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We're going to be taking a break if you're visiting with us. We've been going through the book of Acts and We've been talking about how Jesus made the promise that we've received his power and the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we would be his witnesses We're going to be taking a break from the book of Acts For four weeks and our series We're going to be doing through January is called tighten the knot Where does that title come from? Well when you get married, they call that tying the knot, right?
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And if you've been married for more than about 15 minutes, you realize that you have to constantly go back and tighten that knot.
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Your love for your spouse has to be deliberate.
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And that's what we're going after this month.
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Where to start a series like this? I thought I'd just talk about the elephant in the room.
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You know, as we talk about marriage.
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It's okay.
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I know you've thought it.
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and you've been too gracious to say it.
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So I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.
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I married up.
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I did. And I know you thought that.
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You've been very kind. You haven't said that.
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You see me and then you meet Aaron and you're like, "Well, he married up." Yeah, I did. I'm not ashamed of that.
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Actually, a little proud of that. But yeah, I married up.
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And obviously Erin is very beautiful, but something you might not know is how hilarious she is.
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Yes, intentionally, but yes, very often unintentionally.
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And I could tell you stories all week about some of the hilarious things that we've experienced over these last almost, what's it been, 14 years of marriage now?
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Do I get bonus points for knowing that?
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Okay.
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One of my favorites, I don't know why this story just struck me so funny, but the one that, Erin was in a deep sleep, I mean just deep sleep, and for some reason I was awake, and she rolled over and said to me, her eyes were closed, and she said very clearly, "Lou Pinella, a man whose very name is synonymous with baseball. And then she rolled back over.
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And I was up for about three hours like, "What was that all about?" I think he was like the manager of the Cardinals at the time. Where did that even come from?
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I didn't even realize Erin was such a fan. But that wasn't the only time that she's done that.
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I remember one time Erin had fallen asleep on the couch and I was trying to wake her up. "Why don't I was trying to wake her up. She rolled over, again still in a deep sleep, and she said, "Zippers say YKK." I said, "What?" She said, "Zippers say YKK." And I said, "What?" She said, "Zippers say YKK." I got her to say it like five times. And I remember just completely again befuddled. I'm like, "Zippers say YKK?" I have no idea what that means. I have no that means. And like the next day I'm like, "Hey, last night you just kept saying over and over and over, 'Zippers say YKK. What does that mean?'" And we discovered, you don't have to check now, but if you look at an article of clothing that has a zipper on it, oftentimes do you know what is imprinted on the zipper? YKK.
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I have no idea what that means. I have no idea how my wife knows that. And I have no idea why she was talking about that in in her sleep. But that's some of the goofy stuff that goes on in our house. But it's not just that that makes me love my wife as much as I do. I can really encapsulate it in one quick story, and that was this. Many years ago, I was going through a particularly hard time in ministry. You know, you're involved in ministry, you go through season three, you feel like nobody's happy. And no matter what decisions you make or what you do, people People are in an uproar about something and I'll just never forget this.
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I was having a particularly hard day and Erin just, she said to me, "Hey, I'm on your team." And it was just, bam!
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That to me encapsulates what our marriage is about.
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The two fallen people, two redeemed people, doing life together but committed to being same team. So as we go into this series, I do want to say this, if you're here today and you're single, if you plan on being married someday, there's going to be something for you in this series. If you're single and you have no intention of getting married, sometimes the Bible says that God calls people to singleness for ministry. If you're here today, we're talking about marriage and family and we weren't given children. You're not on a lesser plan, okay? And actually in this series I'm not going to be talking much about children at all. We're going to be focusing on the relationship between the husband and the wife.
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If you're here today, if you came to church just hoping, just hoping that you were going to get some red-faced, pulpit-pounding guilt trip about divorce. I'm sorry, but you're in the wrong place. We are not doing that either. We have talked about what the Bible says about divorce, but I'm not going to be talking about divorce in this series. I'm not denying the pain of divorce. If you've been through circumstances that certainly you didn't choose, you didn't sign up for that, but you found yourself in that situation, we're not denying that pain whatsoever. I'm not going to be talking much about divorce, I'm going to be talking about marriage.
