Session 2: The Perspective for Marriage

In verse 32 of our Ephesians 5 text, it says this is the

profound mystery understatement of the year.

But I am talking about Christ and the church.

So Paul's like I'm talking about marriage, but I'm talking about

Christ and the church. It's mysterious, I know, but I'm

talking about Christ and the church and we we need an eternal

perspective for our marriages. When we realize that our

marriages are less about our relationship with our spouse

than it is about a relationship with our Lord, we start to view

our marriages in light of eternity.

I mean, let's just get this straight.

We're talking like potentially 50-60 years worth of marriage in

this life and then a marriage that lasts for all eternity.

There's two different marriages. So this this temporal marriage

needs to find its context within the eternal marriage.

In Mark 12, the statueses come at Jesus and they put this

hypothetical case to him. They say Moses taught us the

following, that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife,

but no children, the man must marry the widow.

This is another brother must marry the widow and raise up all

for it offspring for his brother, and then that guy dies

and another one dies. Eventually they say 7 seven

brothers married this woman and none of them had any kids.

But here's the question because I want to discredit the

resurrection. They say at the resurrection,

whose wife will she be since the seven were married to her?

Jesus replied, oh, you're not in error.

You've got to be so careful when you take on Jesus where he is

sorry, but you are wrong. Are you not in error because you

do not know the scriptures or the power of God?

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in

marriage. They will be like the angels in

heaven, which doesn't mean we'll have wings sitting on a cloud

with what looks like a nappy on. Like get that out of your mind.

That's that's not heaven, OK? It's just meaning we're going to

be immortal, imperishable. So like that.

OK, now about the Dead Rising, have you not read in the book of

Moses, in the account of the burning Bush, how God said to

him, I am the God of Abraham, but I was, I am, I still am

Abraham's dead, but I still am the God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead,

but of the living. So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are

living and I'm their God now that they died like 2000 ago,

2000 years ago, but I'm their God now they're living.

You're badly mistaken. So in order for God to be

faithful to the promise that he gave to Abraham, Isaac and

Jacob, they would still need to be alive.

They didn't inherit the promise while they were still on this

earth. Read Hebrews 11 you'll it says

that they explicitly they did not inherit the promise, not in

not in the the temporal life, but the the promise still stands

and they got they are going to inherit it.

And and it's talking about this eternity that they will find

their way in. And the truth of that for us as

born again believers, is that we have an eternity to look forward

to in our resurrected bodies. So when we die now, our souls go

to be with the Lord. Paul tells us our bodies are

buried, but at his second coming we will all be given resurrected

bodies. We will have bodies.

We won't be little fluffy angels.

OK, so yeah, it says in one Corinthians 15.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first

fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

He was the first one, which means he's the only man in

heaven right now with a body. He's the first fruit and and we

are all going to be like him. Now Scripture gives us a couple

of hints as to what that looks like, what He looks like, what

He is like. They recognized his voice.

So if you don't like your voice, you're going to have the same

voice. They recognize Jesus by his

voice after his resurrection. They recognized him.

He ate. They they had a fish fry on the

shore. So like like putting food in and

then like seeing it just drop onto the ground.

He had a body resurrected. I think there was almost like a

bit of an extreme makeover vibe that took place.

Have you ever watched Extreme Maker?

Doesn't you know the program where someone walks in and they

look a certain way and then they do a whole makeover of the

person, you know, make them look younger.

They go on an exercise program and then they come out the other

side. But this is a grand reveal that

walk out like, oh, can't believe it.

It's like you can see it's them, but man, they look different.

You know, when Jesus was arguing with the wolf or Pharisees were

arguing with him and they referred to Abraham, He said

before Abraham was I am. They're like, what, what are you

talking about? You know what they didn't say?

You're not even 50. You ever thought about that?

Surely if he was early 30s, it would have strengthened the

argument to say you're not even 40.

You're saying you were you were around when Abraham was it,

right? You were you were you before

Abraham. You're not even 50.

