Arrows | Bow: The Energy of Togetherness

This day, Mother’s Day, gives all of us an opportunity to remember our mothers and grandmothers, thank our mothers, and give our gratitude to all of the significant women in our lives.

I am grateful for my mother who showed so much courage and love raising my brother and me. I am forever grateful for the foundation that she laid.

I am always so proud and amazed by my wife in how the Lord has prepared and equipped her to give such love and care to our three children. Daily, I am amazed by you, Stacy.

And for my mother-in-law, who I inherited as a good gift from the Lord. Thank you, Kathy, for your love and support of my family, our extended family, and so many families here at our church.

And then for all of the mothers in the room - for the mothers-to-be, for those still longing to become mothers one day - I hope you know how much I am praying for you and rooting for you. Our entire church loves you and is lifting you in prayer.

Our Father, thank you for our mothers. Thank you for their influence on our lives, their love and care, and their calling by you to raise up arrows like us to release in the world. Lord, we give thanks for them and the significant women in our lives who serve as mother-figures for us. Lord, we pray that you bless each one of them, fill them with your Holy Spirit, and give them rest and comfort for the love they give. Lord, for those whose mothers have gone to be with you, Lord I pray that you give the arrows in this room peace on this day and a vision for eternal life to come with you. In your name we offer this prayer, Amen.

As this series comes to a close today, let me read to you one final time our central passage from the book of Psalms on which this series was built:

Children are a gift from the Lord;

they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man

are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.

How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! - Psalm 127:3-5 NIV

Indeed, children are a gift. You are a gift. You are a heritage from the Lord. You are a special possession.

Even, the Psalmist wrote, “[Children] are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.”

When properly released, an arrow soars to provide, defend, advance, protect, and win victory!

For the final time, let me say once more, an arrow goes where the warrior cannot go, and the healthiest, strongest ones soar to provide, defend, advance, protect, and win victory, each soaring toward the bullseye of loving across the generations and influencing future ones for the sake of Jesus and his kingdom.

That's the bullseye. We spoke about this last week.

And today, we come to both the end point for those parents raising up arrows, as well as the starting point for the formation of future ones.

The end and the beginning encapsulated in a covenant relationship of promise called marriage.

Marriage signifies both the end point of one life and the beginning of another.

As man and woman join their lives together and become one in their uniqueness, the bow represents the energy of their togetherness.

(use bow)

The bow with two endpoints connected together by a string uses the energy shared between its two connection points to launch arrows at the bullseye.

Marriage, the shared energy of togetherness.

Now, I want you to think about what comes to mind when I say the word “marriage" or the word “relationship" in general? What comes to mind? I just hope whatever comes to mind works out better than what happened between this couple a few weeks ago. Take a look...

(show video)

What emotions conjure up for you when I say these words? Some positive and healthy, others maybe not so positive.

As an elder among the Millennial generation… thank you… not often am I able to claim eldership over anything… but as an elder born in 1984 and learner of our generation, one undisputed fact continues to rise to the surface consistently among researchers from across the spectrum, and that is this:

Millennials approach love, dating, marriage, and sex vastly different from every other generation in history.

Partly in reaction to the Boomer divorce epidemic.

Partly in reaction to the pressures of school achievement.

Partly in reaction to growing economic opportunities.

Partly in reaction to accessibility to travel

Partly in reaction to technological connections and the overwhelming abundance of choice.

No longer is one confined to the hometown man or woman. Rather, choice, abundance, and selectivity now drive much of the Millennial decision making for not just their companionship quest, but for their friendships, vocation, food consumption, and spirituality.

We can receive at our door food boxed and sent to us from a thousand miles one direction, receive spiritual teaching from someone else a thousand miles the other direction, and then engage in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives a thousand miles another direction.

What joy to live in our society in this time and place. This is my story. My wife and I met in person, but began our friendship over facebook messenger ten years ago, because we lived a thousand miles a part.

What a wonderful world in which we live?!? Truly, would you agree?

Yet, this day and age poses very real and particular complications with how we form relationships that develop shared energy between two people for the building of the family and launching of arrows.

And these complications begin don’t begin out there, they begin right here (point at the heart):

One researcher named Alison Sher, a millennial herself, just a released a book last Tuesday titled “The Millennials Guide to Changing the World” - I just read it. She published an article about why 70% of Millennials are choosing to marry on average 7 years later than their parents:

"To millennials, choosing someone prematurely will detract from our ability to step into our full potential.

