The Marriage Series | Aaron & James Podcast

Hi, my name is James Rathman.

And I'm Aaron Neff.

And this is the Aaron and James Podcast.

This podcast is an introduction to our sermon series, which will begin on Sunday.

Which this week.

So just two days from now, from the time of recording.

So that's coming.

It's coming.

I gotta write it.

Which is titled The Marriage Series.

Yikes.

That's the response I get.

So that's what that's why I want to do this.

That's what we're gonna be talking about.

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So, a marriage series.

Uh, when I have said, like, yeah, we're gonna be preaching through Exodus after Genesis, and then that's gonna be the next series that we're starting, people will respond and say, That sounds so cool.

I can't wait for us to move through that, or you know, we're gonna be preaching through Ephesians.

It's like, oh, it's awesome.

Yeah, can't wait to hear that.

And then as I've said, shared with folks, like, yeah, I'm putting together a marriage series.

The main response I've gotten is like, uh, do you have to?

I mean, don't we already know everything there is to know about marriage?

Yeah, exactly.

You gotta sit through another one of these, you know, and I've heard that, and it's gonna be, you know, like I like it when you preach on old, old guys, you know, that and their problems.

Symbolism and Yes.

Yeah.

Not not my life, not the type of problems I'm going to going through.

I don't like that sort of thing.

Not on a Sunday morning.

I think this will, you know, I don't think this will be helpful for me at all.

It'll probably just cause more problems.

Exactly.

I think that's the feeling of what's going of what's uh what what a marriage series coming down the line is.

It's like, okay, great, thanks.

Yeah.

Um I hope that it will be legitimately helpful.

Okay.

My prayer is that it will.

I think uh this uh but I understand, as we're going into a marriage series, we're going into a holy place.

And a place that um many people in the church are in the midst of, that it is the place of uh people's greatest joys and most painful sufferings.

And it is like approaching an altar, which is uh uh glorious things are happening on the altar, but it's also covered in fire.

And death.

And death.

Exactly.

So it's a it's a uh dangerous place to draw close to.

But the scriptures draw close to marriage.

Yeah.

And so oftentimes when we approach marriage series, I think there's uh folks without much church experience, you know, that are just like just returning to the church, didn't grow up in the church.

Um, it's like, oh, a marriage series, oh cool, yeah, that'd be great.

I think that'd be something that was helpful.

Folks that was, I think have grown up in the church are like have this full body groan of like, I'm over it.

I've heard this so many times, and I already know what's coming and what, you know.

Um like you're gonna say, men lead, women submit, and you're gonna say that a million different times, and we're still not gonna know how to do it at the end, and it's just gonna cost fights.

And well, that's my plan.

So if you don't like that, you're not gonna like it.

No, that's not my plan.

So, but it so here's so what I want to explain in the introduction to this uh sermon series is the outline of the series.

Okay.

Because I've laid out this marriage series in hopes that we'll be able to draw close to the wonder of marriage in scripture in a way that will be meaningful to you whether you're married or not, and in a way that will be beneficial and instructive and maybe even inspiring, you know, not crushing, but inspiring for your own marriage if you're married.

Okay.

And so far, I like the sounds of this.

Yes.

I think good.

Could take some inspiration.

Yeah.

Yes.

Um, you know, I like uh a lot of times it's like you hear of somebody and they're like their marriage is going really well, and it's like, yeah, good for them.

Great.

That's great.

I hate you though.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I can imagine some ways where I can cut it down.

Um we just become envious and biting one another.

Yeah.

Um But this, I think when we see these marriages in scripture, I think that it I I hope that it will lead to inspiration, not crushing.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's the layout of the series.

Just Ephesians 5 over and over again.

Perfect.

No, I'm kidding.

So there the but the there's a that's a good way to do a series.

It'd be a good way to do a series.

Because Ephesians 5 is wonderful and beautiful.

And that is the text in the New Testament that you basically go to on marriage.

Yeah.

But here's the way that we're doing it for this series.

It's going to be a series in three stages.