I think we draw from that. The logical conclusion is Jesus

looked older than what he actually was.

You're not even 50. And you, you read the text in

Isaiah 52 about how it describes.

Geez, there's nothing about him that would attract men to him.

We've got this like Hollywood vision.

So we we watch these movies about Jesus and the crucifixion

that always choose the best looking guy to be Jesus.

I think they get a completely wrong but in his resurrected

body you could see it was him but it's like.

Wow. But he ate.

There was something different about him, but he was still a

man, a resurrected body. And he's the first fruit and the

Bible makes it very plain for those who have put their faith

in him and who are born again, that promise of a resurrected

body is true for us. That that's why Job says, and

after my skin has been destroyed, he's not talking

about like some skin condition like eczema.

He's referring to his death after my skin has been what?

Why not being buried and and all of me has been eaten away.

Yet in my flesh I will see God yet an understanding of what the

resurrection would be. And then this message of

Scripture, 1 John two, sorry, 1 John 3 verse 2.

1 John 3:2

It's one of my favorite and I think it's the thing that's got

to frame most of our lives, including marriage.

It's got to frame how we approach our walk with God

because it says this, dear friends, now we are children of

God and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him,

for we shall see him as he is, and all who have this hope in

him purify themselves just as he is pure.

So there's three things being emphasized here.

Three things that that that John as an incredible shepherd of

people is touching on. The one is our standing.

We are children of God. He's talking about our identity.

So we are adopted into his family when we put our faith in

Jesus and as a result of that faith, we are children of God.

And that is something that has happened.

It's a, it's a past reality. It's the past reality of our

salvation. We have come to that faith.

We are now children of God. It's as a result of us being

made children of God. When we put our faith in Jesus,

then he's talking about we don't know what we will be like, but

we know that we will be like him when he comes back.

So it's talking about a future reality.

And that future reality is that when Jesus comes back, we will

be in perfect glory with him. And that is our eternal hope in

our hearts. We will be like him.

That's the destiny. So identity and destiny.

And then it says this, the key phrase in this text says all who

have this hope, all who have what hope, the hope of a an

identity in Christ because we are born again believers and the

destiny that's to come because we will be like him.

All who have this hope of identity and destiny as an

inevitable consequence of that hope purify themselves, which is

the life that we live now as born again believers.

So we come to faith, we have this destiny, but in between

we're walking with God and we are growing in God.

And there is this present reality of our Christian walk.

That's why the Bible speaks about having been saved, past

tense, having or being saved, present tense and will be saved,

future tense. You want to know when you read

the Bible and you see those three different tenses, they're

talking about 3 different aspects of our salvation.

If you read it as the same thing, you can get very confused

and you can start doubting like what is it?

Am I saved? Will I be saved?

Like where am I? It's talking about 3 different

stages of salvation. We have been saved, we are being

saved and we will be saved. But what John is saying here is

you don't. You don't come in the fullness

of the are being saved by focusing on the are being saved

aspect or stage. That's called legalism.

It's called religion in the negative sense because it's like

that's our focus. So we need to do this.

We need to live our lives in a certain way.

This is how we need to be as Christians.

He's saying no, no, no, you don't become, you don't grow in

holiness. You don't become like Jesus.

This sanctification process is the theological word is not

something that you attain by focusing on that.

You attain that by focusing on your justification.

You have been saved. You are a child of God and on

the glorification aspect of our salvation that we will be like

him. So what John is saying is let

that be your hope because if you focus on this is how I need to

walk with God and it's and the emphasis is there and that's

what I'm highlighting the whole time, then you're not doing it

with the motivation of the gospel.

You're doing it because someone's told you where you

kind of feel like that's what I need to do.

But that's where you become legalistic in your ways.

So we don't go to church every Sunday.

