Session 1: The Promise for Marriage

Let's kick off by talking about covenant, talking about the

promise for marriage. We'll see.

Paul quotes a verse from Genesis where it says for this reason,

verse 31, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother

and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

You see these three things that takes place.

There is a leading your parents, there's a cleaving the the King

James versions probably got the best word to describe it, a

gluing with another. And then there's a oneness that

flows from that and it finds its way in intimacy and living your

life as this one flesh. But there's the order.

So if you ever talk to someone and they start to ask you

questions around six and six within marriage, outside of

marriage, like just understand there's an order.

Got to put an order in place. You leave your parents, then you

cleave covenantally and then the oneness starts, then the one

flesh, the intimacy. So just as a as a way of

answering that question, you want to go against God's order.

Well, then the unexpected things are going to go well with that

relationship. You want to stay to God's order.

He's got a way in which this unpacks.

And so this cleaving it finds its way in the day that we stand

with a pastor and we are LED in this exchanging of our vows.

To be honest, I don't think I knew what I was doing when I

exchanged vows with Antonette. I mean, I was so taken by the

beauty of this incredible lady who had said yes to me.

And that's like, man, I'm actually like, I'm marrying her.

This is absolutely the post is kind of going through the vows.

I'm saying after him. I like, yo, whatever, man, Let's

just let's just get to the good stuff.

But you know that my understanding of the vows have

grown since then and what I actually said on that day and

how it's actually just penetrated my heart more and

more. And I've just seen how God has

actually put his covenant for reality in both of our hearts

over a period of time. But now when I sit with guys who

are about to get marriage, and certainly when I do the marriage

and or the the wedding itself, and we do like the pre marriage

discussions, this is the thing I go for the most.

Like the rest of the stuff and the rest of the sessions.

We, you know, you kind of cover that and you work that out once

you're married. But if you know what you are

getting into on the day and what that day is about, then you'll

take things way more seriously. And, and you know that when you

get to that moment when the exchanging of the vows take

place, as much as that's the part that costs you the least,

doesn't cost you anything. You've played like top dollar

for photographers venue, like the money has just been invested

in everything else. But actually that's all there

for that moment when you exchange your vows.

That's what the day is about. And the vows has got 2

components. There's a vertical component and

then there's a horizontal component.

So the vertical is the first section there where the pastor

would ask, will you take to be your wife or to be your husband?

Do you promise that you will love, cherish, honor and

protect? That's the that's the moment

where the couple is standing shoulder to shoulder and facing

the pastor. So they're not looking at one

another yet. So who they're promising to God.

So that's your covenant with God in that moment.

There's a vertical covenant. You are saying to God, the

question is being asked by the pastor, but it's a delegated

authority. And you're saying to God, I

promise to love this person that you're giving me in the

following way. So your covenant with God in

that moment and there's a whole bunch of witnesses to see all

that happening. And then from there the pastor

will say, well, why don't you 2 of you just face one another,

take one another by the right hand and exchange the following

vows and say after me. That's the horizontal component.

And the thing that I want to highlight with this is the tone

of it is the future. You notice there's nothing about

like what you're committing to for the now.

It's I will, it's, it's a future promise.

So I'm, I'm making an appointment with you for every

day of our lives, for the rest of our lives.

This is a future thing. This is what I'm committing to.

Page 7. Let's talk about what is

covenant. Covenant is the very thing that

underpins our relationship with God and it underpins our

relationship with our marriage partner.

You don't know the the significance of this.

The basis of our redemption is that God enters into a covenant

with us. We see it in Genesis 15.

Rob actually spoke about it earlier.

So this entering of a covenant, I mean, in ancient times they

had it a lot worse than what we do today in terms of ceremony.

I mean, it all comes down to the heart.

So it's OK. But how they would enter into a

covenant And and that's not even just limited to weddings.

When David and Jonathan entered into a covenant with one

another, there was like serious stuff that went down.

You know, they would start by taking their robe off and giving

it to one another. And this this was their way of

saying all of who I am, I give to you.

So I'm taking of who I am and I'm giving it to you.

And and that's mutual. So I'm getting a robe back, and

then they would take their belts off and they would give the

belts to one another, not because that went with the robe,

but because that's what carried the weaponry.

So it's like I'm giving you my protection.

I'm giving you my ability to protect you, to keep you.

