God's View on Marriage || Pastor Adam Mesa

Welcome to the ALSC podcast. Here at ALC, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. Well, I'm excited. We're about to dig in the

Word today and I want to encourage you as you have your Bible or you

maybe it's in your phone. Today, we're gonna be in Genesis chapter twenty

seven, so pretty easy to find you. Just if you got a physical

Bible, go to the first book. It's gonna be the first book that

you open, or you can pull out your smartphone and we're gonna be in

Genesis twenty seven. We'll be there in a few moments. But I'm just

going to encourage you and kind of tell you ahead of time is we're gonna

share. We're starting a series over the next four weeks that we're called God's

Favorite Marriages. Not the fact that God has favorites. It's the fact that

a marriage that comes under the eye of God and the covenant with God begins

to see favor in their lives. A covenant between God and his bride means

that we can see God more active in our marriage. And I know about

you but I want to marriage that has God in the middle. I don't

want a godless marriage, and I don't want a lifeless marriage. God is

a God of life, and so I want a life, full of life

marriage in my life. And so I just want to preempt you. At

the beginning of service, and we first service, we saw such a move

from God and so and so I think it even took me back for a

moment. But at the end of service, I'm gonna encourage some people and

we'll get to that moment. But I'm gonna encourage some individuals to come to

the altar that are believing God for some things in their marriage. And the

reason why I'm telling you ahead of time is because I want you to open

your heart to this. Okay, I've been that person before that didn't feel

like I needed to take a step of faith, and I would say things

like, well, God knows my heart. God knows that I want a

better marriage. But I believe that as you study the Bible, God will

ask you to do things that take you out of your comfort zone so that

you get out of yourself and you trust God more. And so there's gonna

be a reason at the end of service for many of you that as you

feel the Spirit talking to you in your spouse and even if you're not married,

this is going to talk to you as well, that I'm gonna encourage

you to exercise your faith and come to the altar. Okay, And there's

nothing special with the altar. You could do these things in your home,

but what the altar represents is you activating your faith and trust in God and

saying, God, I'm doing something I don't normally do to exercise my trust

and my faith in you. Okay. So I just want to tell you

ahead of time to open your heart for whatever the Lord is gonna minister to

you in the area of your relationships, whether you're single, divorced, widowed,

or married. I believe God is gonna minister to you. We did

this first service, we had no more room at the altar, were just

totally blown away by how God was moving and so I don't expect anything different

from what God's gonna do during this second service, and so I'm just looking

forward to how God speaks to us today. So if you're ready, we're

going to turn to Genesis chapter twenty seven and dig right in. And if

you're ready, and you got your bible open. You're ready life, get

the screen. Would you stand today with me for the honor of reading God's

word. We merely stand just to show God that his word is above everything

else and has our full attention. And here's what it says. In Genesis

twenty seven one to ten, when Isaac was old and his eyes were dim

so that he could not see, he called Esaul, his older son,

and said to him, my son, And he answered, here I am

He said, behold, I am old. I do not know the day

of my death. Now, then take your weapons, your quiver and your

bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. And

prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me

so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.

Now. Rebecca, his wife, was listening when Isaac spoke to his

son Esau. So when Esau went out to the field, hup for game

and bring it, Rebeccah said, and ran to her son, Jacob,

I heard your father speak to your brother. Bring me game, and prepare

for me delicious food that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord

before I die. Now, Therefore, my son, obey my voices.

I command you go to the flock and bring me two young goats. Said,

I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he

loves, and you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that

he may bless you before he dies. Let's pray this morning, God,

we thank you so much for your word. Lord. I pray that as

your word is open today, may the Spirit of God move and speak to

us today. Father God. We have our arts, hearts and our ears

open today, Lord, to receive everything that you have to speak to us.

Father God, and I pray Lord that may for just a moment we

all put our own intuitions, our own opinions to the side to hear your

word today as it goes forth God in Jesus' name, a man, you

may be see that God bless you. Now. In just a moment,

we'll get into the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. You know, Isaac is

the son of Abraham. And if you caught what we just read, there's

two twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau is older by just a few

seconds, but he is the older brother, and Jacob is the younger twin

brother. And it just so happens that before Isaac is about to die,

he wants to bless the oldest son with all of his finances, all of

his estate, and all of his blessing. His wife, who's not in

agreement that it goes to Esau goes to the brother and says, let us

go lie to your father so that you can get the blessing and not your

brother. And so here what we see what happens immediately is a marriage that's

not on one accord that this marriage is full of Each parent has their own

favorites. Each parent has one child that they prefer over another child. They're

clearly not communicating. Isaac and Rebecca are not communicating in any way. And

we're gonna see what happens. Number one, how did their marriage start?

But also what happens the moment that a marriage starts to disunify from each other.

What happens after that we're going to see today as we open the Bible.

But what we have to see on the front end is what is God's

intention for marriage? What is God looking at when it comes to marriage.

If you go and study most sociologists, what they believe is that God through

the Hebrew people invented the idea of marriage for many generations and many nationalities.

The idea of how we see marriage today was not really in existence. It

wasn't until God truly began to visit Abraham did we start to see how marriage

is seen today. So, for all intents and purposes, God invented the

marriages that we see today. So if God invented marriage, then what I

want to do is I want to know from the creator what is the purpose

of marriage and how can I do it best? Only the inventor of things

knows how to do what they created best. And so when we want to

lean in over the next four weeks is to say, God, if you

gave humanity marriage, then how can we operate this at the best possible place.