That’s the chief end game for many of us: to achieve our full potential. For those of us 35 and younger, we’ve been taught this from day one: rise up and achieve your fullest potential, which typically meant: you could be the President of the United States. You could do and be anything you want. And while the motivation behind this adage seemed so pure, listen to how Sher addressed the complications of this worldview on relationships:

We need the freedom to ebb and shift and grow out of a connection. We don’t want to invest the precious commodity of time in someone else, when we ultimately need to focus on ourselves if we are to create a fulfilling life and do our part to aid in the transformation of this brave, new world. When we try to commit, we often get burned... We end up sacrificing our path and purpose to take care of someone else, who hasn’t figured out how to do it on their own...

Sher predicts what this future might look like for a generation living with this worldview:

I see a generation that is collectively coming to terms with the existential truth that humans are species that will forever be alone, together.” Alison Sher, “Why Millennials Aren’t Getting Married."

Whoa... tough.

While this view may seem fatalistic, this author is widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on Millennials… by Millennials. This is our worldview from the largest generation in North America.

It’s as though you and I and everyone else in their 20s and 30s have traded our deepest, most fundamental human need and desire to know and be known for a unicorn called “full potential."

It’s crushing our desires… crushing our anxieties… and crushing our relationships.

I am right smack dab in the thick of this with you.

To know and be known. This is the quest of every human being. To know and be known. This is the joy and hope of every human being. To know and be known… fully… completely… and without shame.

The Good News about Jesus proclaims that in Christ God knows us without shame, has made himself known to us as love, and desires for us to know and be known by one another in the same way.

What might our lives, our faith, our vocations, and our relationships look and feel like if we shifted our chief aim from attaining our full potential, instead, to knowing and being known by God and one another?

I want to show how two great passages on marriage - one from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus and the other from John’s letter of Revelation - demonstrate exactly how God designed and favors this covenant relationship for a much greater purpose than what you might think… and going one step further, how for those unmarried people in this room may gain a greater understanding of just how deeply God loves you and purposed your life for relationship with Christ and one another through the witness of marriage.

Listen to how Paul approaches the meaning of marriage in chapter 5:

‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Fundamentally, marriage - along with every other relationship - begins from a posture of submissive humility in both directions.

Husband and wife, friend to friend, colleague to colleague, family member to family member. Every relationship begins with humility and submission out of reverence for who? For the person on the other side of you? For Christ himself!

Every person bears the image of God on our lives as created men and women in God’s image. Thus, as we honor one another with our humility, our respect, even with our very bodies, we actually show reverence for the creator… for Christ himself.

Upon this foundation, Paul, then, gives each the wife and the husband a charge.

For wives…’ Paul says… This means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

For husbands, Paul says... this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 5:21-28

Now ladies hang with me for a moment. I am aware of how this language counters the cultural flow of our day, hearing the first charge given for wives to submit.

Paul does not mean to equate your husband with the Lord. He does mean to say, however, that your husband bears the image of Christ upon him and your relationship together honors the Creator. Your support of your husband ultimately demonstrates your support and faith in Christ, which in turn, ought to free your husband to guide and lead you in ways that demands selfless humility from him in the same manner that Christ leads the church.

Submission is not subjection.

Submission is not subordination.

Submission is not victimization.

Submission, rather, is your power and freedom to support, honor, yield, and respect your husband.

Now, ladies, for womanhood set within the complexities of our current #metoo, society, I understand how such statements like these from this letter may seem so utterly offensive and perhaps even cruel to you, and especially to those who may not be connected to the community of a healthy, faithful, local church.

I want you to know as one of your Pastors that my heart weeps for those who feel mistreated, abused, and objectified because some man disregarded his role as a humble guardian and protector.

Truly, I am brokenhearted.

In the same breath, I also want to encourageall of the women in this room to hear how the true measure of a man as outlined in this passage on marriage looks far different from the cowards who use their power over women for their own self-gain and pleasure.

In the day of Paul, during the 1st century Roman empire, generally speaking, very few gave any consideration at all to the meaning of marriage.

One Roman historian wrote, “We have [prostitutes] for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately, and for having a faithful guardian for all of our household affairs.”

The Greek way of life at this time made marriage nearly impossible. Most men and women married and divorced up to 15-20 times in their lives. In fact, without any proper means of keeping time, men and women logged their years under the names of their divorced spouses. I plan, however, to live all of my life in the Stacy years."

One theologian wrote that throughout the Roman world, “home and family life were near to being extinct, and fidelity was completely non-existent.” Barclay

Behind the backdrop of this cultural mess, Paul instructed the church to a different way. In Christ, he turned the entire institution of marriage on its head for men and women, but particularly for men, saying to them:

Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.