The first stage is looking at the way that marriage informs the whole narrative of redemption in Scripture.

Now, the reason we're starting here is because when we just if we were to just jump into instruction for marriage, what often happens is we take for granted that we know what marriage is.

And if we take for granted that we know what marriage is, then we're applying the Bible's instruction for marriage to this thing that we think we already know what it is.

Yeah.

And the way that we've developed our own intuitions and understandings of what marriage is, what it's supposed to be, and what it's supposed to be like, and what it's supposed to do in our own hearts, is this crazy soup of marriage sermons that we've heard in the past, of reading captivating and wild at heart, of watching uh how Monica and Chandler finally came together in marriage, and think in at an impressionable age, and thinking like, okay, I kind of get that.

I know what that's like.

Yeah.

Watching Notting Hill.

I've never seen it.

Never seen Notting Hill?

It's a great rom-com.

I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love me, Julia Roberts.

Uh never I've never seen it.

Okay.

Well, I'll keep going.

I'll keep I'll keep describing scenes to you.

Great.

So there's another great scene in Notting Hill.

Um or so it's this the po or love songs that we sing in the car.

Yeah.

You know, or uh when we're listening to, you know, Bert Bacrack's greatest hits.

Great.

Or uh uh breakup songs.

Yeah, breakup songs, Christmas Hallmark series.

Yes, exactly.

Airport get togethers.

Yes, exactly.

Running to an airport.

Yeah.

Is like the main part of marriage, I think.

If you were to just survey pop culture, the main part of marriage is running to airports.

I you know what?

I should take my kids to the airport more so that they get practice.

Yeah, you'll need to.

You'll need to practice driving to the airport.

Yeah.

If you're gonna be in if you want love in this life.

And into so then we get this culturally informed, personally informed perspective on what marriage is, and we think, yeah, this thing, this little, you know, this cocktail that I've got, that I know what marriage is.

And it's supposed to be an opportunity for me to experience these loving, romantic feelings, and it is an opportunity for me to express these feelings, which would then just pour out of me.

Yeah.

And so I know what marriage is.

It's that sort of thing.

It's about, it's like every basically everything else in our culture, which is about personal satisfaction.

Being true to yourself.

Yep, being true to yourself, positive emotional immediate positive emotional experiences.

And it's about self-expression.

So this marriage is working.

I know what marriage is because I know what its purpose is.

And its purpose is immediate positive emotional experiences and opportunities for me to express my true self.

And so that functionally becomes the the definition of marriage.

And then we get the Bible's instruction about marriage, and it's it feels like this, you know, this like procrustian bed that we're we're cramming ourselves into or stretching ourselves out to fit.

Yeah.

And it feels just like oppressive and offensive, what this instruction is as we're applying it to marriage, because we think we already know what marriage is.

Yeah.

And this instruction doesn't seem to be, it's not being considerate at all with regards to what I already know marriage is.

Yeah.

And so it just feels like it's just uh welling up these these uh painful experiences, and it brings us to this consideration of like, well, that's something I could never do.

And by the way, what's so bad about uh positive emotional experiences and self-expression?

And the answer is nothing.

Nothing's so bad about that.

It's just not the point.

It's not the point.

It's not the ultimate purpose of marriage.

So here's the outline of the series.

Okay.

The first the um first stage that we'll go through is four sermons, which will show us what marriage is by showing us what the purpose of marriage is.

And the way to think about that is like, how would you answer a question like that?

Well, kind of think of it as like well, what is what does the Bible show us that the purpose of our lives are?

And it's something like uh to glorify God and enjoy him forever is the purpose of our lives.

And then it's like, okay, so then this is about relating to God.

That the purpose of our lives is about relating to God.

And then if you were to ask a Christian, well, how do you relate to God?

They would say, Well, the relationship between God and man, um, I gotta kind of tell you a bit of a story.

Because it's not just uh I can't just like put it in a sentence, because they got a history.

Yeah, God and man.

You know, this is um uh they got a whole whole history.