They would do a cutting of a covenant, taking an animal,

cutting it down the middle with the one side on an incline and

the other side on another incline and the and with like

the open side facing up. And the blood would kind of just

from either side. I mean, it's in graphic.

We just got to love for the ancient times and where they did

things. And the blood would kind of flow

from either side down into the middle of a little valley where

the two of them would stand back-to-back.

And they would walk around the animal piece and then meet one

another over here. And.

And if that person did the same, what, what figure would they be

doing? Figure 8, which stands for.

Yeah, That's a symbol for Infinity.

So they say for the race to like, this is not going to stop.

This is This Is Us now. Like we are covenantal partners.

But as I'm walking past this animal, what I'm saying is if I

break my promise of today, May, what happened to this animal

happened to me, The gravity of it, Yeah, that's where I'm like

kind of saying the way in which we do weddings nowadays,

certainly in a Westernized way. It's like you, you get so

swooped up with the fanfare, there's almost like a wish we

could go back to the reality of what happened then that you

could kind of see that gravity or what's taking place.

It is weighty, but it's glorious.

It's not like weighty in a feel. It's like a waiting man.

I'm actually exchanging this promise to this person and then

they would exchange names. The middle name would go to the

the other partner and become their last name and their middle

name would come to this partner. And so this exchanging of names

and the would just be ratified with so many different things.

They would plant a tree and take the blood and sprinkle it on the

tree. I mean, the imagery of all of it

as the rest of scripture plays out.

You can just see it, the shedding of the blood and just

absolutely beautiful, beautiful pictures.

And then they would end with this taking bread and wine and

just kind of this is who we are, Covenantalina, covenantal

partners. And they would also cut their

hands, right hands where they would take one another by the

right hand, which is incidentally where shaking of

hands come from. And they would let the blood

intermingle. But I love the Bible.

There's covenant. And then they would take wood

ash and they would put wood ash in the scar, not because they

had medicinal properties, but because it would it would leave

this very bad scar. And it was their way of a

reminder for covenant. It's a reminder.

It's a reminder for me. But if anyone came anywhere near

them and was encroaching in terms of like that here comes

problems that would lift their hand up to say, if you take me

on, you're not just taking on me.

They'll be able to see all this scar.

It's a covenant called partner. It's beautiful covenant and and

then God enters into a covenant with Abraham.

We were reading in Genesis 50. And what does he start with?

Say he says Abraham or actually Abraham, I'm your shield, your

very great reward. God was taking his robe off and

he was taking his belt off, and then they cut the animals out

and in the moment where they meant to now walk the Figure 8,

he puts Abraham to sleep because Abraham didn't have anything to

do with that covenant cutting. Scripture talks about a smoking

pot and a firing torch that just moved between the animal pieces.

I believe there was Jesus. Jesus is God and Jesus is man

cutting the covenant on behalf of God and on behalf of man.

And then God says to Abraham, Abraham, I want to change your

name to Abraham. He takes the H out of his name,

Yahweh, the original vernaculars, YHWH, and he puts H

into Abraham's name. You'll now be Abraham and your

wife won't be Sarah anymore, she'll be Sarah.

And it's just in this covenant. And then the demonstration of

that covenant for the rest of Scripture, we see it unfold

where Jesus is the sacrifice. His blood is shed to make this

promise a reality and we've got to know that God has obligated

Himself to us in covenant. So I put my faith in that

obligation and that He is faithful to His promise.

That's why I can say I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you. I will be your God, you will be

my people. I will never leave here.

I will never forsake you because he's entered into a covenant

with us and He's given of himself to us.

He's demonstrated to this and he gives it to Abraham.

And Abraham, in that moment it says in Scripture, Abraham

believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

It's the foundation of how we come to faith.

We just believe so we don't have to get up and be do any of the

covenant cutting. We don't have to be a part of it

because the covenant has been established while we asleep

while we have absolutely nothing to do.

And then he says to Abraham and it will be for all of yours.

I mean, growing up, I used to read I used to sing this song.

I don't know how many of you in Sunday school were growing up in

church would know the song. Father Abraham had many sons.

Who knows that? I was saying with many sons that

Father Abraham, I have one of them, and so are you.

So let's just praise the Lord. Yeah.

Yeah. I got them going now.

I mean, when I used to sing it, I was like, I thought my dad's

name is Gerald. What the heck?