We don't wake up every morning with our devotional time because

that's the focus. We tell it because we've got a

hope and what God has done in us that we believed like Abraham

and it was credited to us as righteousness and we have a

future hope of glory and that's what fuels us to live

differently. You can't get me to have a

devotional life and every day wake up with the feeling of that

being well, that's what a Christian does.

And the reason why I can say that is because I've tried it as

Bible reading plans starting January January 12345617 Whoops,

skipped 18. Don't worry 19.

We'll just do both got to catch up because you see, there's a

realistic like I got to I've now have to live like this.

I've got to read my Bible through the whole thing was if I

haven't, I'm not quite a Christian.

Rubbish. That's not the gospel.

The gospel is Jesus has done it all for us.

He is our Savior. He's the one that purchased the

price. He's the one that demonstrated

this covenantal love of God. And as a result of the level of

Father who sends his Son, we have this incredible gift of

grace and we receive forgiveness and we receive righteousness.

It's not something you achieve. You receive it.

And as a result, we are justified.

We are made right with God. And this reality makes us a

child of God. And when you have this hope and

you have the hope that as a result of what happened there,

you have a future hope of glory, that you have been brought back,

you're reconciled to God. You are not separate from him.

You're not an enemy of God anymore, you know, in the

Kingdom of light. And as a result of that reality,

I now look forward to a future that I will be with him forever

and ever and ever. And when I, when I focus on my

identity and I focus on my destiny, the way in which I live

is an inevitable consequence. I just purify myself.

I grow in this reality of what God has for me and I grow in his

likeness because that's the thing that fuels me.

So the reason why I'm emphasizing the Scripture is

that we are called to be good husbands and good wives and

uphold this beautiful reality called marriage.

But we don't get it right by constantly saying, well, I have

to be. I have to be we, we, we get

fueled, we get transformed by a hope that is resting in my

identity in Christ and my destiny in Christ.

And this future eternal perspective changes how we live

our lives. We got what, 7080 years, if

we're lucky? I mean, we can't compare that to

forever. Like we, we don't know, like how

do you, there's no way, but there's an everlasting reality

in a resurrected body, in a restored new earth because God

is bringing everything back to his original plan.

You know, he had an original plan.

And then because of the fall, it's not like he discarded that

plan. He didn't say, oh, that didn't

work. So now I'm going to just bring

in this plan of salvation and it's Jesus.

And as a result of that, there's now a new plan.

The plan of salvation is to get us back to the original plan.

God has not let go of that original plan.

He's going to restore all things to what He originally had in

mind, absolute perfection, absence of sin, perfect

resurrected bodies, and in perfect fellowship with Him

forever and ever and ever. Let that feel something of how

you live your life. That's what John said.

It's a great shepherd. So he takes us away from the

legalistic ways of you must do this and this is how you must

behave as a Christian. He says your hope is going to be

in the past reality of what God has done and in the future

reality of what he will do because you can't resurrect

yourself. But he has promised he will

raise you to a new life and you will have this restored

resurrected body in a new heaven and a new earth.

Let that feel you. So we need to bring what does,

what does eternity mean? What does this perspective in

reality to my marriage mean? So how does it how, how are we

to view marriage? We need to view marriage as

having a place. Marriage has a place, but let's

put it in its rightful place. It's beautiful and it's glorious

that it has a place. I want you to complete these two

sentences, and then while we completed, I want you to

honestly assess, just in the quietness of your own heart and

your own thoughts, which of these two sentences best

describes my marriage. I'm sorry, there's a blank

before that. The goal of Christianity is not

to have a happy marriage. Now, obviously God wants us to

have happy marriages, right? He wants us to have marriages

that sing that, that there's an ease and he wants our marriage

to be a witness and a testimony to his goodness and his love.

But we can't make marriage the goal of our Christian lives.

And the reason why it's a point here in terms of my exposure,

certainly where I come from, marriage becomes this thing.

It's like if you have a happy marriage, you're a great

Christian. Like that's what defines a great

Christian is when you have a happy marriage and your family's

all together and everyone is just singing kumbaya, my Lord.