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Simply want to be talking about God's original plan and encouraging married couples to evaluate their marriage and to repent where needed. So I just encourage you don't feel left out. There are some subjects that we cover that actually apply to everybody, right? Like we talked about prayer.
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Everybody here would be like, "Yeah, prayer. We need to learn more about what God's Word says about prayer." Some subjects that we cover don't apply to every single person, and I would ask you to pray for those who it will affect.
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If I was going to preach on the dangers of alcohol, I would say the same thing. Even if it doesn't affect you, you need to be praying for the people it does affect.
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I was preaching on the dangers of pornography.
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Maybe that doesn't apply to you, but you need to be praying for the people that it does affect.
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Okay, turn in your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 2.
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We're going to be picking up in verse 18.
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Genesis chapter 2.
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Now when we turn to the Genesis account, there might be some people here today that are saying, "Pastor Jeff, do you really believe, do you really believe the Genesis account is literal history. I mean, maybe it was just some poetic story that was made up. Do you really believe that it is literal history? And I do. I absolutely, 100% believe that Genesis is literal history.
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And you're like, "You're going to have to give me some reasons you believe that." I'll give you three reasons I believe that, three reasons you can't deny. One of them is observation, Genesis, especially the creation account, talks about certain things that are true, that we observe to be true, that we can't explain any other way.
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For example, Genesis says that the animals were created to reproduce after their kind.
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Dogs make dogs, cats make cats, birds make birds.
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Animals can't mix with each other to make another kind.
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We observe that in nature and the Bible says that's how God created things to be.
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That's observation.
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Like, yeah, it lines up.
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seven-day week. It makes no sense apart from the Genesis account.
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The fact that sin came into the world and we're born with a sinful nature. Genesis gives the reason for that.
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Genesis explains why your kids and my kids are little sinners. Genesis explains why we wear clothes. I noticed that you were wearing clothes to church today and I first of all "Thank you for that." "Why do we wear clothes?" "Because we live in Pittsburgh and it's like 30 degrees outside." "Okay, true, but even if you lived in the South, you'd wear clothes. Why?" "Well, Genesis tells us why we wear clothes." So, observation. That's one reason I believe Genesis is literally true.
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Secondly, I believe Genesis is true because Jesus talked about it as if it were literally true.
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You look at Jesus when he talked about the creation account, the things happening in Genesis.
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He didn't talk about them as an allegory.
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He talked about it as literal history.
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We'll talk more about that as we go on.
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The third reason I believe that Genesis is literally true is because our whole theology about what we believe about God's Word hangs on the book of Genesis.
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And here's what I mean.
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that the first Adam brought sin and death into the world. That's the Adam from Genesis 2 and 3. Okay, the first Adam brought sin and death into the world, but the Bible says that God sent a second Adam, and that's Jesus Christ. The first Adam brought sin and death, the second Adam brought forgiveness and eternal life. Romans 5 talks about that. So here's Here's the thing, if the first Adam wasn't literally true and he didn't literally bring a literal sin and a literal death into the world, it makes no sense when we get up and talk about Jesus.
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We're like, "Jesus, the second Adam, brought forgiveness and eternal life." If the first Adam's just poetic imagery, does that mean the second Adam's poetic imagery?
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And on what do we hang our face?
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Everything rises and falls on the doctrine that you find in the first two chapters of Genesis.
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where sin came from. First Adam brought sin and death. Second Adam brought forgiveness and eternal life. You know Him? You know Him?
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Jesus Christ. Those are just three reasons.
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I can give you more, but we're not doing an apologetics course here. We're talking about marriage. In Genesis chapter 1, God created the world in six 24-hour days according to In Genesis chapter 2, Moses zooms in on day 6.
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We're going to pick up in verse 18.
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It says, "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone.
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I will make him a helper fit for him.'" Now, if you're familiar with the Genesis account, when God created something, He goes, "This was good." And He created, "This was good. This was good. Remember, this was good." This was the first time in the book of Genesis that God said that something was not good.
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And don't think that God was looking at His creation thinking, "This is evil," or "This is bad." There was nothing at this point in creation that was inherently bad.