I had no idea what I was singing.

It was like we sang the song, but no one explained it to me.

But now I can't answer a son of Abraham.

He's the father of that faith. And it applies to me now because

I have believed and it has been credited to me as righteousness.

God's righteousness is mine. And this covenant takes place

and then God says when you marry, I want you in to enter

into a covenant with one another.

Your hearts must do the exact same.

Take off your robe, take off your belt, give your name to one

another, have the same name. Just this beautiful, beautiful

demonstration of love that God would obligate himself.

He would commit himself with his character of absolute

faithfulness that he would never change his mind.

He would never go back on what he's promised.

I will never leave you. I will never forsake you, but he

demonstrates it to us in Jesus. And then this Genesis 2

Scripture. I like the King James version

because of that word cleave. You know that cleave means

gluing. It's a, it's a glue, a gluing

and it takes place, which is why God hates divorce.

I hate it when people talk about the God hating divorce in a way

that he is a judging cross, angry, whatever God that's I

hate divorce. You're not allowed to divorce.

You don't understand what he knows what covenant's about.

He knows that cleaving is gluing and if you've ever glued 2

things together and then you pull it apart, you know what it

looks like. It's his heart for us.

It's I hate the force, but I realize that when you come to to

a place of covenant, you are gluing yourself to another.

There's a oneness that's taking place.

So when you pull that thing apart, people get hurt.

The ripple effect is there's a ripping, there's a tearing.

Things just go crazy after this. And then the restoration is

there, and God will restore and He'll help us.

But we've wrapped the gluing aspect on it.

So for us, we're going to know that the essence of marriage,

what it actually is about, is a sacrificial commitment to the

good of the other. All of who I am, I give to you

my ability to protect you, my ability to to to look after you,

to love you in a certain way, to honor and to cherish you see its

focus to the other. That means that love is more

fundamentally action than emotion, That the good of the

relationship takes precedence over the immediate needs of the

individual. It's amazing how our immediate

needs, our own needs is the thing that we typically go to

That's we, we're most geared. I mean, naturally, that's just

what comes the most naturally to us is to look after ourselves.

Covenant is to look after the other and to do it in a way that

demonstrates it, not just a promise on the day, but you

demonstrate it just like God demonstrated with Jesus.

So it's established in a promise.

I mean, if we do summarize the vows, that would basically be I

promise to love you no matter what for the rest of our lives.

That's what your hearts say. This covenant gets established

in that promise. And we need to be able to say, I

mean, when I listen to covenantal language in the Bible

and then I think of my covenant with Antonette that I can adopt

that same language and I can say, well, I will be your

husband and you will be my wife. I will never leave here.

I will never forsake you and my language to her.

I might not use that exact language, but my language to her

needs to be of that and she needs to feel safe in that.

And she can respond with that same language to me and I can

feel safe in it. So I feel safe in God's covenant

because of his promise to me. And He's obligated himself to

me, and He's already demonstrated that love to me in

a way that I can rest in that. That's the beauty of the gospel.

Just rest in it. We can rest in the covenant that

we have made with one another and demonstrate it through

action, not just something that we said a long time ago.

You know, there's a wife that complained to her husband saying

you never, you never say that you love me.

And he said, well, I said it on our wedding day.

If anything changes, I'll let you know.

You know, that's our main thing. Anything changes, I'll let you

know. Now we need to ongoingly.

So here's here's what it is as far as vows.

It's not a declaration of present love.

It's a promise of future love. I love interacting with the

groom just before they get married because what will come

out of that? Because obviously that's how

you're feeling. It's like you're not nervous and

like we waiting for the whole procession to start and but the

thing they're most nervous for is the speech at the ceremony

and the first dance. It's like we've been practicing

and I don't know, I'm going to mess it up.

It's like I put you've forgotten what we spoke about in our

premarys courses. You should be nervous about the

vows that you're getting into you.

That's what it sits where the gold lies because the the speech

at A at a ceremony, that's the declaration of present love.

You know, it's like, oh, you're so amazing and yadda yadda,

whatever. Fish based, but but we ought to

realize that the promise of future love is actually the key

moment in that day. I mean, it's for the day that

you both well into your 80s sitting on your veranda or

whatever, dunking biscuits in tea or or coffee long enough so

that it doesn't hurt your teeth when you bite into it, but not

that long that it falls into your couple.