So complete these two sentences. My relationship with God is what

serves my marriage, or my marriage is what serves my

relationship with God. You see, when marriage, a happy

marriage, is the goal, then God becomes the means to that goal

because we've made that the ultimate thing.

That's the thing that we are wanting.

That's the outcome. A happy marriage is the thing

that defines me as a good Christian, as a great Christian

family. Well, I don't know it.

It doesn't make sense to me. When we read Scripture and we

look at this relationship that we have with God and we put it

in the context of eternity, surely we must have heavy

marriages, but surely not that. That's the goal of Christianity.

Tell you what the goal of Christianity is.

It's the mission of Jesus. His mission becomes our mission.

Whatever He wants us to do, that's what we do.

That's why it's called Lord and he has a mission and he's means

with which that mission will be accomplished is the church.

It's us. So the amount of people that

we've counseled we we met recently with a couple that's

going through a divorce. We met with the lady.

She said to us, the one thing the one good thing that has come

out of all of this is that I've reconnected with my savior.

So like in this trying time. My relationship with him is in

the best place ever now. That's great, Great that that's

happened. But I feel, I think it's

incredibly sad that a struggling marriage and the pursuit of a

happy marriage and a constant wrestle for this has distracted

her so much that her relationship with Jesus suffers.

So like he becomes like somewhere in the mix, but I'm

working on this happy marriage and and my happy marriage is the

ultimate goal and I'm looking for God to serve the skull and

for him to make sure and help me in this pursuit of having a

happy marriage. When actual fact we should be

saying when our marriages serves the goal of Jesus, the mission

of Jesus, then our marriage or marriages find a trifle place.

And we've got to make sure that we're on the right side of that

distinction because we can very quickly move into it's all about

my marriage and that's what defines me.

That's what measures me as a Christian and I want Jesus to

help me in that. And whether that's with your

husband or wife or other relationships, we got to know

there is a mission of Jesus. He is restoring all things to

himself. His Kingdom is advancing.

And there is going to come a day where that advancing will stop

because it will reach its fullness.

It will be complete. That's why we pray your Kingdom

come. This is a progressive your

Kingdom come in the lives of of my in my life in my heart.

I want to surrender to your worship, but in the lives of

other people and then from a salvation point of view more and

more people being reconciled to yourself where you are king and

your righteous dominion will reach us to absolute fullness is

what we look forward to your Kingdom come.

I think Rob actually referred to the Lord's Prayer this morning.

But that's why we pray our Father.

I'm a child of God. I heard a thing of Dallas

Willard where he, I mean, Dallas Willard is one of the top guys.

He used to be, possibly recently, but when it came to

spiritual disciplines and walking with God and a

devotional life, what a lot of these material and what he would

write on. So he was asked the question,

how do you approach your devotional life?

He said, well, read a bit. Yeah, read a bit there.

But then when it comes to praying, I say the Lord's pray.

You know that that's what Jesus gave us as a daily prayer,

right? Sometimes we just lose sight of

that. This is and I start with our

Father, and then I just stay there, just.

Suck it in, Suck it our father. You're my father.

I've been made your child. You're my father.

What you have done through Jesus, which you have opened my

eyes to, my desperate need of salvation, my sinful state, my

separation from you, and how you've brought me to yourself.

You have drawn me to yourself. You've reconciled me and I can

call you Father. You are the Almighty God who has

created everything. You're in heaven.

I'm not, you're the creator, I'm the created.

But in this space I can just stay and say.

Father. I can call you.

Father. Identity and then your Kingdom

come. You see that even in the Lord's

Prayer Jesus has given us. Just frame every day with who

you are in me and what's going on in the world.

What is God on about? What is he busy doing?

He's restoring all things. His Kingdom is advancing your

Kingdom come in this progressive reality.

May it come more, may it come more.

There's a partial Kingdom coming.

It's a growing reality, but there's a day.