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What was not good was the fact that something was incomplete.
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That's the "not good." Incomplete!
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The man was alone and he didn't have a helper.
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Verse 19 says, "Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them." And whenever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
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The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him." That's kind of a weird account in Genesis, isn't it?
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Like God's creating and then all of a sudden God's like, "Okay, time to name these things Adam.
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I'm going to line them up and I'm going to bring them to you." And I believe that's what God literally did.
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He brought them to Adam and you're going to name them.
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Why did he do that?
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Well, Adam was to have, and man was to have dominion over the earth, but another reason we're going to see, another reason that the Lord had Adam name and look at and evaluate all these animals, this was a very graphic object lesson.
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None of these animals could be suitable helpers for Adam.
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And God wanted Adam to see that.
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Now before you think I'm like poo-poo on the animals, that's not true.
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I love animals. There's one animal in particular that I love more than all the others.
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Where are the dog people at in here? Dog people! Raise them high, proud! Proud!
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Where are the cat people?
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I noticed the dog people were like, "Dog!" and the cat people were like, "We'll get there." Except for Jay Mauer, but we're still praying for him.
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This is Gordy.
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And this is our dog.
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We're trying to sell our house to move closer to this area.
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And we have a house showing, so that means the dog gets ice cream, and the kids are in the back seat.
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Like, why does he get ice cream, and we don't?
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I'm like, because he's the dog.
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No, everybody got ice cream, OK?
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But he got ice cream.
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And I've told you before that I'm a dog person.
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I love dogs.
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But I've never really told you why.
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I'm going to tell you why I'm a dog person.
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This is why.
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When I leave the house, it is as if Aaron sits Gordy down and says to him, you are never going to see him again.
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He is gone forever.
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you're never going to see him again.
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And it's almost as if Gordy would understand that.
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That's the reaction that I get when I get home.
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When I walk in the door from being wherever, Gordy's just like-- he's a boxer.
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Anybody else have boxers?
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Has Zelsnack's had boxers?
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Some of you guys have boxers?
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When I get home from being anywhere, he doesn't just wag his tail.
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His whole body shakes.
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And he's like, you're home!
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You're home!
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I didn't think you were coming back!
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And he does it for like 15 minutes.
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He's like, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! You're home! You're home! Oh my gosh! It is so good to see you! I didn't think you were coming back! I definitely didn't think you were coming back!"
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[laughing]
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Every time. Every time.
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And I don't have to be gone for very long.
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I can step in and out of the bathroom in 30 seconds, and he's waiting on the other side of the door.
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"You're back!
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You're back! You're back!" and his whole body starts shaking.
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"You're back! You're back!" And I love that about Gordon.
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Sometimes he's the only person that's glad to see me when I get in the door.
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And you know, there's times I catch him, dog people, you know what I'm talking about.
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There's times I catch him, he's just, he's just staring at me.
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Just, just so adoration in his eyes.
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I'll be working, I'll turn around and look, and he's just looking at me.
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And when he sees me looking at him, he's just like, "Oh, he sees me! He sees me! He sees me!" And he just... I don't get that from anybody else.
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Certainly not my children. Parents like your dad's, yeah.
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But I got him. I love Gordy.
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I talk to Gordy, and I know that he doesn't have a clue what I'm saying, but here's his reaction while I'm talking.
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He doesn't speak back, but I know exactly what he's thinking.
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When I talk to him, he sits there and he goes, "Everything you say is awesome." I could read him the phone book and he'd be like, "Yeah! Yeah! Let's get to the B's! Yeah!" That's Gordy. He's just, he's just enthusiasm.
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24/7. And I love this dog. I love this dog.
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Despite all of that, I could go on and on.
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But despite all of that, he is not a suitable helper for me.
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I can't really share life with him.
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It's a one-way conversation every time.
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And you see, God brought all these animals to Adam, and Adam couldn't really have a personal relationship with any other creature in creation.
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And God had Adam go through them.
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you know, imagine a picture, raccoons and elephants and birds and lizards and rhinoceroses and all these animals and none of them were suitable helpers for Adam.
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Why?
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Because man was created in the image of God.