How can we honor you in our marriage and move forward in our marriage

in a way that is submitted to you. So it's important to know right

away that there are marriages that exist outside of what God created. And here's

what those marriages look like. I'm gonna just draw something for us. So

here's what. Because marriages happen all the time all around the world through people

that know God and don't know God, and so what happens is is you

have the secular term, the one outside of God's care. This is how

marriage is viewed. You have a man and you have a woman and they

come together and they create what they create a contract. That's that's that's modern

day marriage. This is wedding husband wife stuff. A man choose a woman,

woman choose a man. They get married, and what they sign a

contract. Many of us will have been married before. You know, what

happens before that wedding day is thirty days sixty days prior. You go to

the county and what do you pick up? You pick up a marriage license.

It's another way of saying a marriage contract a marriage contract. But how

many of you guys know, just like me, is the moment I get

in a contract. Most of the time, I'm always trying to think about

how I get out of the contract. Okay, I've gotten a lease before

for a car and I did not enjoy the lease on the car. And

I thought to myself, I signed for three years on this lease, but

I only want one year. I don't like this car anymore. How many

of you guys have some type of streaming service. Disney plus Netflix, Amazon

Prime, any of those things. How many of you guys, I'm not

gonna have you show hands because last service people thought that I have the FBI

in here or something. But many of us don't. You all just share

your passwords or use someone else's password all the time. You know, you

open up your Netflix account, ain't even your name of your family on there.

It's a coworker you had five years ago. You just happen to still

have their password. Well, when you sign up for these services, you

sign up when you put agreed to terms and services in there is I won't

share my password with anyone. But because if we're truthful, we really don't

think contracts are all that special. We think that contracts are actually pretty relatively

easy to get out of and easy to break. There's a reason why we

have a lot of divorce rates today, even in the church, because most

of the time we're not operating a godly marriage, we're operating a secular marriage,

which the secular marriage says, all you did was sign a contract.

That's all you did, And the secular view of a relationship is all contractually

based. So guess what a guy meets a girl, what do they do

they get their first house or their first apartment. What happens when you get

your first house or your first apartment. You sign a contract. So he

puts his name on the lease. You put your name on the lease.

There's another contract. You go and get your first car together, your purchase,

your first big purchase together. What do you do? You sign a

contract. There's another contract. You have children together. You start having a

couple kids together. Within the hour that your child is born. What happens.

The nurse comes in with a little piece of paper and they have you

sign a contract. Put the child's name, who's the father, who's the

mother, and what's your signature. So all we're used to most of the

time is when we fall in love. Most of the progression of love is

contractually based. And that's why when approach Jesus is approached with the idea of

marriage and they throw the term divorce out there. Jesus kind of makes this

parallel in the New Testament where he says, yeah, there are ways you

could divorce, and it is if it's adultery. If you're viewing it like

Moses taught, and you view it as a law and a contract, then

yes, in your marriage. There are ways to get out of your contract.

That's what Jesus says. He goes, but the way that God gave

it to us is that two become one. And it's really hard that when

something becomes one to separate that from something. So Jesus elevates the idea of

marriage not to no longer just a contract. What does Jesus do, Well,

Jesus operates something here where he says, here's God, here's the man,

here's the woman. And when they get married, they don't sign a

contract. What they do is they make a covenant as very different than a

contract. Covenants. Contracts are physical, it's a piece of paper, it's

something you sign, it's something you strive for. But a covenant it's unseen.

A covenant is a vow. A covenant is a position, a place

that you stand in. It's much harder to flake out on a covenant because

a covenant is a matter of you keeping your word. When you just limit

marriage to just being a contract, a piece of paper, well then it

feels very easy. Well, if I don't want the marriage anymore, all

I gotta do is get that little piece of paper and I gotta rip it

then I'm not married no more. Gotta do a couple things with the court

and some lawyers, but overall we could just this can end within thirty days.

But with God's view of what marriage is as a covenant, he doesn't

view it as something so easily to walk away from. Now, are there

reasons for a divorce to do? Those things happen, Yes, absolutely,

But the reality is when you step into a marriage, you don't step into

the marriage with the idea to say, man, I have no problem divorcing

this person if it don't work out. No one goes into that. I

did. All my years I've been full time ministry now thirteen years. I've

done hundreds of pre marital counseling. I've only ever had one couple that looked

at me when I encourage them to delay their wedding. The the woman looked

across from me from the counseling table and she said, no, we have

the deposit set, we have the date set, and for me, I

don't really have an issue if this doesn't work out to get a divorce.

In all my years, I've only had one person who actually said that prior

to the wedding day. Everyone else said I have no concept or goal that

this marriage doesn't work out. I'm gonna do everything I want. But what

happens. What happens is when we start to step into a wedding, we

step into a marriage together, what we do is we start to lose the

idea of covenant and we start to bring ourselves into contract because we just end

up mirroring everything society mirrors. And so here what happens is, I got

a picture is normally when I do weddings, normally it's the bride who carries

the marriage license, and so you can see she's pointing there for her husband

that she's marrying. Yeah, that's where you sign right there, That's where

you sign your life away. And so normally when I do weddings, it's

usually the bride who's carrying the marriage license because she want to make sure gets

it there to that day. And then she pulls out and then the guy

just stands there and then we point at him and tell him where to sign.

That's kind of the secular view of oh where do I sign? What

do I do? Okay, yeah, yeah, let me just put my

signature. It was important for me that when I married my wife, what

I wanted to do because we were both Christians and we were pursuing the Lord.

We didn't really want that to be a big deal for us. What

we wanted to be a big deal for us was a moment where we dedicated

our marriage to God. That was important for me and my wife. And

so on our wedding day almost nine years ago, we had my father in

law and we had my dad. They prayed over us, and so we

had a moment in our ceremony where we asked them my dad was doing my

wedding, and then my father in law came up and we asked them to

pray a prayer of covenant and blessing over our marriage. And so, unbeknownst

to us and foolishly to us, we thought by doing this when we got

married, there weren't going to be very big problems in our marriage. It

was a very naive thing to do. We thought, oh, okay,

we dedicated our marriage to the Lord. We had our father figures and our

fathers pray over us. We said, God, this is your marriage.