There is a day where your Kingdom will reach its absolute

fullness, and your righteous dominion will be perfect and

whole and complete, and everything will be restored back

to your original plan when you first created Adam and Eve.

And we will live in the fullness of a relationship with God,

fellowship with Him, and just have that for eternity.

The mission of Jesus is to draw people to Himself.

The mission of Jesus is to restore all things, make all

things new. And our marriage should serve

that purpose. But let me have a great marriage

and I'm going to ask God to serve my purpose.

So it's got a place. The next thing is that marriage

has a purpose and that is that we are given friendship, we

produce fruit, the joy of having kids, and we experience God's

forming. He shapes us and he molds us and

he makes us more like him through this beautiful

relationship of marriage. I'm going to get to the purpose

of marriage in the next part, but do do you see that those

three things? So we have this incredible

friendship in our marriage, but when we when we look at

eternity, there is a a friendship with God, an absolute

perfect. I mean, our minds can't conceive

it, but but in our hearts we believe and we look at this

future perfect fellowship with the almighty God that we get to

call Father and we will still won't know one another, but not

as met like underneath. And I will know one another in

our resurrected bodies. We'll know that there was this

life that we had, but we won't be married in heaven because

this temporal marriage will be replaced with a new marriage.

And I mean, this is kind of almost joking between the two is

like, oh, I'd love to be married, you know, with you for

all eternity. It's like it's so cool if we

just continued, but we just keep reminding ourselves actually

what we will have there because this earthly marriage is just a

shadow of the marriage to come. That marriage will be so

amazing. It will supersede over shadow.

I don't even know what the right words is.

This temple marriage that we now have and will be married to the

king, the banquet of the lamb. That's all we got to keep

looking at. So the need for friendship.

So the purpose of marriage in this life, you know, friendship,

but that friendship goes to a whole new level with our

friendship of God and friendship with one another.

So that friendship aspect of marriage, that purpose that it

serves here won't be needed there because things will

basically be at a whole new level.

Fruit. Think about that.

No need for children. No one's dying, no need to

replace anyone. There's no no need for kids

being born temporal. It's part of this life.

What part of that life and the forming, the shaping, the

sanctifying reality of us growing in likeness.

Well, when we get to heaven and we are with them, we will be

perfect. There won't be need for shaping

and molding and forming because God will make us in his

likeness. So all the purposes of marriage

that we have in this temporal state, there's no need for that

there. But it does have a purpose.

Yeah. We're going to look at purpose

just now. Before I get there, I want to

say how should we respond knowing that we're going to have

a perspective for our marriage and that it falls in the the

great story of God's redeeming work and the eternity that we

have with him. Don't let a God thing capital G

become a God thing lowercase G. When marriage becomes an idol,

it becomes the thing that we we put before our relationship with

God. Don't allow that which was

intended to be sacred. And by sacred, I mean the thing

that connects you to God to be the thing that disconnects you

from God. That's what happened with that

Lady that I was sharing just now.

Like her marriage became so much about the marriage, the sacred

element of being drawn into a closer walk with God.

The complete opposite happened because she had made a God

thing, a God-given reality, the beauty of marriage that comes

from him. She had turned it into a God

thing. It's like that's what my life is

about. I want a happy marriage.

This is what we're working on. And and every time I'm opening

my Bible, I'm praying and I'm asking God to help me and my

marriage and to save my marriage.

And it was all about my marriage.

Marriage has got a place. Got to make sure that we're

serving his purpose. And as a result of that allow

him. It's all that Scripture says,

seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be

added unto you. So worry about all these things

all the time. Seek His Kingdom, allow that

eternal perspective, the very thing that He is on about, this

Kingdom advancing the reality of a renewed earth and a new

heaven, and Him restoring all things to himself.

Let that thing be the thing that fuels us while we love, while we

have great marriages, because it's serving that purpose.

Our earthly marriage is just a shadow of our marriage in

heaven, and let's let it always be that.