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What does that mean?
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That means a lot of things.
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It means that man is self-conscious.
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It means that man has a personality.
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It means that man is rational and creative.
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Man has appreciation of beauty and art.
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Man records laws.
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Man records history.
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In other words, to simplify it, the difference between man and every other animal on the planet is that man was created in the image of God.
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And at this point in creation, there was literally only one being on the planet that had God's image stamped on him.
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So you can see this incompatibility with the rest of creation.
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There was no possibility of having a real person created in the image of God.
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God wanted Adam to see that.
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That's why it says, "But for Adam there was not found a helper." Verse 21 says, "The Lord God caused deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up his place with flesh." God performed surgery, and this is unique.
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He realized nothing else in all of creation was created like this.
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This was the first time God had created a man.
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was so special. Man was created from the dust of the earth. The woman was created so unique out of the man. Nothing else created like this. Verse 22 says, "And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man." So God brought this newly created woman Eve to Adam.
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You know the first thing he said when he saw her?
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He said, "Whoa, man!" And it stuck.
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Whoa, man. Whoa, man.
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Yeah, we'll go with that.
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Actually, that's not exactly how it happened.
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Look at verse 23.
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Then the man said, "This that lasts as bone in my bones flesh in my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
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Breaks into a love poem. This is the first country western love song ever recorded.
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Obviously before tractors were invented. But he breaks into a love poem. Interestingly, the Hebrew Every word for woman comes from the same root.
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Aisha, I-S-H-A, the Hebrew word is literally soft.
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And you kind of see that picture, right?
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You see Adam and Eve is presented to them.
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She looks really soft.
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And that's what the word means, "taking on a man." Then when we get to verse 24, I can't underscore this enough.
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This is the most important verse in the Bible about marriage.
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This is it.
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"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." That's the most important verse in your Bible about marriage.
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You're like, "How can you make a statement like that?" It's easy.
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When Jesus was asked about marriage, guess which verse he quoted?
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He goes, "Have you not read how it was in the beginning?" He quotes Genesis 2.24.
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He does it in Matthew 19.5, Mark 10.8.
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Jesus went back to Genesis 2.24.
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The Apostle Paul, when he was writing to the church in Ephesus, when he was writing to the church in Corinth, Ephesians 5.31, 1 Corinthians 6.16, in both of those books when he's talking about marriage, Guess which verse he takes them to?
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Genesis 2.24. He quotes this verse in both passages.
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This is one statement that defines marriage and sexuality and family and church in a day when marriage is being redefined.
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The thing we're going to look at this morning for a few minutes.
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How does God define marriage?
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And the way God defines marriage according to Genesis, according to Jesus and according to Paul, the way God defines marriage is found in one verse. And here it is. I'm going to ask you to take notes. I have three things I want to share with you, but there are some sub points underneath. I want to make this very applicational and I want us to understand God's plan because the next three weeks are all going to be built on this foundation. God's plan for marriage. Here it is. Number Leave for your new priority.
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It says first of all, this is God's commentary on what's happening here, Genesis 2.24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother." We're going to stop there.
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"A man shall leave his father and his mother." Now we are not, everybody say not, we are not saying that you never speak to your parents again.
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Like after the wedding reception, you're like, "Mom, Dad, it was a good run. I'm never going to see you again." Because the Bible says I need to leave you.
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We're not saying that.
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The Bible doesn't say that you couldn't live with your parents as a couple in transition.
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You know, maybe transferring jobs or for some reason, you know, you're buying or building a house or whatever and you need to move in with your parents for a season.
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We're not saying that that is evil or sinful.
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We're not saying that you can't be staying with your parents in an emergency situation.
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We're not saying any of that.
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But we are saying God's plan for marriage is you're starting a new chapter in your life.
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You're going from living under your parents' care and your parents' authority to establish your own home.
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That's the point.
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And it starts with leaving, maintaining a healthy and biblical respect for your parents without letting them negatively affect your relationship with your spouse.
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Have you ever seen that show Everybody Loves Raymond?
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How many people have seen that show?
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I don't think that show is funny at all, just for the record.