We make a covenant with you, not a contract with you. So therefore

every day we're gonna wake up and it's gonna feel like a movie. That's

what's gonna happen. We just know it. We just know it. And

then sure enough, four months into our wedding, day after our wedding,

so only four months after our wedding. What we didn't realize was about thirty

days prior to our wedding, we had some of our best friends that we

did life with. They had an affair on each other with each other,

and so there was we had multiple friends and this friend who was in a

relationship, this friend was married, and we didn't know that when we were

hanging out together, they were going behind our backs and they were hooking up

with each other, they were sleeping with each other. So there was a

relationship there for We found that out thirty days before our wedding, and so

our whole friendship is all of our friendships people that were in my wedding.

Was just a firestorm of emotions. But these people aren't in our wedding anymore.

This person's not coming to my wedding more. This is this this,

and me and my wife, we just think to ourselves, that's their stuff.

They got to figure out. We're still gonna get married and everything's gonna

be fine. Well, also, what I also knew marrying my wife was

that she had never been in a relationship with a guy where she was never

cheated on. Every relationship she ever had, she had been cheated on by

the guy he had been with, and most of the time she had caught

him with other girls. And so but to me, I'm like, well,

baby, you you lucked out. You married a Christian man who's who's

not gonna do that that like you won the lottery. You you're no longer

with a guy who's gonna do that. Like, That's what I'm thinking.

And so, sure enough, thirty days before our wedding, that issue we

went through, and then some issues my wife had prior to our relationship for

months into our wedding. We're hanging out at a restaurant and we're at a

lobby, and so we're spending the day at this restaurant and Ashley talks to

everyone. She's like a golden retriever, you know, when she sees people,

she she just lights up and she starts talking. So everywhere we go,

she just talks to everybody. So we're at this restaurant and she starts

talking to these group of young people that were like our age and they were

in town for a conference or something like that. And so Ashley excuse herself

from the restroom and she when she leaves, because Ashley was in between me

and that whole group, so she's leaning over talking to them. The moment

Ashley leaves, this girl kind of leans over and she's African American and she's

like, Hey, can I ask you a question my boyfriend, who I'm

dating. We love each other and he's white, Can I ask you a

personal question? You know, if we get married we're gonna be an interracial

relationship. Have you ever had any experiences, like any negative, any positive?

Like what's that? Like? I want to know that if we get

married. So I just look over and I briefly answer her. I'm just

like, yeah, I mean kind of and I've shared a couple of situations

and blah blah blah, but I'm like overall it's okay, and I'm just

encouraging her. And so Ashley comes back and she sits and she looks over

at me and she goes, why were you talking to that girl? And

I'm like, cause you were talking to her for a full hour at lunch,

Like like what do you mean, why am I tid you left?

And she leaned over and she goes, oh, so the moment I leave,

you all of a sudden just start lighting up and talking to girls.

I ain't never seen you talk to her girl. So now I'm thinking,

where the heck is this coming from? Right now? So now through that

whole point, we pay the bill, we're going. We're now in the

lobby, and come on, man, you're married. She's still talking about

it. What other girls have you talked to when I wasn't when I walked

away, I want to know examples. What did you go? And so

now I'm sitting and we're walking in this lobby back to our hotel. Reminder

a true story, Pastor Nathan. My brother and his wife were with us,

and so we're walking in the lobby and here it comes. She says,

See, I just know it's a matter of only a matter of time

until you cheat on me like everyone else has. I turned around, I

said, excuse me, And so now to be truthful, I just start

cussing her out. I just start I just oh this man, this,

I mean, I'm saying everything. Now I'm thinking, okay, we bring

it up stuff, and I was like, hey, let's talk about leading

up to the wedding, how you and your family. And so I'm like,

now everything's coming, Oh, it's out. And so we're in the

elevator yelling and cussing at each other. We're in the lobby and the hallway

walking to our hotel room, cussing and yelling at each other. Someone opens

their door next to our room and they're like, can we can you guys

keep it down now? Look at him and says, shut up and get

back to your room and talk. Go back to and so they get scared

and they close their door. How many y'all know when your emotions are high.

Hey, I was not a youth pass at that time. I wanted

nothing to I was Judas in that moment, I'm throwing everything. I'm fed

up. She's yelling at me up. So we go in the room and

we start now for almost two hours, just yelling at each other, bringing

every baggage up, bringing everything. I'm crying, She's crying, Nathan.

After that he started his nickname for me was Ronnie from the Jersey Shore,

because he said that's what any millennials in here, he said, that's what

you sounded like I was Ronnie. I was crying, I was yelling,

I was throwing stuff, slat and if you know me, that's not my

personality. So she like, talk about someone breaking me. My own wife

broke me. That's not my personality. That's out of my character, that's

not something. And so she pulled the absolute worst out of me because I

love her that much. And in that moment, four months into our marriage,

I went, I left the room. I was so hot. I

left the room. I went on a walk. My brother Nathan went with

me, and I looked at God and I said, God, I don't

want to be married. If this is what marriage looks like, if this

is what you created, then I don't want it. Because I was perfectly

fine. I had something like that had never happened to me emotionally up until

I got married. So I said, God, I don't want this.

If this is what marriage looks like, I think I even pulled out my

phone for a moment, and I said, how long do you have till

you can get out of your marriage? When you got married, Lo and

behold, apparently in the Catholic Church you got like ninety days till you can

get in an omen and I was like, dang, I'm not Catholic and

it's been four months, not three months. So in that moment, I

realized, because I viewed what I did to be a covenant, I realized,

God, I can't walk out of this thing, but I don't enjoy

it. It's not fun. And so I made a commitment in that moment

that I said, God, I want to have a marriage that this does

not happen again. What do I have to do? And so we began

to sit down now and for literally eight hours the next day because it took

overnight for us to calm down. The next day we sat down with Nathan

and Sonas for eight hours and Ashley and I. She hashed out her fears

of what cheating looks like. We talked about our friends that got in that

affair and we didn't realize how much that affected us and gave us fears.

