The Marriage Covenant
THE MARRIAGE COVENANT
(The Benefits of Family)
10/19/02 and 10/20/02
Review:
We have been talking about the subject of Covenant. Last week we talked about Covenant Relationships. Earlier we talked about the Blood of the Covenant and God’s Covenant with Abraham. We could do this for a year and not finish it all. There are so many directions we could go. Some main points to remember are, GOD ALWAYS BLESSES THROUGH COVENANT. He uses covenant as a means to get His life and purposes to you. Your confidence in God is as strong your faith in the covenant.
-Today we are going to focus on the marriage covenant.
Ephesians 5-The Message
Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.
No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
-We read that at marriage ceremonies to give people an idea of the expectations in marriage.
-Deeper than that yet is the principle of the marriage covenant.
Malachi 2
10 Have we not all one Father a? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
11 Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob b—even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty.
13 Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14 You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
15 Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. c So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
16 “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself d with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty.
So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.
-Notice that the marriage covenant is the means and method God uses to produce GODLY OFFSPRING.
-Notice that the family covenant is the place for children to be raised to love and serve God.
-The best way to learn about how Jesus loves the church is to watch how crazy your father is about your mom.
(The old saying is that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.)
-The best way to learn about God’s love for His children is to watch how your parents love you in sacrifice.
-Disciples are best made in an atmosphere of loving discipline where self-discipline replaces external discipline.
-The best way to see the Covenant of Grace is when there are very strict rules that are released when that child gives their hearts to Jesus completely.
-You don’t need a curfew when the child is being led by Jesus. They will instinctively do the best thing because of the internal/eternal compass.
-It is a great responsibility to place in that child the internal abilities rather than to just focus on the outside.
-You move them from law to grace and they see the N.T. idea.
-Family is God’s laboratory to grow Godly people. At least it should be.
-We try to act like divorce doesn’t hurt people, that’s not true.
-Whatever your past is, START HERE.
-God is bigger than anything in your past. Just make sure you don’t turn your experience into a theology. The Bible is our standard.
Hebrews 13
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (NIV)
4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.
(TLB)
Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.
(The Message)
-The first Saturday morning in November we are having a men’s breakfast. I will be talking about “EVERY MAN’S BATTLE”.
-That is about lust and sexuality from a Biblical point of view.
-Three books for sale in the back. INTIMATE ISSUES-FOR WOMEN, EVERY YOUNG MAN’S BATTLE, AND EVERY MAN’S BATTLE.
-They address the whole issue of sexual intimacy in marriage. I don’t need to do it here other than to say it was God’s idea.
-The world has twisted it into something to sell products with. It is so distorted that we think it belongs to them and we borrow it.
-That isn’t true. We have first shot at it as Christians.
-God is very blunt about it and so are these books.
Matthew 19
One day the Pharisees were badgering him: “Is it legal for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
He answered, “Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.”
They shot back in rebuttal, “If that’s so, why did Moses give instructions for divorce papers and divorce procedures?”
Jesus said, “Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hardheartedness, but it is not part of God’s original plan. I’m holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery.”
Jesus’ disciples objected, “If those are the terms of marriage, we’re stuck. Why get married?”
But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you’re capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.”
(The Message)
-Selfishness and hard-heartedness are at the root of divorce.
-In the O.T. they didn’t have transformed hearts. Moses under the law made a concession and allowed divorce. Jesus took us back to the original plan.
, “Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one.
I saw an article once that compared the stress fractures that sunk the Titanic to the stress fractures we experience in marriage. (Tim Kimmel in Marriage Partnership Magazine.)
1. HURRIED, BUSY LIVES
-It doesn’t take long to go from the romance of dating to the business of raising kids and paying bills.
-When you are dating you take them to the best places and you are all slicked up.
-After marriage it is easy to take them to fast food and not take care of yourself.
-You don’t decide to move away from them, it just happens.
-The purpose of covenant is to draw two people near.
2. THE SUCCESS ILLUSION
-Projecting SUCCESS creates a pressure that keeps you from real success.
-Letting the culture, even the Christian culture tell you what is successful is dangerous.
-Stop faking it and you can make it.
3. FINANCIAL PRESSURE AND DEBT
-This is a whole teaching which really relates back to the last point.
-Finances are a tool, a test, and a testimony.
-The pressure of finances can crack your shell.
4. HIGH CONTROL TENDENCIES
-This is manipulation and emotional terrorism.
-Your parents never broke that rebellion in you and so now you throw a fit in Wal-Mart to scare your wife into submission.
-Nobody wants to cross you because they are afraid you will pout and be moody for a week.
“A lot of nice families end up on the bottom because someone inside the family uses strength of personality to get other family members to meet a selfish agenda.”
-Example with Lonnie and Linda. My will versus “Thy Will be Done” for our children.
5. FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY FEAR OF GOD
“God’s people often decide to behave like spoiled brats. We’d all do well to learn from the epitaph inscribed on the tomb of Lord Lawrence of London: “He feared man so little because he feared God so much.”
PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE
1. FRIENDSHIP
-The best way to have a good marriage is to look up the Scriptures on friendship and treat your wife that way.
-You are really looking for a soul mate.
-The real key to marriage is whether or not the two are able to accept and mold to that other person.
-It is a real character builder to be able to change and adapt.
-My example from last week: I WOULDN’T BE WHO I AM IF IT WEREN’T FOR MY RELATIONSHIP WITH BECKY.
-The things that frustrate you about that other person is the very thing they were sent to bring out of you.
-If you can make the transition from husband or wife to friend, you are doing well.
2. FUN
-This includes but goes way beyond sex.
-I heard a story from a pastor in Canada. The husband and kids told the mom to live some where else. They couldn’t take it anymore.
-When he counseled her he noticed she was from a very religious background and real strict and stiff.
-He told her to take the bun out, put on some blue jeans and wrestle her kids into the mud. Then put on something nice and chase her husband around the house.
-You might think that isn’t very spiritual, that was her problem too.
3. COMMITMENT
-I am married, period.
-She’s going to have to leave me to lose me.
-Remember Ann Hagen’s testimony about Mike saying he wasn’t going.
-I thought of that Twila Paris song Becky sings, I WILL NEVER GO.
David and Claudia Arp gave some good areas for commitment:
READ THEIR EXAMPLES
4. FULFILLMENT
-There are some things in life you will never attain to alone.
-God created a void in Adam and then showed him the missing ingredient.
-I had an Adam moment like that at Becky’s front porch in 1983.
Genesis 2 (TLB)
18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam* to see what he would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, birds, and wild animals. But still there was no companion suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of Adam’s ribs* and closed up the place from which he had taken it. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam.
23 “At last!” Adam exclaimed. “She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of a man.” 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame.
-Men and women each have an aspect of who God is. Together we reflect God’s fullness.
-Each sex needs the other one.
-A Biblical marriage is a testimony to an unbelieving world of how Jesus loves the church.
-If the Christian divorce rate is the same as the worlds’ it is obvious why more people aren’t getting saved.
-Good marriages based on Covenant are crucial to the testimony of Jesus.
Passages of Marriage
Where are you?
According to Dr. Minirth the passages of marriage are:
1. YOUNG LOVE-THE FIRST TWO YEARS
2. REALISTIC LOVE-3RD THROUGH 10TH YEARS
3. COMFORTABLE LOVE-11TH-20TH YEARS
4. RENEWING LOVE-21ST-30TH YEARS
5. TRANSCENDANT LOVE 31YEARS AND ON
