God's Design for Marriage: Covenant, Complementarity, Commitment

``Contract is I'll fulfill my responsibility as long as you fulfill your responsibility. That's not what a marriage is. Marriage is a covenant promise. It is a covenant partnership. And in a covenant partnership, just like God made a covenant with Israel, God does his part for Israel whether Israel does their part or not. In a marriage, I am called to do my part as the husband whether my wife does her part or not. [00:42:12] (33 seconds)  #CovenantNotContract

And so we have to ask ourselves a question. With all of this experimentation around marriage, how's that working? How are we doing? Are men and husbands more responsible? Are women wives more cherished? Are children more secure? Are our families flourishing with all this experimentation? And the answer to that question is a resounding no in almost every single case. And so there's gotta be something better. There has to be something more. And when we reject God's design, what we discover is not more freedom but more fractures. [00:27:44] (51 seconds)  #StopMaritalExperimentation

You see in our culture, individual growth has become more sacred than covenant promises and permanence. And what I need to say to you is that that is not the way God created marriage because what he created marriage for is for a man to leave his father and his mother and to bond with his wife and for them to become one flesh. There is covenant permanence in that. This is what God intended marriage to be. This is Garden Of Eden, perfect environment. This is what he wanted it to be. And this is what it can be by his grace. [00:55:52] (49 seconds)  #CovenantPerseverance

God forms Adam and the first thing God gave Adam was not a romance, it was a responsibility. Before God ever gave Adam a spouse, God gives Adam a job and his job is gardener. He is there in the Garden Of Eden, and it the Bible says he placed him there to work it and to watch over it. He was to cultivate and to keep the garden. He was to labor over the garden. Work guys, I want you to hear me. Work is not a result of the fall. [00:32:42] (42 seconds)  #WorkIsPurpose

In a contract, let's say that, I'm gonna mow your grass, and I'm gonna mow your grass once a week, or when it needs it, and, you're going to pay me for mowing your grass. Now, if I come over and the yard needs mowing and I mow your grass, then you pay me. But if I don't mow your grass and I come over and put my hand out, you don't owe me anything. Likewise, if I mow the grass and you quit paying me, I'm gonna quit coming. That's contract. [00:41:35] (36 seconds)  #ContractVsCovenant

This is one of the deepest issues in marriages today. I mean, this is really important, and that is that we have lost the concept that when you stand before God and your family and you make those vows, they are covenant promises. They are lifetime promises. That's what God says about marriage, not not what I'm making up. Now the beauty of this moment in Genesis is that that means that these two are to stand shoulder to shoulder together under God. [00:42:45] (39 seconds)  #VowsAreForever

JM Barry wrote that book Peter Pan, a century ago. And Peter Pan, of course, is the boy who never grows up. He lives in Neverland and it's Neverland because you never have to accept responsibility. You never have to keep commitments. You never have to grow up. And we are living in a generation of young men who have the Peter Pan Syndrome. We are not growing young boys into men and I feel responsible to that to a certain extent as as a pastor. [00:35:25] (35 seconds)  #EndPeterPanSyndrome

When we think when we see the word helper, we see inferior. That's that's what we think. That's our thought process. We see assistant. We see someone who's sort of not measuring up, but the word is there certainly doesn't mean that. God was not inferior to Israel when he is called Israel's helper. That is not the case. It is not a merit matter of inferiority. It is a matter of a different function. [00:40:24] (28 seconds)  #HelperIsFunctionNotInferior

No, man. You probably can't step up and in your own strength, be that guy that God's calling you to be. That's why you need Jesus. No ladies, you probably can't fulfill that helper role and submit to your husband and and you probably can't do that in your own strength. Oh, we can all white knuckle something for a while and work up our willpower, but come on, in marriage, it takes a whole lot more than willpower to make this thing work. [00:56:41] (39 seconds)  #NeedJesusNotWillpower

Dads of young boys, I hope you feel the weight of that statement just a little bit. I'm not saying it to make you feel guilty but I do want you to feel the weight of that statement that we are to raise young boys to be men. Men, you were made by God and you are accountable to God. You were not made to be passive but productive. That's the first principle. [00:35:59] (30 seconds)  #RaiseBoysToBeMen

So God creates Adam, puts him in the garden, gives him a job, gives him a responsibility, and then God says something that is really remarkable. I want you to remember that this is before sin. This is before death. This is before shame. Adam had meaningful work and fellowship with God but God says in verse 18, it is not good that the man should be alone. That's the first time that God has ever said something wasn't good. [00:36:58] (38 seconds)  #FirstGoodNotAlone