I had to talk about some other things that were bothering me. But normally

I'm a guy. I just put it and I just hide it and I

just tuck it away. And when I didn't realize all that just exploded.

It began eight hours of having to commit and confess to each other, Hey,

this is what I want from our marriage. This is what we need

from our marriage. And it took hard work, but there was a moment.

Proverbs eighteen twenty two says this. Probably eighteen twenty two says he who

finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. And

so, you know, I grew up oftentimes moly in a black church,

and so i'd often hear when i'd see older black men when they introduced their

wife, they would say, I want you to meet my good thing.

I hear that a lot growing up in church, or or i'd hear a

you know, an older single black man say I'm just looking out, I'm

just waiting for my good thing to come across. I thought that was like

ebonics. I thought that was like street talk, like good thing. So

I'd always be like, I'd be like, you could find good things in

church? Like I didn't know what, you know, I know what that

meant until I got a little older and I realized, oh, they're quoting

Proverbs eighteen with just with just a little bit of salts lowry sauce on it,

you know, instead a good thing. They said, good thing?

Oh, okay, they just put a little twang on it, but they're

quoting the Bible that I'm looking for my good thing, But I mean,

what happens when the good thing goes bad? I mean what then? And

that's where we find ourselves. It's nice to say on the front end and

hey, this is my good thing, or I'm waiting on my good thing.

But what happens when this thing ain't thinking no more? What happens when

the good part goes bad? What happens where it once felt like favor and

now it feels like punishment. What happens then? I think we could see

things in the scriptures that encourage us some steps we can take to regain that

composure and regain the covenant. And part of it just right away starts to

view it's part of our perspective to say, this isn't a contract, this

is a covenant. We're not gonna be like everyone else out in the world.

We're not gonna try to find a first way out of this contract.

We're gonna We're gonna trust that we made a covenant before God, and everything

will funnel in our relationship as best as we can through God. You know,

we see this credible story about Rebecca and Isaac. But but oftentimes we

can look at what happened. We could say, what was Rebecca always that

way? Was she just always trying to do her husband dirty like that?

Or was there a time that she was a little bit different? And actually

when he first met her, she was a bit different. Genesis chapter twenty

four, we read twenty seven. It says this, this is the moment

that what happened was Abraham was gonna die, and so Isaac, his son

Abraham, told him, you need to go back to our hometown, and

you need to find a wife. I don't want you to marry a Canaanite

woman. I want you to marry someone from our hometown. So I need

you to travel back home, and I need you to find a wife.

Well, Isaac, being very wealthy, he went, but he sent ahead

of him one of his servants. And so what he told his servant was,

when you get to my hometown, I want you to go from water

well to water well to water well. And the first single young woman who

offers you a drink of water, that's the one that I'm believing, that's

the one that God has for me. So it turns out. His servant

comes to the first well. It's the first stop that he makes, and

he meets Rebecca. Well, here's who he meets. In Genesis chapter four,

twenty four, it says Abraham's brother came out, or Abraham's brother came

out with her water jug on her shoulder. That young woman was very attractive

in appearance, a maiden whom no man had ever known. She went down

to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran

to meet her and said, please give me a little water to drink from

your jar. She said, drink, my lord, And she quickly let

down her jar with her hand and gave him a drink. When she had

finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw water for your

camels also until they finished drinking. So she quickly emptied her jar in the

trough and ran again to the well to draw water, and she drew from

all his camels. The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the

lord had prospered his journey or not. So he's completely impressed. Isaac's servant

is so impressed because it's the first well he gets to and there's Rebecca.

As Rebecca comes out of her house. She has her little jug on her

shoulder of water, and so he's so thirsty because he's been traveling a long

distance and stuff like that. So he looked her and he says, please,

can I have a drink? And she says, oh, my gosh,

absolutely, and it says she let her hand out so he could get

a drink. So she actually cuffs her hand so that he can drink out

of her hand. She creates a little cup and then she looks up as

he's drinking, and she says, are those your animals? Let me get

them water too, So now she starts pouring water for the animals. This

servant is so impressed because he's like, man, not only does she give

me some to drink, she giving my pets some drink too. Like like

if I if I had actually over my house on a first couple dates,

I had a dog back then, was a golden doodle. If I would

have came downstairs and saw her going, oh, I gave your dog Sparta

kiss some water because I noticed his bowl was empty, I would have been

like, oh, I need to marry this girl right now. You even

giving my pets some water when you see them thirsty. Oh that's so himmy

it says he has to stand back and pause first second and say, Lord,

is this the one that I need to bring back to my master?

Because she is doing all the right things right now, and that's oftentimes that's

the courting season, that's the dating season. We all are doing all the

right things in that moment. And so he's trying to discern is this thing

supposed to happen? And so when he believes that it is, he goes

in the house, talks to one of her relatives and makes the wedding proposal,

in which she responds and she says, yes, I'm willing to lead

my family, and I'm willing to go to Canaan, and I'm willing to

marry this young man named Isaac. So they get together and it's great.

Isaac is the descendant of Abraham. So there's this big future where they're gonna

lead Israel and have this family in this community that's going to change the world.