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I just don't think it is. I have friends that think it's hilarious.
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I just don't.
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I've seen a couple episodes and I know the premise of the show is exactly what I'm going to be talking about here for a minute.
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The premise of the show is raised parents, don't they live like across the street from them and they're constantly, constantly butting in, intruding, and offering unsolicited advice.
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That's sort of the whole thing and we're trying to avoid you being in an "everybody loves Raymond" scenario.
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So I want you to write down here, "Four things parents say that are red flags for your marriage." Number one, do it my way.
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Meaning this, do your parents, married couples, do your parents criticize you when you don't handle money the way that they do?
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Or you don't raise your kids the way that they raised you and your parents criticize you and they're like, "You should be doing it my way.
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This is how I raised you and you turned out okay and I don't really agree with how you're raising your kids." And that's a red flag.
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Now hang in here, I'm going to tell you what to do with these things in a second, but I just want you to know that's a red flag if you're hearing that from your parents.
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You should be doing everything in your marriage the way your father and I did it.
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I'm probably going to say that to my kids, and I'm probably going to need corrected for that.
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But do it my way.
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Red flag.
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Secondly, number two, let me do it for you.
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Let me do it for you.
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Listen, it's okay to accept help.
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It's okay to accept help, but we need to watch married people that we're not still dependent upon our parents.
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Like, I can't make ends meet unless mom and dad are floating me money every month.
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Leaving your father or mother means you're establishing your own home, so it's manning up, guys.
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I need to do what I need to do.
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Does that mean working two or three jobs?
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It might.
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Whatever you need to do to provide for your family, watch the dependents, alright?
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Number three, do what we've always done.
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Do what we've always done, meaning this.
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You've been married for a while, you know this.
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Something comes up in the calendar.
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Fourth of July comes, and your parents say, "You're coming over for our annual Fourth of July thing, right?" And you're like, "No, actually my wife's sister's getting married that weekend, so we're out of state." Like, "What?
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But you always come over on Fourth of July.
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We've done it every year since you were born.
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"You can't do this, this is a family tradition and it's not going to be the same without you." And that's a red flag.
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Because now I have my own family, plus I have you mom and dad, plus I have my wife's family and much after that.
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Fourthly, this is a big one.
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When your parents say, "Your spouse is a bum." Or to the guys, "Your spouse is a witch." or even something worse than that.
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Don't let that happen.
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Don't let your parents badmouth your spouse.
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We all got issues, right?
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We all got issues.
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Anybody here perfect?
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Anybody here got the perfect marriage?
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Like, we all got things that we're working through, OK?
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Now, I want to say this.
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When parents say these things, when parents say these things, they have good intentions.
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And parents say these things because they love you.
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I'm not saying your parents are trying to be evil or provocative or intrusive.
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They love you and they want what's best for you.
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They are just merely concerned for you.
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But sometimes it is hard to just let go.
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So when you face these types of comments from your parents, how do you handle them?
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do not make it into a fight. It is not a fight. Here's what I encourage you to do.
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Drop this down. Here's what I encourage you to do. I want you to first of all lovingly thank your parents for their concern.
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You know, mom, I know you're saying this because you love us and you're concerned about us and I thank you for that. Appreciate their advice. It doesn't mean you have to take it. You can just say, you know what, I thank you for the advice. Thank you. I'll talk to I'll be here, I'll talk to my wife, we'll talk about it, you know, I just, hey, thank you for the advice.
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It doesn't have to be a fight.
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You don't have to take it.
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But thank you for the advice.
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And lovingly remind them this.
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I'm trying to do what's best for our family.
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Just try to watch like, putting it on your spouse.
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Like, "Oh, I know, Mama, I wanted to come to the 4th of July thing too, but you know how my wife is, you know how she is about the whole family wedding thing." Don't put it on your spouse.
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Okay, man up.
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Be like, "You know what? I'm going to talk to...
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We're going to try to make the best decision for the family.
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Thanks for loving me, Mom." And leave it at that.
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Alright?
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Why do we do that?
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Because...
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The plan for marriage, first of all, man shall leave his father and his mother.
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It's still tied to the apron string, boys.
