You're a Mystery" Ephesians 5:22-33

Marriage is supposed to make me happy. for the record, I am pro happy marriage. Given the choice between the two, I am going to choose for my marriage to be happy as opposed to the alternative. And because I am such a nice benevolent individual, I will willingly choose for your marriage to make you happy as opposed to the alternative. But what if? What if the purpose of marriage is not exclusively to make you happy? What if the purpose of marriage is something more deep and more meaningful than that? What if the purpose of marriage is not for you to be happy but for you to be holy? [00:40:47] (59 seconds)  #MarriageForHoliness

Talk about wearing you down and beating you down and and building up bitterness and resentment and all of those things. Now listen, strive to make one another happy. But understand that nothing or no one on this earth is ultimately going to bring just true unceasing uninterrupted happiness. And not only that, there have been a lot of times where I've been happy and I wasn't holy, But there's never been a time that I was holy and wasn't happy. Your marriage is about so much more than somebody just making you happy. [01:11:20] (70 seconds)  #HolinessOverHappiness

I can't make my spouse do anything. I can't I can't make anyone do anything. That's not what I'm called to do. I am called to do and to be what God has designed and called me to do and be. So regardless of the state of your marriage, okay, I'm I'm going to take and strive to do what Christ has called me to do, and the rest, I'm going to leave up to him. You can be happy, and that's wonderful. But holiness with another person walking through life with you. Ups, downs, trials, tribulations, wins, losses. That's God's will, and that's what God wants. [01:14:58] (71 seconds)  #LiveCalledNotControl

It was God and God alone. So much has changed since then. Kings and kingdoms have arisen. Nations have been born and disappeared. But here is Paul writing to a church that did not even exist in Genesis chapter two and he is saying while so much has changed as it pertains to marriage, nothing has changed. God created marriage. God established marriage. He is the author, meaning he is the one who has authority over how this story unfolds. Regardless of who you are, regardless of your spiritual background, regardless of any of those things, God has a say in your marriage. [00:47:07] (49 seconds)  #GodAuthorOfMarriage

It is always completely and totally an act of the will. A decision you purposely make every single day. I am going to love you. Might not feel like being in love with you might come in a way of it's, I kinda got to because you're my closest neighbor or you're my sister in Christ or you're my outright enemy, but I am going to love you. Because that is what God's word has commanded husbands to do, to love wife as Christ loved the church. [00:51:19] (39 seconds)  #LoveIsAWilledChoice

According to scripture, he is saying that your marriage is intended to represent the relationship that Jesus has with his church. Now, I want you to think about that relationship for just a second. Go back to the Old Testament. God bringing Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness into the promised land. That was a messy affair. That was brutal at times. That was an ugly, ugly process. Christ preserving his church. That is messy. That is difficult. That is hard. But he keeps showing up. [01:06:40] (61 seconds)  #MarriageReflectsChrist

When the bible speaks about the husband's relationship to the wife, it does so primarily around a single word and the word is love. It is absolutely 100% God's will and yes, God's command that every single husband loves wife. Now in our modern day culture, in our modern day understanding of things, that has really kind of just taken a whole lot of different directions, gone in a whole lot of different paths and has really kind of become watered down so very often. [00:49:18] (31 seconds)  #HusbandLoveIsCommand

Now here's something to notice. in the Bible is almost always used to describe God himself. Other times it is used to describe military help such as reinforcements without which the battle would be lost. In that context then, to help someone is to make up what is lacking in him with your strength. The woman was made to be a strong helper. And again in my flawed understanding between this dynamic, I would always think to myself, okay, so in this marriage dynamic that I have, it falls on me to be Jesus to my wife. [01:02:21] (47 seconds)  #HelperAsStrength