The Messiah is gonna come from this family. It's very prestigious promise,

and so he's very selective. Who am I gonna choose? He chooses Rebecca,

and then how do we get to a place where she's on her hands

and she's giving them a glass of water to Then what happens is she goes

to her son, Jacob, and she says, let's lie to your dad

and have you pretend to be Esau so that you could get the money and

you could get the blessing. Her favorite was Jacob, his dad's favorite was

Esaul. And so then when Jacob looks at his mom, he says,

Mom, we can't trick dad. He may be blind, but he still

has feeling in his hands. And when I go to feed him and he

goes to bless me, he's gonna feel that I have soft skin. I'm

not a hairy guy, but my brother is. And she goes, oh,

I know what we'll do. We'll just get some fur and we'll glue

it to you so that when you give it to dad and he feels you,

he'll think it's you. And so here he is walking around with some

fur around his head, fur around his hand. He gives his dad this

food and completely deceives his father. You know, Isaac's own wife, Rebecca

is saying, let's go lie to your dad so that you could get the

blessing, and not your older brother. If that's not a family that has

once a good thing that's gone bad, I don't know what else is.

And what we ultimately see some things is some things end up happening in their

lives where when Isaac finds out he looks a number one, he's furious at

Jacob for deceiving him and lying to him, But then he looks at Esaul

because Esau says, please, Father, give something to me, give me

a blessing or something, and he says, the only thing I can do

is make you a promise that for the rest of your life you're gonna be

trying to kill your brother to get your blessing back. That's the promise.

And so then what happens is then imagine how Esau feels to his mom in

that moment. And then what happens is then Rebecca has to tell Jacob,

Jacob, you have to go run and hide for the rest of your life.

And so then she sees both of her boys no longer talk to her

anymore, and then her husband is about to die, and so she's about

to lose everything. But you wanna know why you want to know what happens

is because when she first had her children, God gave them a promise,

a covenant, and she said, I'm gonna do something through Jacob. She

thought that meant that that needed to be her favorite, because that's the one

that God had something special to do with. But the reality was is God

had something for both of them. Most theologians believe that all Isaac was gonna

do was when he brought Esau in is all he was gonna bless Esaul with

was the financial inheritance of the family. But then shortly after, most theologians

believe that then he was gonna bring in Jacob and then bless Jacob to be

the father of the nation, and so they both were gonna get their own

blessing. But because Rebecca no longer trusted God's covenant, she took the contract

in her own hands and said, I don't believe God is gonna follow through

with what he promised, So let's go put some fur on you so that

we could trick your dad and get what's over to you because God gave us

a word. So now they went from trusting God to taking it in their

own hands, and then we see the family completely dissolve the moment they took

the contract in their own hands. The moment they no longer believed that God

was faithful, that God was merciful, that God was just, that God

would be in the middle, and they said, no, this is something

I gotta figure out, this is something I gotta fix, This is something

I gotta do. That's when actually the family started to fall apart. So

a lot of times when we don't trust the Lord and we don't trust in

the covenant that as long as we pursue God and we put him first over

our flesh, he will move on our behalf. But so many times we

switch to contract so fast. The Covenant's great God, but I need something

on paper right now. And that's where Rebecca got She got worried. And

so what we have to do I'm gonna share a few notes with us before

we close, is we have to when we make this covenant co marriage,

we have to remove the big D word out of our relationship and divorce.

It's disruption. We got to remove disruption because most of the time, when

the word divorce starts coming out, it means the marriage is on emergency plan.

The moment that D word starts being used and thrown around it becomes a

very scary thing. But I'll tell you this, You can avoid that D

word being brought up if you first say we're not gonna let disruption get in

the middle of our marriage. Disruption comes in many different ways. Destruction could

come in finances. Destruction could come in people. Disruption could come in children.

Disruptions could come in relationships. Disruption can come in the marriage in so

many different ways. And so for Rebecca, disruption came when he got older

because the moment Isaac didn't have his the moment Isaac couldn't see anymore, and

it said he was losing his wit and things like that. She got worried

that he wouldn't be able to lead the family anymore. And so for her,

disruption for her was his health. And so we have to look out

on what disruption could look like, because when things start disrupting, we make

brash, rash decisions, and we also make incredible statements that we can't get

back. When we start feeling disrupted, we start trusting men over God.

And so I want to encourage you when a good thing goes bad, here's

what we can see, and it's just for that I'm gonna read really fast.

Is a good thing can go bad? The first thing is and I'm

just gonna spell good. First thing could go bad is when we allow gossip

to infiltrate our marriage, when we let gossip get in the middle of our

marriage. Gossip looks like, hey, when my spouse isn't around the way

I talk about them, would crush them if they heard the words that came

out of my mouth. If I get my friends, or when I'm just

with the kids, or I'm with family members and you know him, you

know her, and we clouded as, Oh, I'm just being silly.

Oh I'm just getting it off my chest. I'll tell you something. If

you're trying to get something off your chest, if it's not with the right

group of people that are trying to point you back to your marriage, then

you're not getting anything off your chest. You're inventing something in your heart.

That's what you're doing. You ain't releasing something. You're tattooing something when you

need to get something off your chest. And so gossip can be hidden in

so many ways. So we have to be able to communicate with our spouses

in a way that it doesn't take gossip to feel like Oh, I'm so

glad. I got so glad I had someone to talk to you about me

and Ashley. We had to work after that first format were like, we're

gonna work to make sure that we can tell each other what's on our hearts.