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Ladies, you're not running home to Mom.
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constantly putting that relationship over the relationship with your husband.
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It's a new priority in your relationship.
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That's why, first of all, man shall leave his father and mother.
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Interestingly, notice how this plan, God laid it out.
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At this point, there wasn't even such a thing as a father and a mother.
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There was Adam and Eve, but they hadn't had kids at this point.
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They didn't have parents.
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God was laying this out from the beginning.
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Here's how marriage works.
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Step one, leave your parents.
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Secondly, cleave to your wife exclusively.
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For ladies you can say husband, I said wife because that's what's in the text.
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It says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast" some translations say cleave, I went with that because it rhymes with leave.
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"and hold fast to his wife." So do you see the plan?
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You leave under the care and the authority of your parents and you cleave with your wife.
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What does the word cleave mean?
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It means be super glued together. That's what it means.
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It means you're glued together.
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You see in God's plan here, He didn't create a man and then create two women or twelve women.
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His plan was one man and one woman.
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And there is no relationship like this one.
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And if you are married, or if you are planning on getting married, your relationship with your spouse is the most important relationship you have by far.
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That's why in your outline I call it an exclusive relationship. What does that mean? What does it mean that we have an exclusive relationship? What does it mean that we're stuck together like glue?
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Here's a couple sub points for you if you're taking notes. What does it mean?
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It means, first of all, number one, I keep no secrets.
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You should have no secrets from your spouse.
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Meaning, where I'm going, who I'm with, what I spend money on.
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Your spouse should never have to wonder any of those things.
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Why?
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Because you're together.
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And it is her business, guys, where you are.
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Ladies, it is his business who you're with.
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No secrets.
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I'd also say, no secrets, I want to say this especially to the men, with your phone, or your computer, your wife should have access to your phone and your computer, your Facebook, your email, your wife should have access to that.
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Why?
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Because I have no secrets.
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I'm not nurturing some little flirtatious email conversation over here, I have no secrets.
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You're free to check my phone.
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What do we mean by an exclusive relationship?
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What does it mean if we're glued together?
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I do nothing that makes my spouse uncomfortable.
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I do nothing that makes my spouse uncomfortable, meaning this, I will not have lunch with the opposite sex.
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I won't.
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I've had some ladies just very innocently say, "Hey, pastor, I would like to talk to you about some church things," and I don't do that.
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Okay?
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I don't think you're creepy, okay? It's nothing against you. It has everything to do with my wife. I'm not going to do something that's going to make her uncomfortable.
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All right, so I don't do that and I would encourage you to not do that.
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Counseling the opposite sex. I've shared with you before. I could give you a list of pastor friends of mine that had affairs with women that came to them for counseling. That's why I do not counsel women.
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We've had ladies that have wanted to talk, and that's fine.
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I'll talk to you one time in my home with my wife present.
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And at that point you need to seek female counsel.
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That's what we do in small groups.
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You need to get in a small group.
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You need to surround yourself with ladies who are going to love you and encourage you in the Lord.
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But I am not going to counsel ladies beyond one time with my wife present.
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I'm not going to do it.
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And even if you're not a pastor, you know how it is.
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There's a lady from a small group that wants to talk. Maybe I'll meet up with her at Starbucks.
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Guys, there's your wife, not you.
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You're nothing that makes my spouse uncomfortable.
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Men, when your wife is uncomfortable with something, do not disregard her feelings.
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Men say, "Well, it's irrational that you're uncomfortable with that." Feelings are feelings. And if your wife is uncomfortable with something, You need to respect that for the sake of your love for her and the importance of protecting your relationship.
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And it's easy for guys to do.
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I don't see why that would make you uncomfortable.
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Guys, we don't need to see why that would make her uncomfortable.
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If she's uncomfortable with it, man up and do the right thing.
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For the sake of my relationship, I'm not going to do it.
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I had a couple come to me many years ago.
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It was an adult daughter of a friend of mine and her husband.
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And they needed some marriage counseling.
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And they came to me, my old office.
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You can tell a lot about people by their body language.
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They came into the little conference room.
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He sat on one end of the table and she sat on the other end of the table.
