Spirit Filled - Part 2 Basis of Marriage
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Call to Worship Gen 2
Prayer
Worship through Song
Sermon
Scripture reading
Prayer
Communion - See Communion outline
Worship through Song
Benediction
Introduction
Introduction
Join me in prayer today as we worship the Lord by the study of his Word.
I am so glad you are here today as we continue in our conversation about the teachings of Paul in Chapter 5 of Ephesians. Please stand with me as we read our scripture this morning,
Thank you. You may be seated. As we have come back to Ephesians after about 10 month break, spent our time last week redeveloping the groundwork for what Paul was teaching in this second half of the book. We saw that Paul is developing this idea of what the Christian life should look like. He used the common phase of “walk”. To capture this idea of how a person’s life should be when they are living out their faith.
Paul told them to walk worthy of their calling, to the calling to be saved and justified as saved children of God. They were to walk in the light and not in darkness any more. There were three attributed that he used to descvribe this type of walk. The atttibutes of goodness, righteousness and truth. That they were to walk in the goodness that comes from the Spirit of God himself, the righteousness that Jesus imputes on believers after salvation, and to live in the truth. This is the truth of the Good News of Jesus the good news of his death for our sins, his resurrection that gives life to the person who believes and confesses that Jesus is Lord.
He set this very high bar that the believers should see in their lives but then he comes to the second half of verse 18
Ephesians 5:18 (CSB)
18 ... but be filled by the Spirit:
To walk the way that Paul is describing is to be filled with the Spirit of God. That to be filled is more and different than receiving the Spirit. Once we are saved the Spirit dwells in us. That is a free gift of God that we did not earn or barter for. We did not accept it like it was a good product on the shelf of the grocery store. We received the free gift of salvation from God and then we have to allow it to fill us. To humble ourselves to put our old self away and to put on the new. To be in the Word, to be in Prayer, to be in fellowship with Jesus and his body the church.
He then starts to develop from the ambiguous Spirit filled walk to examples. Examples of singing songs. See singing songs filled with the Spirit, some of the most powerful worship experiences I have been involved in it men and women singing hymns from the Spirit that is inside of them simple and powerful. He also gave the example of thanks giving and then we came to verse 21.
21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
This is the lynch pin of his teaching and arguable of the life of a Christian believer. Without the work of the Holy Spirit we are unable to live a life that is in submission to the Word or to each other as this verse says.
If you recall this is the willing submission of one person to another. This is a military term. It is not domineering, conquering, subjugation or other ideas that come with the idea of worldly submission. This submission comes from a result of the fear of Christ. The reverent respect and honor that Christ is worthy of that that his children own him. The submission that Paul brings forward is motivated by the fear of Christ not man or woman. This is a response to the Love and Grace of our savior not from how worthy the others are.
We now come to the part of scripture where Paul uses the family household of believers to show and teach what this idea of submission looks like. As I spoke last week I think these are some of the most influential and miss applied scriptures in the bible. As we look at husbands and wives I made the claim that where the family goes, so goes society. We looked at sobering statistics on fatherhood and the effect of homes that do not have fathers in the home. With 23% of children living in home without fathers in the USA and the rest of the world average at 7%. We must recognize that something is wrong. Our country is in uncharted territory when it comes to the family. No country in history has attacked the family the way we are today.
But the question must be asked is why? Why is the family being attacked? Why does Paul teach that living out a biblical family requires the Holy Spirit? Can’t we just take some classes, read some book, get divorced and find the right person? The reason is that we have failed in the Church to understand the magnitude the marriage to the life of a believer.
Perfect Submission
Perfect Submission
Turn with me to Genesis Chapter 2. Before we look at dealing with submitting to one another we must see what we are dealing with.