We're gonna work to make sure that we could tell each other when we're

weak. And there are many times and if you ever went to the marriage,

there were many honest conversations we've had over the years where I've told her

help, I need you in this marriage. She's told me the same,

and we had to get outside of our flesh. And so communication can help

cure gossip. When a couple can actually talk to each other, well,

we won't feel like we have to gossip about our spouse anymore because we feel

like we can speak their language and they can hear us. But there is

an art to communication and everybody communicates different, and so we can't walk into

a marriage and just say, well, this is how I communicate, this

is how my family did it. You know, my son Matthias is five

years old and he has a little iPad, and just this week, me

and Ashley went away to a pastor's gathering and so as I'm at the pastor's

gathering. Matthias texts me a selfie that he lost another tooth, and so

then he sends me an emoji of what I imagine is a dinosaur that he

thinks is toothless. He thinks that dinosaur doesn't have any teeth, and so

he texts that and he goes, that's my first loose tooth. What he

meant was that's next to the loose tooth that he got last. So he

was saying they were side by side. But here's the thing. Matthius is

five. He doesn't know how to read and write, so how is he

doing this? Well, all he does is he hits the microphone button on

his iPad and then he talks in it, and then it builds a sentence.

And all he does is look for the He looks for the little you

know, the little thing in the keyboard to stop typing, and then he

figures the sentence is done, and then he hits send and so then he

goes into his little emoji icons and he goes and he picks the emojis he

wants and he opens the gift. Like when I ask him, how has

your day been? He looks for gifts to be able to share with me

how his day was. Now for a five year old, we may say,

oh, that's very impressive, but if an adult does that, that's

very not impressive. Right, So there are levels to communication. But with

me, my son can't read. So if my son texts me words,

if I text him words back, he won't know what I'm saying. So

if I text, oh my gosh, son, I love you so much,

and I remember the day you were born and you had no teeth and

look now you're losing if I said the most kind thing, but my son

can't read, so don't matter how much I tried to communicate and pour my

heart out or share what it is he can't read, I have to speak

away he can. So what I do, which is actually something if you

know me, it's something I don't like, is I don't like sending voice

memos. They go too long. I don't have that much time and all

that stuff. But that's the only way my son can hear me when I'm

traveling. So what I do is if we can't FaceTime, is I'll then

send him a voice memo. So here you have me sending him and I

have to be much more electric in the voice, because I'm actually much more

monotoned. I'm very much introverted. My gift on stage is what makes me

seem like an extrovert. But really at home, I'm very quiet. You

know. I don't share a lot of emotion and things like that. But

for my son, he has to hear from me how excited he is.

And I can't use body language because if I was at home and he showed

me, I'd be like this, Oh, give me a big hug,

and I'd hug him and wrestle him, and that's how he would know I

was excited. But I can't do that when I'm traveling. So here I

am in the middle of a hotel going, oh my gosh, what diy

is that's amazing, I'm so happy for you. Tell Grandma to it.

I'm looking like a fool. But to me, it's important that my son

knows how excited I am, and so I have to communicate for him when

we're talking on the iPad in a way that's not normal for me, so

that my son can receive it the way that I want him to receive it

for and so same way I have to take that to my wife. I

have to know in my wife's past relationships, and I learned it really early

on getting married, was in her past relationships, the louder she yelled and

fought, the more he yelled, the more she felt like he cared.

And so because I'm much more introverted and I don't match energy for energy when

I'm arguing, the quieter I got when we were fighting, the more she

thought I didn't care, and so she would just get louder and she would

get more offensive, and she would poke and poke and poke because she was

waiting to be like, do you even feel anything? Do you care about

me? Because that's all she knew from previous relationships. So then when we

sat down and I told her, I love you too much to yell at

you. But that's why on month four I lost it all out because I'm

like, hello, you getting what you asked for? Do you feel love

now? And she's like, no, I don't feel love now. I'm

like, then we gotta figure some out because we can't keep doing this.

And so it got to a point where we had to get to a place

to communicate and say hey, I love you and you love me. But

the way we talk to each other does not mirror that covenant that we made

with God, and so that's so important. So what we can understand with

the last few points is this is that we also have to remove this idea

of observation in our marriage. I've done a lot of marriage counseling and I

hear it all the time from people who are kind of giving up on their

marriage. They say this, well, I'm just in the house. I'm

just present, but i don't engage in the marriage anymore. I've kind of

given up on it. If something changes, maybe I'll give it another try.

Right then, that happened a lot, Pastor Kenny. It's like,

I'm just I'm in the home, I'm observing. I'll only start to re

engage in the marriage if he changes or she changes. What you're saying is

I've given up on the game. I'm not in it anymore, and I'm

just gonna watch it and if something changes, cool. If something doesn't,

you know, I'm just I'm either gonna walk away from it or I'm just

gonna die slowly inside. I mean, that's really how people talk. And

what we have to realize is the moment you start just getting an from an

observation deck. In your marriage, it can't go anywhere. It can't go

anywhere. Have you ever thought about if if your favorite sports team ever wins

a championship? Do you know you're not invited to stand on the parade flop?

All you did was watch the game. Now you can purchase things,

you can go to it and purchase to get in, and you can purchase

a shirt. But Lebron James ain't gonna look at you and go. Man,

your cheering did have to work. Get on up here, buddy.

You know, like observing the game, even cheering for the game don't mean

nothing. It's were you in the game. And so in marriage, you

cannot get to a place where you're now just observing your spouse. I'm just

watching them wait, just waiting for them to mess up, just waiting for

them to this, just waiting for them to well, guess what, there's

gonna be no championship ahead when we just start observing. The second one is

this is we gotta start removing opinion at the door. We all got an

opinion about something, we all share an opinion about something, we all want

to have an opinion about something, and a lot of times to be frank,

you just gotta leave your opinion at the door. And if you haven't

spent any time with your spouse actually spending time with each other, going on

a little two day vacation together, taking each other on a date. That's

another thing that happens all the time when I do marriage kids. When was

the last time just you two got away? When was the last time you

guys went on a day? Oh well, we're just so busy. So

you're telling me right now, if I had Super Bowl tickets for you,

you would not find three days. You want to find three days if you

levet Beyonce and I said, hey, Beyonce, for the next two days,

is doing a meet and greet in the back store? Okay? You

want to meet just these kids? They've just so I gotta be there for

the kid. You'd be like, I don't care if these kids don't get

fed for two days, I'm gonna go see beyond. That's how you have

to be for your marriage. Kids are great, but our our kids will

be ruined if we're not good. So let it. Okay, feeding our

kids is great, but we need to spend time together because if we not

good, they not gonna be good. And if we can't be healthy,

then they're gonna learn unhealthiness when they grow up. So this actually does matter.

