garden.

Now, then, like I said, the Bible ends with a story of Christ and the church.

You see the marriage illustration of God and Israel and then Jesus and the church.

And it's to be this picture of the indissoluble, like permanence.

Like he has made, think about this, he has made a covenant commitment to you, shed by his own blood, that he says will never be broken, and he will never go back on that commitment.

That's good news.

And marriage is to be part of that picture of understanding it.

Secondly, for procreation, we get this and understand that the creating of life mirrors the divine creator in whose image we bear, that marriage is the foundation upon which the family and as a result society is built.

And then this idea of co-mission.

Remember, Jesus said, therefore, what God has joined together, yoked together.

Frederick Del Brunner, theologian, writes this: yoked together is a work picture.

Jesus does not say what God has bedded together or domesticated together or even simply linked together.

Husband and wife, according to Jesus' picture, are spanned together by God under a common yoke, suggesting they are united in order to put, in order to work together on a common task.

Like what would change in your relationship if you began to think about it as God has placed us together on a co-mission.

We have a purpose.

In fact, back in the Genesis count, it says that we were to fill the earth, subdue it, and rule, that there's this harnessing its potential and stepping into the divine work.

Like God has divine work for you to do together.

When Jenny and I were dating, we would make this our prayer.

God, would you make us better together than we ever could apart?

Would you just help us to be better together?

That was our prayer.

Now, I've been married 20 years, 21 years this December, which is exciting.

I have a 19-year-old that's off at college and 16 and a 13-year-old.

Now, here's the interesting part.

We're still figuring out that prayer.

Would you make us better together?

And here's what's interesting is it's through the chaos of life, I mean, kids, uh, that you realize you spend so much energy, and now we're at a time where we're looking at it and like maybe in five years we'll be empty nesters, or at least that's theory.

Uh, that could be a reality, right?

We're thinking about what happens is what we can so often get filled with the business of life that we're living parallel lives instead of co-mission lives together.

What would it look like for you to just begin to pray that if you're married or dating or engaged, like what would it look like, God, that we'd be co-missioned?

You have a divine purpose for our togetherness.

And the Apostle Paul would emphasize this yoked, he would say, and do not be unequally yoked.

This is the reason why.

Like, if you're dating, don't date someone who doesn't know Jesus.

If you're you don't get married to someone who doesn't know Jesus, like you're not on the same page, you won't be on the same purpose.

What is marriage?

What's this holy covenant?

What is it for?

Well, there's this joining or yoking together by God Himself.

What is the problem with marriage?

Jesus says, uh, the Pharisees said Moses commanded divorce, and Jesus said Moses permitted it.

Moses permitted you to divorce your wives.

Why?

Because your hard hearts were hard.

What's the problem with marriage?

Why even divorce?

At the root of the problem of every single marriage is hard-heartedness.

Let me say that again.

At the root of the problem of every single marriage is hard-heartedness.

That's why the Proverbs would say it this way.

Above all else, guard your heart.

Like watch over your heart.

Be attentive to your heart.

Make sure that you keep a tender heart.

Why?

For from it flows the very things of life.

Like all of life flows out of the contents and the character of my heart.

And Jesus says, Moses permitted it because of hard-heartedness.

Tim Keller, in his book, Meaning of Marriage, great book, by the way, says, that means sometimes human hearts become so hard because of sin that it leads to a spouse into a severe violation of the covenant without prospects of repentance and healing.

And in such case, divorce is permitted.

In fact, Hebrews 3 talks about the hard-heartedness.

It says, see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you have a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily.

I love that.

Because when we have a hard heart, we're the last ones to see it and to know it.

So we need to be in community of other people encouraging us and speaking life and correction into us, as long as it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Well, what would be an example of a biblical divorce or unbiblical divorce?

Well, Jesus said sexual immorality.

Someone with a unrepentant porn habit or an affair.

Your spouse leaves, Paul would give that concession if there's abuse.

Even to the point of ignorance of you didn't know better before Christ.

There's so much grace with Jesus.

Unbiblical divorce.

Oh, I'm just not happy.

He doesn't make me happy anymore.

I'm just not in love.

I just don't love him.

The trump card.

I love someone else.

I fell in love with someone else.

Well, since marriage is less about falling in love and growing in love, there's going to be times where your love is going to vary, and you have made a commitment, a covenant commitment, and so I'm going to love you, which is an action, not a noun.

It's not a state of being, it is an action.

You can't command an emotion, but Jesus commands us to love.

Oh, we're just not sexually compatible.

I want to explore other options.

The problem with marriage is a hard-heartedness.

No.

Years ago, Jenny and I were at a wedding, and the pastor began to unpack what he called the five stages of relationships.

And I think sometimes it's so helpful to see kind of where you're at to have some like framing of like, okay, how do we what do we do with this?

And I rarely do this, but in a wedding, I got out my phone and I started just taking notes because I'm like, this is good.