4 These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation. At the time that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 no shrub of the field had yet grown on the land, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. 6 But mist would come up from the earth and water all the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
As God created man he made him special. He made him different than all of the other creatures. He hand made him and breathed life into him. He was pure and righteous. There was no evil or sin in him. Then God placed him in a special place for him,
15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
God set Adam in the garden and then he showed him around and gave him the first command. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good or evil or you will certainly die. Did you notice something where is Eve? She has not been created yet. Adam is given the command and it is his responsibility to obey it. But,
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him.
I picture Adam going to each creature first going what is that and what is that, each creature is new to him. He isn’t a child that is experiencing animals a little at a time. He sees a mouse, then a giraffe, then, an elephant, and a lion. I can see him enthusiastically naming each animal but they are not the type of helper that God intends for man to have. As God created man in a unique way he also created Eve in a unique way. He did not gather more dust and breath life into her he did it this way.
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man.
Since Adam is a sleep this is a complete work of God and when he recognizes her for what she is. She of bone and flesh she is like me she is his complement. She does not look like him in many ways. They are unique but the same kind. And they come together in the pure relationship that existed before the fall and because of this.
24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.
Repeated 4 more times Mat 19:5, Mark 10:7-8, 1 Cor 6:16, Eph 5:31
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female, 5 and he also said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
From this point forward marriage has been defined. Before sin ever entered into the lives of man God’s Word says that man “leaves” is father and mother, the Hebrew word here means to abandon of forsake and is a strong word. The word for “bond” is “a strong personal attachment and devotion”. This is the most intimate and close human relationship between human beings. The love of parents or children, of sports team, cars, work, dog, cats, or anything else will not and cannot ever be what marriage is supposed to be. They become one through consummation of the marriage they are husband and wife. The are two beings merged into one. Connected in a way that can never be fully separated. The greatest blessings and the greatest curses in life will come from the relationship of marriage.
This is a relationship, that has no gilt, no shame, no pain, no worry, no selfish ambition, no baggage, no wounds, no insecurities, no mommy or daddy issues, no inlaws, no kid issues. Absolute purity of relationship and fellowship with God. Take that in for a minute. We cannot even fathom what that looks like. But unfortunately it did not stay like that. After that the enemy of God comes and temps Eve.
Perfect Selfishness
Perfect Selfishness
6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
As Eve desired the fruit Adam was responsible for the command that God had given them and as they disobeyed for the first time their fellowship with God was severed and their relations ship between each other has something new. It had selfish desires. Oneness of the relationship was no longer primary, just oneness. God seeks them out and
11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
We already see this point and blaming. This shifting of you verses me attitude start to develop in their minds. This is the beginning of what Paul is addressing in Ephesians. But God said:
16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
This is the issue that plagues marriage today. The word for desire is “choo-ka” and it is only use three time in the bible the other on that relates to this on is in the scripture when God speaks to Cain about his feelings towards Able after his offering was not acceptable.
7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
This is a strong desire to want something. It is believed that the use of these word means that after the fall the wife will want to overtake and rule over the husband yet he will rule over you. We now have two people who no longer willfully submit to each other in fellowship with each other and God. The battle of the sexes has begun and from this point forward the institution of marriage and the family will be horribly effected by this new selfishness that exists in men and women.
Marriage was a covenant between man and women witnessed by God. But over and over we see that sinful people are unable to be faithful to the covenant. By the time we get to the end of the OT we see in Malachi that this is still an issue.
14 And you ask, “Why?” Because even though the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, you have acted treacherously against her. She was your marriage partner and your wife by covenant. 15 Didn’t God make them one and give them a portion of spirit? What is the one seeking? Godly offspring. So watch yourselves carefully, so that no one acts treacherously against the wife of his youth. 16 “If he hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord God of Israel, “he covers his garment with injustice,” says the Lord of Armies. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously.
From Adam to the end of the OT we see man create all sorts of evil on the family and marriage. We see murder, divorce, polygamy, incest, fornication, rape and many other atrocities. This battle is still rampant today. We have used terms that we don’t associate with the church much but what we see as the battle of authority and submission the world simply calls
Chauvinism and Feminism.