That's a that's an art that over the span of 4050 years of

marriage, you get it right. But it's in that moment, As for

that moment that on your wedding day saying I promise to love you

till that day, every day till that day and beyond.

That's why the vows is worded the way it's worded until death

do us part. It's that day.

So I'm promising for that future and I'm going to play it out.

I'm going to live it out every day for the rest of our lives.

What a glorious reality. Let's talk about what it's not.

What is covenant not? Well, it's not contractual.

Got to know this is, it's not a contractual thing.

There is a marriage contract at play.

So you, you draw up a contract because that's kind of the, the

legal requirements and, and we submit to that as well.

But when you, when you read through a contract and you're a

party in that contract, how do you read the contract?

Through what lens, from your point of view, what does this

mean for me? And as I read it, it's like, no,

I don't like that clause because that clause means that if this

happens, then bad for me. And actually I want this changed

because good for me. So it's not contractual.

Covenant is all about you. What's in it for you?

How does this affect you? I'm in this relationship for you

and we think contractually. So we go into this relationship,

we do our vows, not 100% sure what we said on the day, but as

it starts playing out, we start asking questions like whoa, but

how does this affect me? Actually, it's not about you

because that's not the relationship that you entered

into. This is a opposite of

contractual relationship. This is a covenant or

relationship. We've got to remind ourselves of

this. That's sacrificial.

Your needs. Contractual is selfish, single

one is not consumeristic, it's not a consumeristic

relationship. So, so consumeristic

relationship is based on a principle, covenant is based on

a promise. So the principle of of a

consumer mindset is a bargaining principle and you get like a a

vendor acceptable cost relationship.

So if I have a, a contract with the cell phone provider, it

costs me, but I'm getting a service for it.

And, and if the service that I get for it is of such a nature

that I start comparing to others and I look at, I say, oh,

actually for the same cost, I can get a better service.

Then I just jump ship. I mean, there's no loyalty

there, all right. Or if I can get the same service

elsewhere, but it'll cost me less, I jump ship.

Let's consumer minded thinking, but covenant is promise.

So like, what is this costing me?

What am I getting out of it? Sorry for you.

You promised go back to your promise because you promised.

So you did you promised God and you promised your marriage

partner and you did it in front of 100 people and it cost you

200,000 grand to do it or whatever.

But you see, that's that that's when you when you think

consumeristic, there's no obligation for you to stay.

When you think of an ently, the obligation is for you to stay.

You're obligated to stay because you promised you entered into a

covenant. So when Jesus was on the cross,

he could have at any point in time just called on the angels.

So listen, I'm jumping ship here.

This is not quite working for me right now, and as I look upon

everyone, but with all the beatings and the spitting and

the cursing and the ridiculing, I just don't feel like this.

Did he say that he stayed? He obligated himself, He stayed.

Marriage is about staying based on a promise, a covenantal bond.

It's all about why it works. Why works is because it starts

off with this incredible expression of love.

It's the greatest expression of love.

So you meet your your marriage partner and you start going out

and you get to a point where you're getting engaged, but

that's the stage. You've got to know the other

person. It's like the gods start to go

down a little. It's like at first, it's best

foot forward, but it's just a matter of time.

I mean, it's like you, you can't, you can't keep up that

facade. So like the real you is going to

come out and then you get to know there's a couple of flaws

in this other person. I mean, Antonette got to know

there's a couple of flaws in me. I only found one in her prior to

our marriage. But it's kind of like a hint

there's more, but and like as the tough times come, it's going

to get even Wilder. But for you to know that and the

reality of that and still then say, I'm binding myself to you.

I'm obligating myself to you. I'm committing to you in such a

way that that doesn't matter what frauds come out.

It doesn't matter what gets exposed over a period of time.

I'm loving you that much that this is my expression of love to

you. I'm covenanting with you.

You see, the the Hollywood thing that we always hear is I don't

need the piece of paper to show how much I love you.

You heard that one. We don't need the piece of

paper. Everything just gets complicated

with a piece of paper. I don't need the piece of paper

to show how much I love you. You know what they actually say?

I don't love you enough to bring the piece of paper in because

I'm actually keeping my options open.

Because without the piece of paper, you, you get into an

argument with me on a Friday night, Saturday morning, I'm

moving my stuff out. So bringing in the piece of

paper is this greatest expression of love.