It matters more than we recognize, and so a lot of it infiltrates

with just that opinion. God b it, man, I don't I hate

when Ashley be doing this and that. And then when that opinion starts rising

up and she bothers me today and I just I have to immediately, I

have to pull that out and I gotta cast that aside. I gotta say,

ooh, that was nasty. Let me call my mom and see if

she could watch the kids, because I gotta spend time like I just started

treating her like like a like a friend I'm beefing with in my head.

You know, the moment I see that stuff, I know we gotta spend

time together. We need it even when I don't want it. There have

been days we don't want to spend time together, and we go, we

have to do this. We have to find a way to re engage our

relationship right now because we act in like roommates. We got to stop this.

So let's go await for two days. Let's go down to San Diego.

And we've been figure it out, we've been try something new. We

better find this place. This opinion could be a sad And here's the last

one. Deceitfulness. This is where Rebecca sat in, let's go deceive your

dad so that my favorite son can get the inheritance. This is where the

marriage can start to get to a place where we start to deceive each other.

We start to hide stuff, We start to wait for them to go

to bed first. We start to make sure they're not in the room.

We start to wait longer at work or whatever it may be, just so

I don't have to be in a conversation with him. So we start to

get deceiving. We start to allow this brokenness that's happening instead of communicating,

talking, doing ministry, spending time with the Lord, putting this covenant first,

we start to say We start to look at ourselves and say, how

can I start to break this contract? Can I? How can I let

this contract grow schizm between us? Because I'm it's not what I thought I

signed up for. She's not opening her hand out and serving my water to

my camels anymore, and so now I'm not happy. I'm not doing okay

and so we start to let deceit rise into this thing. And so I

want to encourage you as we're here. I just want to do something special

with us in an area of ministry, because there's so much more to be

said, and there so much more will be said, but we want to

encourage everyone first for a moment of ministry, because I believe that an act

of faith can be so big in our life, but also in a marriage.

Is that we in our marriage, if we can move towards faith of

trusting God. You may not know the light at the end of the tunnel.

You may not see the light at the end of the tunnel right now,

but if all you know is God, I made a covenant with you,

not a contract with you to marry this person. Or maybe you're single

and you've gotten to a place where you're like, God, I'm really it's

been hard and I want my good thing. I want that good thing.

I want that person that I do life with. Maybe you've been divorced before

and you're realizing you have a lot of hurt that you're still piecing together that

I want to encourage you. I really want to encourage right now, these

married couples that are in here, that in a moment, our worship team's

gonna come forward and we're gonna worship. But I'm gonna call you to do

something that takes faith, and it's to get out of your comfort zone.

So would you all right now do me a favor. Let's do the first

thing. Could we all stand on our feet at this moment. I'm gonna

ask you to do something that requires faith. It requires faith because everything in

your body says, don't worry about it. The Lord knows my heart.

I could do this privately, we could do this when we get home.

But I believe that the moment you get out of your comfort zone. It's

just like when Jesus looked at Peter and he said, come out of the

boat walk on water. Peter was trying to make sense on what happens if

I walk on water, But there was nothing special about Peter walking on water.

It was the fact that he had enough faith that Jesus would carry him.

That's what faith is. That when God calls you to do something radical,

God can now begin to act in your life because you now have moved

out of the way and you said, God, I'm fully dependent on you,

fully dependent on you to carry me. Encourage you as we begin to

worship right now. If you're a marriage that feels like you're on the rocks,

if you're a marriage that feels like the good thing went bad, if

you're struggling in your marriage, if you guys are maybe starting to talk about

separation, or you're seeing yourselves ignoring each other, you feel like you're growing

apart, whatever that may be that we talk today, I'm gonna encourage you

to activate your faith today. And when we sing this song of worship,

I'm gonna ask you to come to this alter. I'm gonna ask you to

say, God, I'm doing something I don't normally do, and I'm taking

my spouse with me, and we're gonna come to this alter and we're gonna

lay our marriage at the foot of the cross. We're gonna give it to

God, and we're gonna make a covenant with God that God, you're at

the center of this thing. And so I know I get it. When

your marriage is not fun anymore, it's very hard, and it doesn't feel

good to want to come to the front. There's a side that goes a

maya, we'll do this another day or maybe we'd try, maybe we'll see

some changes and then we'll do this or whatever it is. I want to

encourage. That's what faith is. It's where you don't see that there's an

open door, but God will begin to open a door because you start to

trust God in an area where you haven't welcomed him in for a while,

or maybe you haven't seen him there for a while. And so whether you

are single, you've been divorcing, you want that touch of God too.