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I said, "I see where this is going." I sit down with them and I said, "Well, what seems to be the problem?" And the man just looked very, very stoic.
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He didn't say anything.
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Quite very animated.
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He goes, "Oh, he's jealous.
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You know what his problem is?
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Because he's jealous." And I said, "Well, tell me about that." She said, "Can you believe this?
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I have some guy friends that called me up and wanted to go up to the club.
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And I went with them to the club.
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And he's jealous.
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"Emma, wait, back up a second. You went to the club with some guys." Not him. "No, he didn't go. He doesn't like going there.
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"Do you go to the club with some guys when he's jealous?" "Yeah." And I said, "Is that true?" And he goes, "Yeah." He goes, "Yeah, I was jealous.
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One guy in particular she's really kind of attached herself to." I said, "Yeah." And I said, "You know, he should be jealous." She said, "What are you talking about he should be jealous?" I said, "Well, you know the Bible says God's a jealous God.
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Jealousy is proper in its right context.
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Jealousy means right to ownership.
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God is a jealous God because he created us for him.
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And when we're off worshipping other things, God's like, 'No, no, no, I created you for me.
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I created you to have a relationship with me.' And God says he's a jealous God.
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And husbands, you should be jealous for your wives because she belongs to you.
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ladies, your husband belongs to you. You should be jealous. That's a righteous jealousy. She left mad.
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I wish all my counseling sessions were that easy. Yeah, he should be jealous.
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Absolutely he should be jealous, and you need to stop doing that.
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So, exclusive relationship, we're stuck together. Here's another word of encouragement I want of you. Break this down, married couples. My money is our money. I encourage you, now listen, I'm not saying that you're evil or in sin or whatever, if you have separate checking accounts, but I encourage you to have the same checking accounts. I encourage you to be spending within your means, and I encourage you to decide spending together. You've got the money. Or if you prefer, God's money. But here's something guys, it's not my money.
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Because as soon as you got married, there's no mine and yours. There's ours. We're on the same team. We're wearing the jerseys. Okay? And there's no, this is mine and this is yours. This is ours.
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I cringe a little bit sometimes when I hear, I'll hear a couple say things like, Why did I have any money so I asked my husband to loan me $50?
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I'm like, "Loan you?" Like, "What, you have to pay him back?" And they're like, "What if you don't pay him back?
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Does he, like, send somebody to your house to break your knees?
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Like, what?
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I mean, his house?
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Loan?
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It's ours!
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It's ours!" Don't get into the whole thing of the money.
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That's...
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There's a lot of marriages.
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Leave.
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Leave your wife exclusively.
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If your marriage is stale, I'd encourage you to sit down with her.
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down with your spouse and ask, what are some things that I can do?
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What are some things that I need to stop doing to make you feel more like, number one, more like a priority in my life?
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I had to do that.
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My own waywardness, I had to sit down with Erin and say, "Hey, a few years ago we had this talk.
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I'm not doing the things that I need to do as a husband.
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How can I make you feel more of a priority in this relationship?
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Because that's what I want.
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I have a lousy time showing it and I'm really stupid.
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So you're going to have to walk me through this.
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Humble yourself, guys.
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Thirdly, and finally today, you leave.
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So you leave, then you cleave, and then you weave.
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It's the last phrase says, "And they shall become one flesh." "They shall become one flesh." Do you notice it's action, action, result.
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A man leaves his father and mother and he leaves, he holds fast to his wife, action, action, and then this is the result.
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"They shall become one flesh." That's the weaving, that's the unity.
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The Hebrew word here for "one" is the same Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 6, verses 4-5, that talks about how the Lord is one.
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Here talking about the husband and wife, the husband and wife are one.
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You are not a team, a tag team, a conglomerate, a company.
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You are, in a way that I can't fully understand, the Bible says that you are two people who have become one.
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And that's what your marriage is.
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It's weaving your two cords that are being woven together.
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In other words, after marriage, nobody should think of one of you without thinking of both both of you. That's how it is when you're woven together, when two become one.
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When somebody thinks of you, they automatically think of your spouse every time.