It's saying from this day, for the rest of our lives, I'm going

to love you in this way. You don't get a better and a

greater expression of love with a horizontal relationship than

that. That's what makes marriage so

glorious. So secondly, it protects us from

running out. I think that's something of

God's Providence. You know, when you when you get

married and on that day, it's amazing how we people get, we

get people joining our church and then they like a couple of

weeks in and they come to the front and they chatting to one

of the elders and like, OK, so hi, so This Is Us.

And so we're getting married. And then I'm like, oh boy, here

we go. Rent a poster because I've never

seen them before. Like how long have you been

through? So I don't know.

No, we've been coming for the last six weeks.

Do you know why they want God's blessing like everyone wants a

pastor to marry them. They don't understand it.

They don't really know. They can't explain what, but

they know they need a pastor. They don't want to just go to

the courts. I mean, you have the

conversation with this. Lucky you go to the courts far

the marriage officers there they can just no, no, no, no, no, no,

but we need a pastor. They don't even know why they're

saying it, but there's a desire for God's blessing over their

marriage. And when you come under that

kind of blessing, it keeps you because you know, I'm under the

Providence of God. The other thing is that it's

public. So if we're going to end this,

guess what? It's going to go public.

That's why we have a whole bunch of witnesses.

The second last wedding I did, I love the speech of the of the

bridegroom. He gets up and he says, I just

want to thank all of you for being here and I'm inviting all

of you to speak into my life because I've just covenanted

with my wife. And if any of you ever see me

not living up to that promise, I want you to tell me.

I said something like this. I'm premier is counseling that

we got right because he got it. He got it.

But it's public like witnesses. So it's God's design.

It's his genius. I mean the covenants of old

David and Jonathan were always witness.

There was always a witness. It's hopeful.

So you're not going to get married in a corner where no one

knows about it. And that if if, if it doesn't

work out, no one's going to know if it doesn't work out like it

brings it into a public space, keeps you keeps you there.

And also it's a personal promise.

So if I, I go back on this, what does it mean?

It's like my integrity has been tapped into.

This is God's genius #3 it brings security that allows for

a level of vulnerability and honesty.

So it says in Genesis about Adam and Eve and they were both naked

and they felt no shame. That was God's original intent.

It's always been his intention. We can have vulnerability, we

can have honesty. It's it's not a prison.

I mean, that's like the standing joke in terms of marriage.

You know, it's kind of like this ball and Jane in prison.

I mean, I always laugh at it because I'm finding the irony in

it because it's the complete opposite to not be in it is

prison. Think about when you first

dated. That was prison.

I mean, it's like you've got to be on your best behavior the

whole time. And that's not the license for

you to go all wild after you are married.

But but you know, it's like trying to always put your best

foot forward and you can't be vulnerable and you can't let

your guard down. And it brings security.

It offers stability. I love the the wording of the

vows. You know, it's like doesn't

matter the circumstance, for better or for worse, richer or

poorer, it's not based on circumstance.

It's not based on seasons that we're going through because we

all go through seasons. I had a quote once of a guy that

said my wife's been married to five different men and they were

all me. Because you change.

I mean, the person that I am today is not the guy that my

wife married. It's like I'm a different man.

Like we, we go through seasons and to know that through those

seasons, it's like the covenant is what's holding it together

that gives stability to us. It's like it's, it's grounded in

something that is God-given and it's God's design and he knows

best. So when he says the best way for

you to be in a marriage is for it to be based on covenant, then

we got to know that we can trust them because he's the one that's

designed us. I love this quote by Tom Keller.

He says when over the years someone has seen you at your

worst and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet

commits him or herself to you holy, it's a consummate

experience. To be loved but not known is

comfort, comforting but superficial.

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear, but to be fully

known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.

It is what we need more than anything.

It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self

righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can

throw at us. What an incredible description

of covenant. So how does it work?

The covenant bond is unchanging. I watched a video clip of three

3 theologians, kind of like modern day, like top of their

game, DA Carson, John Piper, Tom Killer, The three of them

sitting around the table talking about what sustains a marriage

and all three of them agree with 116 years of experience at that

moment of the conversation, accumulated experience, 116

years worth of marriage. They all agree covenant.

That's what keeps a marriage together.

That's what sustains the marriage because it's the only

thing that does not change. Everything else changes.