I want you to come forward to and I want to encourage you as we

worship for service. So many the hotire altar was filled, and so I

just want you to feel all the sides and all the front. And then

at the end of this worship song, I'm gonna pray over your marriage because

I believe there's a release and a healing and a restoration that can happen when

we begin to pray and we trust God. So as the worship teens begins

to worship right now, I encourage you to get out of the altar,

bring your spouse up, and we're gonna pray and worship God. Give God

your marriage today. Take it out of your hands, take the contract,

throw it away, Throw that junk away, throw to the trash, and

say, God, I signed up for a covenant. This is a vow

God, and I believe you can move in this marriage. So I want

you to be bold, and I want you to have faith today. And

Daniel's gonna lead us in worship and come out of the altar and fill this

altar so that we can pray. Let's move forward. Call me out on

the greed with fee feet. They're a five stream o shell stea my fall

speak time, call upon the gap, my eyes able. The door tries

all your rage spreading, beware my trusts just with outboards me walk above these

cold take meeting for then my feet could have My will be matro the dress

up savedo spe beware my trucks to sparing the outboards. Me walk the pond

the wand wherever you bad me take bed brevent be good, my wand my

bag would be base sharp in the friends to chill my shame spirit me me

where my tries is we dis me walk a b the wad where med take

bed brebent. I be good, my wand and my bag would be bay

sharp. Your friends to tell my save your I cau you come on church

key way. So that's praise you Lord. Right now, First God,

we lift these marriages up to you, Father God. I pray right now,

Father God, for an anointing and a move of your spirit and their

life. Right now, Lord, I pray, Father God, that as

we cast down this contract mentality and we receive this covenant from you, Father

God, I pray first Lord, that there is no hold that Satan can

have on any of these individuals, Father God, that they are free in

Jesus' name, Father God, free to declare, free to love, free

to be healed, Father God, free to know you, free to serve

you, free to love you, and also free need to love their spouse

like never before. Father God, I pray for radical healing today. Lord,

I pray for radical togetherness. Today. Lord, I pray us too.

Maybe have been operating us too over the past couple of years, but

today the two will become one. Lord. Today, you will unify these

couples today, Father God. Today you will minister to them, Lord,

and they will commit to be incredible grandparents and parents. But also more than

that, Lord, they will be incredible lovers towards one another. Today,

Father God, I pray that they walk in forgiveness towards one another. Lord,

I pray they walk in selflessness towards love one another. Father God,

I pray Lord, that they see the favor that they have in their home.

Lord, I pray that you have called godly women in the house today,

Father God, I pray you have called godly men in the house today,

Father God, to be loving fathers and loving husbands, Lord, loving

mothers and loving wives. Lord God, I pray that you anoint them,

Lord, anoint their head, anoint their hearts, anoint their hands, and

anoint their feet. Today, Father God, I pray Lord that you restore

if there's a schism in their marriage. Lord, today, that you will

build that bridge today, Father God, as Jesus said, if you speak

to that mountain to tell it to move, it will move. So God,

we speak to that mountain of disruption. We speak to that mountain of

brokenness, of anger, of unforgiveness, Lord of hurt, pain, Lord,

and we tell that mountain to leave. In Jesus' name, Father God,

we cast that in the sea today. Lord and God, I pray

that there be a unity in these marriages today like they've not seen before.

Father God, We know you can do it. Lord. Now, I

pray for those that are single in this place, Lord, looking maybe to

heal, Father God, or looking to find that good thing. Lord.

I pray Lord that as you work on their heart and their mind also they

can begin to see in their eyes that person that you have prepared for them.

Father God. May you send them their way, Lord, May they

trust their relationship in your hands. Lord. I pray for those that maybe

have relational pain. They've been into war, so they've been broken before.

Maybe they don't have that loved person anymore, but they want someone again,

Father God. I pray you heal their hearts today. Lord. I pray

you heal their pains today, Father God, and I pray you set them

free in Jesus' name today, Father God. And I want everyone as you

hear my voice, especially the way the couples together in marry couples, I

want you to repeat after me right now, because we're gonna make a confession

as we make a covenant. So would you guys repeat after me today,

let's say this together, Dear Lord Jesus. In this moment, I make

a covenant with you. I threw away the contract, and today I say

yes. I say yes to be the best husband wife that you have called

me to be. I pray for your grace. I pray for your anointing.

I pray for your spirit as I choose to walk in love, to

walk in commitment, to walk in selflessness, and to walk in forgiveness.

Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in our marriage today. This marriage

is yours in Jesus' name a man. Can we celebrate God's goodness for just

a moment and as mercy you praise God? Now? I encourage you.

Guys, we're about to leave here together. Before we leave, if anyone

is looking to know Jesus Christ, you want to confess him as Lord and

Savior. Up here at the front, our elders and deacons will be up

here and they love to pray for you over anything. But if you want

to say yes to Jesus, you can do that. Our prayer team will

be up here and they love to pray for you when we dismiss. But

if you came up here and you said that, pray, I encourage you.

At this moment we're going to talk about for the next couple weeks.

God will do his part. You and I just have to do our part.

And so by you coming up here today, I'll be honest, you

put a target on your back for the enemy. And so when you go

home or tomorrow morning, that voice, that thing that may something happen that

pisces you off more than it ever has in your life. And that's just

Satan trying to say, did you really mean what you said? Did you

really go up and mean what you really did? And I'll tell you this.

When you push through that and when you say, Satan, you have

no footholding this and you cast that aside. I'll tell you this because faith

is where God begins to initiate a miracle in your life. But obedience is

where God begins to root it in your life. And so this promise that

we made to the Lord, God will do a miracle. But also God

will say, will you be obedient tomorrow? Will you be obedient next Sunday?

Will something look different? Were you gonna make that effort? And that's

where God will move his do his best work. And so we believe God's

doing something special today, but it ain't even half of what you'll see what

God can do if you stay steady and you trust the Lord and you continue

to sacrifice for God in your marriage. So let me pray for all of

us and we'll leave here together. Lord, thank you for your move and

your spirit today. Father God, I thank you Lord that you have moved

in this place. Lord. I pray Lord that this is the start of

a fruitfulness from these marriages, Father God, fruitful lives Lord, that have

been totally surrendered to you. Lord and Jesus, we welcome you, welcome

you totally to move in these relationships. Lord. Thank you Father for what

you've done today. In Jesus' name, Amen and Amen, God bless you.

Guys. We love you. We'll see you next week. We really

hope you enjoyed the message, and if you said yes to Jesus, we

just want to say congratulations and give you a free devotional to help you walk

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