And what I love is a couple came up after the first service and they're like, we've been married 52 years, and those stages are still true to this day.

The five stages of relationship, the honeymoon stage, the disillusionment stage, the misery stage, the awakening stage, and then the intimacy stage.

Not that you go through these and you've accomplished them, but we often can go back in and out of these.

The honeymoon stage, we're all familiar with it.

Maybe some of us, many of us, have experienced it.

It's they're perfect, they're amazing.

Oh, they're so different, and that's delightful.

That's the honeymoon stage.

It grows, it wears off, it doesn't last, it moves into the disillusionment.

And it wasn't a good thing.

I'm like, yeah, you're right.

We're opposites attract, and then as my other friend says, opposites attack.

I'm like, ooh, you know.

In the disillusionment stage, here's what we say: if only they would change.

If only they would change X.

And you think all your problems would be fixed, all your marriage problems, if only they would change, and you move from the disillusionment stage to the misery stage.

And the misery stage is you realize you can't change them.

You realize if only they would change.

I've tried, I've given hints, I've written notes, I've nagged, I've asked, and you feel stuck.

You feel hopeless.

Maybe you feel bitter and resentful.

The misery stage, you may think about maybe we just add a kid or two to the equation because I need someone to love, and this I'm not getting it here.

You and maybe give more time to your career.

Let's change locations, let's move, because that'll fix everything.

And often people do get divorced in the misery stage.

A longitudinal study revealed that two-thirds of unhappy marriages will be happy in five years simply if they stay married and do not get divorced.

The honeymoon stage, the disillusionment stage, if only they would change, the misery stage, you realize you can't change them, then if you lean in.

If you allow God to work on your heart, the awakening stage is you stop trying to change them and you ask, What can I do to change?

What can I do to change?

It's about nine years ago.

Um our marriage was really struggling.

That's hard to say as a pastor because like if your marriage is struggling, who do you talk to?

And like if your marriage doesn't work out, like you don't even have like a job after that, you know.

And I remember I was at this kind of all-day soul care retreat, and I I just had space and time to uh to think.

And I was definitely in that misery stage, and I'm griping, I'm like, God, this why don't she do this?

And I've tried this, and you know, all these other things, and going back and forth.

And then finally, like after a full day, it dawned on me, Ryan.

What about you?

See, when your heart is hard, you actually don't want to be still or be silent.

You want to stay busy because when you're still and silent, the Holy Spirit has the opportunity to break through your hardness and speak to you.

We need more stillness and silence as a culture and as a church and as a people to let the Spirit of God speak and deal with us.

And I began to confess my brokenness.

And it was out of that time I was finally willing, let's get counseling.

We just started, we we we still see Sue to this day.

We talk about Sue like she's a friend, she's our therapist.

Like, oh, Sue said this, you know.

I just was talking to friends the other day about Sue.

And and uh, but but here's what I gotta tell you.

If you're in the misery stage and you finally are starting to ask the question, what can I do to change?

And you realize, you know what, maybe I need some counseling, maybe we need some counseling.

Here's what we found is when you step into counseling, it doesn't immediately get better, it often gets worse.

It's like cleaning the garage.

You open it up, and there's a reason you don't deal with it.

Right?

Well, I don't deal with it.

You open it up, you're like, oh, let's just close that and hide that.

Because you know to actually deal with it, you have to pull all of it out.

And it looks worse than it ever did before because it's now all in the light, it's all revealed.

And then you take the time to work through and put things back.

That is the process many marriages in this room need.

And have the courage to go, what do I need to change?

What is my attitude?

My thoughts.

What are the things in me?

And then out of that, you have the opportunity to step into the intimacy stage.

You experience that teeness, that oneness, that commission.

And I'd love to say that you just always stay in the intimacy stage, but I think we go through this cycle multiple times through our married life.

And that couple before confirmed the very same thing.

What is marriage?

It's the holy covenant, its purpose.

God has a beautiful purpose for you together to be on mission.

The problem is our hearts.

Our hearts.

You know, one of the biggest barriers to actually knowing something is the belief that you already know.

How do you define marriage?

Where'd that come from?

And would you let and allow Jesus' vision of marriage to begin to seep into your soul and become your vision of marriage?

If you're a follower of Jesus, that is our encouragement.

Heavenly Father, I ask for my friends today.

As we wrestle with this deep and profound reality of your grace and your love and your vision for this one-flesh marriage.

I pray for those who are struggling, who are alone, who are in a marriage or a relationship that they just feel stuck in the misery describes it perfectly.

Would you breathe life?

Would you breathe hope?

Would you breathe your peace?

Would you speak to them?

I gotta pray for those that the relationships are gone.

That the season is lonely.

Would you breathe hope?

Would you allow the family of Jesus to be family?

That we would be your community of strength and courage, uplifting one another.

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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