Chauvinism per Websters is: an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex, undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged
Feminism is: belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests
The word are loaded words and can fire people up but what the world is trying to label, box, package, and explain is the what God calls a consequence of the fall
16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
Is chauvinism real absolutely? History attests to that every day. Every woman has and will experience this throughout life on this planet. It is a horrible reality.
Is feminism real absolutely? This is also historical. We seem to think that it is an american phenomenon but you can see it again in history. The fight of woman to be equal and superior to men. Will this ever go away nope.
These two manifestations of sin will continue to hurt and wound each other until Jesus returns.
You see neither of these are correct or righteous. You see we have created a world where true masculinity and femininity are destroyed by the other sex. Neither of these can blossom or develop when sin leads our relationships.
But...
The Perfect Promise
The Perfect Promise
Paul comes back and starts to reveal that Christian believers do not have to live this way in their marriages. That through the filling of the Holy Spirit, we can have marriages that grow more and more like the original fellowship and relationship that Adam and Eve had before the fall. Will we ever be perfect? Nope but we can pursue God and see him develop marriages that come closer and closer to the holy relationships that he desires for his people. Why did I detour through Genesis? because we are not recognizing what we are up against.
The brokenness of our world is screaming out can’t you see what is going on? God’s Word tells us what was and in it it gives us hope that we don’t have to live in this type of battle each and every day but we must realize that in each of our hearts are these natural desires that selfishly treat our spouses in evil ways. We don’t call it evil but it is still their like Cain the sin that is crouching at the door with the desire to devour us.
We have laid the ground work to enter into the Paul's teachings on marriage next week.
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
Our country is at a tipping point. As I look around we are starting to see things speed up in the degradation of marriage. As you know I tend to look at statistics because the give us a window into the reality of what is going on in the world around us. As we looked at fathers last week I want to share some statistics with you today from our country.
Conclusion
Conclusion
First here is a graph of marriages from 1900 to 2018. They continue to decline year over year.
But look at population 1932 the great depression population was 124.8 M with 7.9 per 1000 people verses 331.9 M with 6.5 per 1000. 4.6 million less marriages.
40% of marriages are between people of different faiths since 2010. 1 in 5 marriages would be biblically defined as unevenly yoked.
But it is very interesting that only 16-17% of marriages crossed political parties
Median age for marriage for men is now 30 years old and for women is 28 years
Co-habitation is on the rise and it is growing the fastest in those that are 50 years old and older
4 in 10 40% of new marriages are remarriage
Gen Z and Millennial have similar views and define any union as a marriage regardless of definition
less than 46% of marriages were married by a religious leader
What does this tell us? Marriage is not seen as an institution anymore. It is becoming less important to society as sin erodes the value of it. We are talking less than 100 years. 3 to 4 generations. Sin is generational and effects the generations after us for many generations.
For too long have Christians been ok with ignoring God. Marriage isn’t something we should take likely. It is the 1st institution God created. It was ment for something beautiful. We throw the institution of marriage around like it doesn’t matter to God. But I am telling you it matters. The current is speeding up. Do you feel it? The statistics don’t show any indication that they will change and they can only change through the work and will of the Father Son and Holy Spirit. Will we make a stand on the truth of God or will we be swept away.
I know the topic of marriage is raw and close to everyone here. Including myself. Each of us will have to sit under the Word and decide to follow him or continue down the path of pain and destruction. The hard part is that this will take bold steps. Bold steps to change what we are doing. To submit our wills to the one who is good and perfect and loves us in ways we cannot even comprehend. It is my prayer that even though this can be a hard message that we would be a people willing to make bold steps for God. We need to ask ourselves some hard questions.
Do we want our marriages to move toward God?
Do we need to look at what marriage means to us and redefine it as God sees it? Are we missing the blessings of submitting our marriage to God?
I hope you will reach out and come the next couple of weeks as Paul give the secret sauce to marriage. It will take work and time but our marriages can be so much more?
Are you in this battle with your spouse and need to figure out how to live differently?
Pray
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.