But you need to ask the question, what has been entrusted to me? What is my responsibility? And what I would say is that if a man struggles with discipline, with work, with sacrifice, and with responsibility, he's gonna struggle to be a sacrificial spiritual leader in his home. That's the truth. Young men, I wanna challenge you on this. You need to step up and stop embracing what I call the Peter Pan syndrome. [00:34:51] (33 seconds)  #ResponsibilityBreedsLeadership

Your spouse is a gift, not a product. A lot of times we ask the wrong questions. Does he meet my needs? Does she make me happy? Is she still attractive? Does she help me become my best self? That is consumer language, not covenant language. In 2023, an actor that I really like, I really like this actor. His name's Hugh Jackman. [00:54:46] (36 seconds)  #SpouseIsAGift

Paul was apparently single or at least single at the time that he was writing much of the New Testament And and and Paul was just fine. And he gave a lot of advice about marriage, by the way, in in the book of first Corinthians and in Ephesians. And so you can be single and complete. I want you to know that and I want to bless that. But for most of us, there is a longing within us for the other. And here's the truth, man cannot complete the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply alone. [00:38:44] (37 seconds)  #SinglenessCompleteButTogetherNeeded

So this morning, I wanna give you the big picture idea for this entire series of messages. Here's here here it is. God's design is better than culture's experiments. Let's just go back to God's design. What did God want of families? So I wanna go back to the beginning, to Genesis chapter two, to God's original design, to God's original design for the family before it was ever step before the world was ever stained with sin. [00:28:36] (34 seconds)  #GodsDesignOverCulture

We wanna go back to what God implemented and what God did when he created the first man and the first woman as the prototypes for all of us. And we want to understand what God created marriage to be and do and our responsibilities under God in that setting. And so I have decided to just do one thing in this series in particular. I will not apologize for what God says. I'm just not gonna do it. [00:29:09] (33 seconds)  #GenesisPrototypes

We have experimented with delayed marriage. People are getting married later now than ever before. The average age for a man to get married is 30. The average age for a woman to get married is 29. That's up over six years in the since the year 2000. We have experimented with cohabitation, living together without being married. We've experimented with no fault divorce, easy divorce. We've experimented with open relationships, with redefining gender, with same sex marriage, with redefining family. We've experimented with sexuality detached from covenant, with children detached from parents and marriage, and marriage detached from God. [00:27:02] (42 seconds)  #MarriageExperimentsFail

You see, what God does in this moment is he creates Eve, the woman, in a way that she corresponds perfectly to Adam in the way that he is incomplete. There there is something about this pairing. There is something about this that creates a covenant partnership. And what I want you to know about marriage biblically and that we have lost culturally is that marriage is a covenant partnership. That is different from a contractual partnership. Let me talk about contract for just a few minutes. [00:40:52] (44 seconds)  #ComplementaryCovenant

There's a beautiful verse in the book of Ecclesiastes and it says that a cord or a rope made out of three strands is not easily broken. A husband, a wife, and Jesus woven together. That's what God intended it to be. [00:57:20] (24 seconds)  #ThreeStrandsUnbroken

Hard work that feels unproductive, yeah, that's a result of the fall and sin. But God created you for a responsibility. God created you to be creative. God created you to make something, to do something, to accomplish something. God placed Adam in the garden to work it and to watch over it. Now, God knows what's going to unfold in the days to come in this whole story. [00:33:24] (32 seconds)  #CreatedForResponsibility

There's a beautiful verse in the book of Ecclesiastes and it says that a cord or a rope made out of three strands is not easily broken. A husband, a wife, and Jesus woven together. That's what God intended it to be. [00:57:19] (25 seconds)

we can all white knuckle something for a while and work up our willpower, but come on, in marriage, it takes a whole lot more than willpower to make this thing work. There's a beautiful verse in the book of Ecclesiastes and it says that a cord or a rope made out of three strands is not easily broken. A husband, a wife, and Jesus woven together. That's what God intended it to be. [00:57:08] (35 seconds)

we can all white knuckle something for a while and work up our willpower, but come on, in marriage, it takes a whole lot more than willpower to make this thing work. There's a beautiful verse in the book of Ecclesiastes and it says that a cord or a rope made out of three strands is not easily broken. A husband, a wife, and Jesus woven together. That's what God intended it to be. [00:57:08] (35 seconds)

we can all white knuckle something for a while and work up our willpower, but come on, in marriage, it takes a whole lot more than willpower to make this thing work. There's a beautiful verse in the book of Ecclesiastes and it says that a cord or a rope made out of three strands is not easily broken. A husband, a wife, and Jesus woven together. That's what God intended it to be. [00:57:08] (35 seconds)