And the traditional way that theologians have broken down the history of uh the story between God and man is in these four parts, which scripture corresponds to, which are creation, the fall, okay, our redemption by God, and the future hope of glory that we have to be with God.

And this is the narrative of scripture creation, fall, redemption, glory.

And that's what we're looking this is what the Christian knows that they are personally participating in.

But as we look at marriage in Scripture, it serves this same function.

You can you can read that whole story of Scripture, the creation, fall, redemption, glory, through the lens of marriage.

And then that will describe to us and inform to us what marriage is.

And we'll see that marriage, like you, finds its true meaning, its true purpose insofar as it participates in this redemptive story, which finds its fullness and its culmination where everything is summed up in Jesus Christ, which is the way that the story is told.

So that's very different than uh personal satisfaction or opportunities for self-expression.

It's uh glorifying God as He redeems us and sums up all things in His Son, Jesus Christ.

That's what marriage is for.

That's what marriage is.

That's that's what that's the is-ness.

So that that cocktail that you had of rom-coms and uh love songs, you I hope that over these first four series we'll pour it out and we'll we'll make a new one which shows us the meaning of marriage to borrow a phrase is found in the uh in the same way that our meeting is is found, yeah.

Which is in our union with Christ, and uh being being ultimately glorified in Him and in the work of Jesus.

Yeah.

And so we'll look at how this story, the creation, fall, redemption, glory story in Scripture is told through the lens of marriage, and how marriage is this essential component of the telling of that, of the telling of that story.

Okay, cool.

Then the second part of our series will be case studies of particular marriages in scripture.

Okay, so it's not my marriage that.

We're going to uh oh, did I say in scripture?

I meant case studies of particular marriage of peop people in our congregation.

That'd be wild.

Yeah, I mean you can probably charge admission.

We're not doing that.

I mean Jerry Springer on Sunday.

Exactly.

Particular stories of marriages in Scripture.

So we're going to look at the marriage of Abraham and Sarah.

Okay.

Then we're going to look at the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.

And then we're going to look at the marriage of Ruth and Boaz.

So these don't necessarily, other than Abraham and Sarah, there's not really a narrative flow to these particular marriages.

They're just important marriages in Scripture from uh that participate in different ways in redemptive history.

Yeah.

And we'll show, and they they each have their own idiosyncratic complexities and challenges and difficulties that they overcome in those marriages.

Okay.

And we'll see how their marriages find their glory in how they tie up to the meaning of all of creation, which is glorifying God and enjoying Him, which is summed up in Jesus Christ.

We'll see how, okay, their marriages why would we say that these marriages work?

We wouldn't say that these marriages work because we see the, you know, uh personal satisfaction or opportunities for self-expression.

Those are aspects of it.

Those aspects are real in all three of those marriages.

Uh, but the they're glorious, those are glorious marriages to be a part of because we see how they tie up into God's redemptive plan.

Okay.

And so this will hopefully give us a, you know, as we're looking at their stories, we'll be imagining our stories alongside, and we'll be thinking, like, how do how do our marriages tie up into that redemptive plan?

And then hopefully by that time, we'll be the whole church will just be on pins and needles.

And they'll be thinking, like, man, I see this glorious wonder of what marriage is, as it's described to us in the Bible.

And I see these other marriages that it used to seem just too far away and strange, but now that I've looked at them closely, I see like, yeah, it's not so different.

That's not so different.

We're not so different, you and I.

And then in seeing those marriages, we'll be like, Man, I I want to participate in this.

Um I I want to know how I can share in um marriage like that.

And then we'll move into the New Testament instruction on marriage.

Okay.

And I think by that time, we'll see that the instruction that Paul is giving, or the instruction that Peter is giving for marriage, which right now, when we just jump to it, I think can feel arbitrary because it doesn't conform to what we think we know marriage is.

Yeah.

Well, at that time it'll be like, oh yeah, I got a good sense of what marriage is and what its purpose is, and so what we're really aiming at with marriage.

Now this instruction, it doesn't feel arbitrary, it feels essential.