Feelings change, affections change, our state of living

changes. The economy crashes and and we

get retrenched. I mean, it's like all those

things, but we made a promise. The promise doesn't change.

It's the thing that we keep going back to.

So the covenant is, is a as a reality that we got to know is

the thing that we we keep going back to you because it's the

only thing that is guaranteed not to change.

And the covenant is decision. The covenant is action.

The covenant is I've promised you my decision and, and my my

commitment to you is what fuels me is what it work is what sets

the course for how I live. And I'm constantly acting out

that love to you. So irrespective of the season,

irrespective of circumstance, it doesn't really matter.

I'm loving you in this way through all of those seasons,

through all of those circumstance.

So it's a decision to love. Decisions of love are expressed

in actions of love. And actions of love lead to

feelings of love. Now that's a very key thing for

us to get because you might be saying, oh, hold on a second,

this is sounding very mechanical.

So just because I promised, I'm going to stick to their promise

even when I don't feel like an argument.

So I keep doing that thing that I promised that I would do.

It's not mechanical. It's God's design.

And I'm going to ask them today just to share a testimony of her

parents, of how that comes out in actions of love and feelings

of love. But I'm going to tell you a

story about my parents. I love telling this story

because it really explains the point that we want to bring

across. Well, so my my mum and dad were

married for about 30-6 years before she passed away.

And at that time the marriage was really in a good place.

But that wasn't always the case. When I was in high school, they

really struggled their marriage and it wasn't something

specific. I think they just grew apart

over the years. My mom had four kids in five

years and my dad really worked hard.

He travelled a lot. He was building up a business.

And then something happened that I believe God allowed in his

absolute perfect wisdom. She broke her ankle, but it was

really, really a bad break. She wasn't allowed to stand on

it or walk on her on her legs with do any movement for about 3

months. So by default my dad became her

legs and he served her. He will carry her to the bath

and back and he will run all the errands and he will take her to

the shops and and he literally became her legs for three months

that he just served her and did everything for her.

He had to cancel meetings. He did everything for us as

kids. And you know what, slowly but

surely something started to happen.

They started falling in love again.

And for us, for kids, it was the most beautiful thing to see.

And the point that I'm going to make with this is that actions

of love leads to feelings of love, actions of love leads to

feelings of love. So my dad's emotions and

feelings caught up with these actions and in return, my mom's

heart softened. And she said to me, yeah, I I

cannot believe what's what's happening to me.

It's like I'm seeing him again, this beautiful man that I

married many years ago and and it was real.

In Ephesians, we see that Paul command husbands to love their

wives. Now you can't command a feeling.

So he's talking about an action here.

He commands an action of love. You know, in today, in today's

world, we fall in love and we we love, we marry our lover.

But in Paul's days, most marriages were arranged by the

parents. And So what Paul is saying here

that marriage is the basis for love, not the way we do it, not

love is the basis for marriage. So yes, we have that initial

attraction and we fall in love and but that is not sustainable

that those feelings of romance and and affection is just not as

sustainable. But the good news is that your

actions of love is you can sustain that you can make that

promise and every day serve one another.

And you know what's the beautiful thing?

Then what's happening is your feelings doesn't just catch up.

It goes way beyond your initial feeling.

That is God's design. So I mean, if I look at Adrian

now, I'm what I feel for him now is way, way more, it's on a just

on a different level than when I walk down the aisle.

I cannot explain it. I mean, when I when I married

him on that day, I really thought so.

I can't love anyone else more than I love this man.

But now it is, it is completely on a different level.

And I believe it'll still grow until we dunk our risks

together. So that excuse of that we've

heard many times is I just don't love her anymore.

I just don't love him anymore is not valid.

So the good news is it's this hope.

There's hope for even the most hopeless situations, you know?

And that's exactly what happened to my mom and dad.

I mean, that last year before she passed away, my dad just

served her once again. He had to inject her every day.

She died of leukemia, so she was really sick and he was just by

her bedside looking after caring for her.

You know what? I've never ever seen a bond

between two people like I saw in that year.

I cannot even describe it in words.

She whenever she wanted to watch TV, she will go and sit on his

lap and watch TV and, and it's just, and you could just see

there's something else that's happening there.

So I want to encourage you guys go back to that day where you

you made your promise to one another and rather they let that

influence your actions then relying on your feelings.