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I don't think about Darren without thinking about Corinne, because they're two people that are now one person. They're a package deal. You get one, you get both.
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Right? I don't think about Paul without thinking about Carrie, because it's not Paul and Carrie, Paul and Carrie, it's one word, right? Paul and Carrie.
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It sounds Italian, but it's one word.
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You're two people that have become one person in marriage.
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Jesus, when he was talking about marriage, made a commentary on this verse, Matthew 19, 6.
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You can jot that down.
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Here's what Jesus said about Genesis 2, 24.
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This is divine commentary on a divine word.
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Jesus said, "What God has joined together, let no man separate." Meaning this, when you're married, the instant you get married, God says, "I'm doing a project here.
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I'm going to weave you together." Jesus said, "What God is joining together, nobody should get in the middle of that and try to undo the work that God is doing." Who wants to sign up for that? God says, "I got a project going here, and you're going to step in and say, "I want to unravel the very thing that God is trying to weave together." Do you want to do that?
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That shows you how important the Lord views marriage.
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As we close, I want to remind you, church, the Bible talks about you being one with your spouse.
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You are not one with your job.
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The Bible never says that you are one with your job.
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Jobs come and go, and no one on their deathbed ever wished for one more day of work.
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You are not one with your job.
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You are not one with your hobbies.
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When you get married, you may have to give some things up that you used to like to do for the sake of taking care of your new home.
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You are not one with your hobbies.
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The Bible never says that.
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You are not one in any other relationship.
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You're not one with your parents. The Bible never talks about that.
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You're not one with your friend, and it's great to have friends, but you're not in high school anymore.
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You're not even one with your children, because according to this, someday, your children are going to be leaving the home.
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You're not one with them.
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You're not even one with the church.
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The church is called the bride of Christ.
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You're not one with the church.
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Ministry is not an excuse to neglect your spouse.
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That's why we encourage you to do ministry together.
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You know, when we have a need for a teacher in the children's ministry, that's a great opportunity for husbands and wives to do that together.
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Biblically, the only one that you are one with, the only one that you are uniquely connected to, the only one that God is working on joining you together with, To married people, did you leave everything and everyone to make your spouse your number one priority? Did you leave? Did you cleave?
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Are you joined to your spouse in an exclusive relationship? Nothing compares to the relationship that I have with this person. Are you experiencing God weaving you together. The unity that comes in recognizing that you're no longer two, but you're one. God gave the most incredible picture of what this relationship looks like.
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We're going to look at that picture next week. Today can be a new day. 2016 can be the best year of your marriage so far. If you're willing to humble yourself, if you're willing to come pray, "You know what, I haven't been the husband that God's called me to be. I haven't been the wife that God's called me to be." And it can be a new day. Maybe it's not even for yourself. Maybe you have friends or family that are in a marriage.
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It just isn't going well. Maybe you need to come down and pray for them. Maybe today you get home with your wife and you get home with your husband and you need to sit down and say, "You know, I you need me to be. By God's grace I want that to change. What are some things that we can do to be better? What are some things that we can do to make this marriage what we want it to be? The day that you said I do. Now pray with us. Father in heaven, we thank you for this plan that you put together. And it's so much better than anything we could have come up with.
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But this idea of as parents we love and we nurture and we raise our children and we equip them to go establish a home of their own so they can do the same thing.
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Father, I pray that we would look with fresh eyes at this plan.
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We are people who love and honor and respect our parents, but we're not dependent upon them.
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And we're not allowing any kind of negative influence to come from anywhere, whether parents or whatever.
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We're not allowing any outside influence to negatively affect that relationship that you've lost this way.
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Father, I pray that we would go after the things that lead to unity.
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You've called us to cleave, to hold fast to the one that we are committed to in marriage.
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Father, we thank you that all of this is done by your grace and your power.
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As your word says, "The two shall become one flesh." We can't manufacture that.
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That's a spiritual thing that happens as you are weaving our lives together because Jesus said what God joins together.
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This is a work that you're doing, and I pray, Father, that you would help us to get on the page that you've already established.
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Father, glorify your name in the way that we love the person that we are committed to.
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The most important relationship on this earth, Father, let us act on it.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