It feels like this is the type of instruction somebody would give if they were filled with the Holy Spirit and were meditating on the biblical picture of marriage.

Yeah.

And they wanted to provide instruction for how ordinary people could participate in this glorious pattern of what marriage is.

Yeah.

So as you're you're talking, it kind of seems like it's almost like this is a modern day epistle to the church on just specifically on marriage.

Because the way that Paul writes a lot of his letters is doctrine in the first part and application in the second part.

And so that's what you're giving us here is a a letter to our church on um, you know, what marriage is like and then how we should live that out.

Yeah, that's great.

Um I hope it's It'll be like that, but just like not just temper your expectation of like not gonna be that good, but it'll be good, it'll be good.

My goal with this introduction to the marriage series is to um set a low bar.

Anyone can be married.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But yeah, that is the hope.

And I think you know that's it's glorious when Paul I I love I love that pattern in Paul's writings in particular, because it's like, oh man, you know, like as we're going through Romans, it's like we didn't he didn't tell us anything to do until chapter six when he says, consider yourself dead to sin.

Uh the it and it's like, oh, now I got a sense of what that means and how to participate in that.

And I think that we need that.

I need that.

Like in my frustration, when I experience the deepest frustrations in marriage, it's it's not often because uh I've uh I'm thinking it too imaginatively about how the particularities of our marriage could be used in cr to glorify Christ and um show show his gospel, it's more often that I'm not being satisfied.

And that I feel like I can't be known in this.

Yeah.

And there's it's m much more that like I'm thinking I'm thinking in a worldly way already about what this marriage is.

Yeah.

Um and so I I I want to have that changed in my heart.

Uh to be thinking about the is-ness of marriage in a biblical frame.

See the inspiration of that, the glory, the beauty, and uh then from there say, like, yeah, I want to participate in that.

Cool.

Um and then hopefully receive instruction to be able to do that.

Yeah.

So that's that's the outline of the series, the intro, you know, for for uh how we're approaching this, and then hopefully um yeah, and and also just like a hope for for what I hope this this could be for us and for our church.

Yeah.

That sounds great.

I don't know.

Any questions?

Um, I just was kind of kind of make it like it.

Oh, if a man dies and remarries another wife.

Yeah, yeah.

What does this exactly?

And this if this happened seven times.

Yeah.

Who's she married to in Who's she married to in heaven?

Yeah.

You dumb Jesus who believes in resurrection, says the says the Pharisee.

So does the Pharisee.

Yeah.

Um Sadducee.

Sadducey.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Sadducey.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's how you remember.

Yeah.

No, that's great.

Is it is there are we doing anything as a church alongside this?

Um practically meeting groups or anything of that nature.

We have some hopes to roll something like that out, um, but it it's not developed enough to be able to do.

Okay.

So uh a later episode.

Yeah, a later episode.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, we have some hopes to towards the end of the series provide some opportunities for folks to get together as couples and um uh work through just sort of like the practical challenges of marriage.

Yeah.

Um So you're not just gonna tell us all about marriage and tell us what to do and then just leave us hanging.

Well, it's one option.

You're on your own now.

Yeah.

I get paid per email.

So keep them coming.

That's the way I'm gonna do it.

Um But yeah, I think that uh hopefully this will stoke opportunities for us to one another one another.

Yeah.

Um and get to share in this pursuit of this calling of marriage in light of the grace of the gospel.

Cool.

Which is the only way we can participate in anything.

And as it turns out, the only way we can participate in our marriages too.

So I think at the end of this you'll see the beauty of marriage more completely as you see it in Jesus Christ.

If you're not married, you'll think um, wow, marriage is beautiful and it's good.

Um the life that I have right now uh is beautiful and good because I see how it connects to this glorious story.

And I I think that with just like little acts of imagination, you'll be able to say, Oh yeah, this applies to me too.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm able to participate in this too.

Um and uh we'll all be fed, more encouraged in the Lord, and say things like, Wow, Jesus is great, and I really need him.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, stick stay tuned, come to church.

Come to church.

Goodbye.