Relationships 2024 The Flourishing Marriage Model

Good morning, CHURCH!

Welcome to FFM where we love God and love people.

I’m Dr. James Byrd and this is my amazing wife Dr. Angel Byrd and together we are “The Love Byrd’s.”

And we are here to help connect you to the love of God through biblical teaching, loving community, and relational small groups.

(Introduction)

Build some excitement for relationships!!!

Its relationships month!!!

Let’s make some noise!!!

Are you ready to learn something about relationships?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s Pray

Lord, help us to see you as new and fresh through your word today.

Help us to see truth where we have believed lies.

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Help us to see where we have been deceived by the enemy.

Most of all whatever we learn today I pray it leads us to love you more and love people more.

We are in week 2 of relationship month 2024.

Relationships 2024

Today’s message title is:

The Flourishing Marriage Model

Dr A has a presentation about a Christian married couple and a non-Christian married couple.

What we talk about today will benefit both the married and non-married.

To start, I have a question for those that are married, desiring to be married or at least not opposed to being married.

Why get married? And for those that already are, why did you get married?

Genesis 2:24 NIV

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

I believe there is a grand misunderstanding behind what this one flesh means.

And if it’s not a misunderstanding, in most cases it’s a misapplication.

This one flesh doesn’t mean the numeral one.

(Could you imagine a wedding with all the family and friends in attendance. And as soon as the officiator says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The two people intertwine and now you have just one flesh. No longer two people but one person.)

This doesn’t happen so we know that can’t be the interpretation intended for the scripture.

This one flesh means unity.

(The marriage now becomes the mission and purpose. [Not my individual way or individual happiness.] There is not a literal one flesh but there is now a new entity created. Mr. and Mrs.)

Malachi 2:15 NIV

Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.

Christlike marriages were and are God’s intended way to populate the earth.

This is why we get married.

To continue the mission God had in mind.

Some of us get so focused on our own mission. (I want to be rich. I want to be a star. I want to be an influencer.)

How about we fulfill God’s mission for the marriage and be okay with that.

I have another question.

What’s the purpose of marriage?

Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV

Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This is God’s purpose for each one of his children.

To be an imitator of him and walk in love like he loves us.

The purpose of marriage is for imitators of God to populate the earth with a bunch of other imitators of God.

And in marriage when the man plays the role of Christ and the woman plays the role of help meet, you get a marriage model that will flourish until the end of time.

Regardless of whether you are a man, woman, married or non-married, the goal is still to be a God imitator in the way that we love people.

Why are relationships so vital?

God uses relationships to cause us to grow.

(By myself I can’t grow because I will never discover what needs to change.)

The relationship we will focus on today will be marriage, but the principles will apply in all relationships.

What we see the most in marriage relationships today, are unhealthy individuals trying to have healthy marriages.

Point #1

Lost W/O You

It may sound good and even romantic at times to say, “Baby, I’m lost without you.”

This is typically what most marriages attempt to strive for.

A marriage so intertwined that without each other they feel lost.

And we’ve been guided this way by well-meaning people, not knowing it has been a set up for failure.

This is actually an unhealthy dependence on your spouse to think that they’ll make you happy, make you feel worthy, or give you identity.

Some people in a marriage feel down when their spouse feels down.

(If momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy.)

The only person we should feel lost without is Jesus.

In God is where we find our self-worth, purpose, identity, and safety.

In couples with an unhealthy dependency on one another, their heart strings are controlled by the moods, actions, and behaviors of their spouse.

(We see this when we have unhealthy expectations of our spouse, and they don’t meet them. We end up disappointed and broken hearted.)

And the fallout from the spouse that is not meeting the expectations is:

Once we see we’ve broken the heart of our spouse, we start to make sometimes unhealthy adjustments trying to make them happy.

Now we’ve become a lesser version of who God made us to be, because we’re taking on the responsibility of their happiness.

And if couples are not unhealthy in that way, they might be on the other end of the spectrum which is:

Point #2

Housemates

With housemates there is no unhealthy dependency on each other because they are so emotionally detached from each other.

A meaningful bond and sense of connection is virtually non-existent.

These are couples who co-exist in a mediocre relationship void of emotional awareness and sensitivity.

(You ever been in the presence of a couple and hear them talking normal to each other, but it throws you off because you couldn’t imagine talking to your spouse like that unless you were angry with them.)

Sometimes a housemate relationship can fool you if you’re not up close and personal with them.

On the exterior you see little to no fighting, productivity in handling business, occasional fun activities, and good co-parenting.

But usually this is because they are experts at sweeping conflict under the rug.

Or because they are so emotionally distant that they don’t feel working through the conflict is worth the effort.

Often one of them usually ends up connecting emotionally with someone outside the relationship, which can often lead to infidelity.

So, now that we’ve looked at unhealthy relationships from two different sides of the spectrum.

Let’s look at a healthy or flourishing relationship model.

Point #3

The Sweet Spot

To start let’s define an adult.

Adult = Person fully capable and responsible for their wellbeing. (Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually)

Next let’s define a healthy adult.

Healthy Adult = The adult we just described being in relationship with God.

Now let’s define relationship.

Relationship = Two healthy adults entering the sweet spot.

And they can move in and out of the sweet spot going back and forth into their space with God.

Most marriage problems are a result of misplaced responsibilities.

-Either you’re taking responsibility for things that are not your responsibility to fix or change.

-Or you’re not taking responsibility for the things that are your responsibility to fix or change.

Each one of us has our own personal responsibility in the relationship.

1-I am 100% responsible for my thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and feelings.

2-I am not responsible for my spouse’s thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and feelings.

3-But I can influence my spouse’s thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and feelings.

(Oneness doesn’t mean you’re not individuals talk.)

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?