So if you think of when, when a baby is born and your, your

feelings of love towards a baby, I mean, despite the fact that it

comes out incredibly angry that this is what is wrong with

babies, but but it's, it's A1 directional relationship that I

mean, for the first 2-3 years, you get nothing.

For those of you who's babies are still on the way you have

you get nothing. They give you nothing.

It's dirty nappies. Take, take, take.

I'm hungry, feet wake up through the night.

It's like crazy. 1 directional love, but it's a love that's

expressed in action because there's no one else.

Just like 24/7. There's no one else to serve the

baby. There's no one else to look

after the baby. It's you as parents, it's you.

And when you love in that way, I mean think about it, three years

later, how do you love that baby?

One directional. They've done nothing for you.

Absolutely nothing. A few goo goo gagas and smiley

faces and looking silly with one tooth.

But apart from that, they've done nothing.

But yet you love them in a way that you cannot describe.

It's God's design. The more you serve, the more you

act in love. Your feelings just goes way

beyond your actions. It's the way God designed it.

Or you must say, well, it's it's your own child.

I mean, when the when my babies were born, I love there was the

fruit of my loins. But actually it was true for my

first two boys. And then we adopted a little

girl and it was exactly the same with Rosie.

Didn't come from me, didn't come from Internet.

There's a stranger in our house, but you know what?

We covenanted with her. We obligated his ourselves to

her. We gave her our name and we

served her. And our actions of love have got

us to a point now where we love this little girl as though the

adoption never took place. She's my daughter.

I love her. It's God's design.

Act out your covenant. Don't worry about the feelings.

Act it out because your feelings will just come with.

So the lines there is the covenant exists irrespective of

feelings and the covenant exists for the sake of feelings.

And while I'm talking about kids, here's my caution to you

because over a period of 20 years, SO doesn't just stop at

three, you continue to serve your kids and love on them and

do things for them. You're picking them up at school

and taking them to soccer practice.

And that's just an ongoing serving.

And 20 years later, this incredible love has just gone

through the roof. But over the same 20 years span,

you've kind of forgotten your promise to your marriage

partner. And over the same time period

that love has grown cold because you just look past one another.

And we just I go to work and honor the kids, but we love our

kids in in action and indeed, and the love goes through the

roof, but our marriage partner gets the drakes.

But I know that the marriage is more important than the child

parent relationship. Well, that's what God says you

leave your parents. So know the child that you are

rearing at the moment. They're going to leave you then

what? Emptiness syndrome.

Now it's all awkward because it's just you and me, baby.

And like I've got nothing. Don't let your kids take that

priority. Yes, love your kids, serve them,

act in covenantal ways to them, but don't forget your covenantal

partner. Serve them, love them in action.

And indeed, did you bon offer when he married a couple?

He said this. The covenant from this day

forward sustains the love. Not the love, the covenant.

We get that completely upside down.

We think it's the love that's going to keep us together.

No, it's not. It's the covenant that keeps you

together and it's the covenant that keeps the love between the

two of you. Let's see Ephesians 5 texts.

I love the way it's written in that Paul speaks about husbands

love your wives in verse 25. There's a mutuality and how he's

phrasing it so it applies to wives as well.

But he's talks about how we are to love in this sacrificial in

this for your benefit kind of way.

And then I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but he

quotes the Genesis to leave your parents scripture or verse.

But he says this, which is not in Genesis to he says for this

reason, for this reason, underline it, a man will leave

his father and his mother. So what he's saying is there's a

certain love that is expected of you as marriage partners.

And in order for you to reach to that kind of love, to fulfil

that kind of love, it requires A covenantal bond.

So this is how you 2 love one another.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother

and cleave to his wife because covenant is necessary.

God's telling us the very thing that requires or that that that

institutes this sacrificial love, this loving one another in

a way where it's for the benefit of the other, is this thing

called covenant. And God is saying the promise

that you've made is the thing that will keep you to your dying

die. Don't let your feelings rule.

Don't let your situation or your circumstances rule.

Don't don't let the the, the, the lost affection or the the

reality of things running dry. Be the thing that you go to.

You go back to your covenant. You go back to the promise that

you made. And when you acted out,

everything comes back into play, just like it happened with

Antonette's mom and dad Action, covenantal action based on the

decision, based on a promise. That's what keeps it together.