During the first century, No legal procedure existed for divorce in Greece, so men and women divorced just as easily as hooking up on Tinder these days.

Yet, Paul says, men, love your wives. How? By loving her in the same manner as Jesus loved the church. What did Jesus do for the church, for the world? Jesus sacrificed his own life for her. A man loves his wife by going to the cross daily for her. By going the distance for her. By sacrificing everything for her and tangibly loving his wife in such a way that draws her heart closer to her Savior.

For far too long, many have placed the responsibility of marriage upon the wife’s submission to her husband.

The true responsibility of marriage, however, belongs to the husband. The true leadership of marriage belongs to the husband. The outflow of love, generosity, and commitment begins with the husband.

Men, your marriage will either thrive or die because of how wellyou love and show presence in your marriage.

Men ought to treasure their brides, honor their mothers, and protect their sisters in the same way that a man honors his body, for Paul continues:

"No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.”

Guys, do you have plans for your body? Do you work out your body? Plan to put food in your body?

Yes?

Do you have plans for your wife?

Guys, let me help you out, if it’s leg day, just compliment her legs. Arm day, compliment her arms. C’mon guys, I’m giving you an alley hoop!

And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Ephesians 5:21-33

As man and woman join their lives together and become one in their uniqueness, the bow represents the energy of their togetherness.

A man loves his bride in the same way that Christ loves his church. A woman respects her husband. Both do this through:

1. Sacrificial love - Jesus loved the church, not that she would do things for him, but that he might protect her and devote himself to her. This kind of love never exercises control or tyranny but makes any sacrifice for her good.

2. Purifying love- Christ cleansed and made the church holy by the washing of water, as symbolized in baptism and the confession of our faith. Likewise, marriage and all relationships must seek to always keep the purity of the other’s heart. Any so called love that drags another person down is not real love. Any love from which a person emerges a worse person is not real love. Real and true love is the great cleanser and purifier of life.

3. Caring Love- A man must love his wife as he loves his own body. Real love cherishes the one it loves, not for convenience or comfort. There’s something wrong if a man regards his wife (either consciously or unconsciously) as a helper who merely cleans, washes, cooks, and raises the children. He must regard her, instead, as worthy of his devotion.

4. Unbreakable Love- In marriage, a man and woman become one united forever in a covenant promise that symbolizes the relationship between Jesus and the church. A husband ought not to think about separating from his wife any more than he would think about tearing apart his own body. The whole marriage, every part of it, every bit of energy shared between the husband and wife, is lived in the presence of the Lord.

SO THAT… all who might enter into it or witness it may experience a glimpse of the union for which God longs with every single one of us.

And this is why marriage matters for everyone in the room, regardless of your marital status because marriage is a temporal relationship only meant for this side of Heaven that points to an eternal reality, which is this: God wants you to be his… together, forever.

This is a promise regardless of your marital or relational status.

Unlike our generation floundering in the madness of fulfilling our potential and accepting a life of isolation, together, God wants you to be his… together, forever.

The Apostle John wrote of his revelation, saying:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, 'Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.' And the one sitting on the throne said, 'Look, I am making everything new!’ " Revelation 21:1-5

Christ and her bride share the the throne for eternity, and the Good News, God wants us to be his… together, forever.

God wants to know you and be known by you, and as you do so, God wants you to know and be known by others… to begin eternity here and now… to glimpse the beauty of relationship from the garden here and now… and to experience just a bit of heaven on earth here and now through the mystery and wonder and commitment of marriage.

Because in Christ, you’re worth more than your ‘full potential.'

If this approach seems archaic to our Millennial ears, old fashioned, then let me close with this question: "do our modern societies, in which marriage is often a tragedy or a joke, really offer a better model for how to do it?”

If you are married, then this journey began for you yesterday.

If you are single, then this journey begins for you today. As crazy as this might sound, live the principles of marriage today:

● sacrificial love

● purifying love

● caring love

● unbreakable love

Experience the marriage union of Christ and his church today, and then tomorrow, when you meet that handsome dude or beautiful lady, you’ll be ready to personally witness how this temporal relationship points to an even greater eternal one.

To our Heavenly Father...

1. Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! - Psalm 127:3-5 NIV

2. [Children] are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.

3. As man and woman join their lives together and become one in their uniqueness, the bow represents the energy of their togetherness.

4. Millennials approach love, dating, marriage, and sex vastly different from every other generation in history.

5. "To millennials, choosing someone prematurely will detract from our ability to step into our full potential.”

6. We need the freedom to ebb and shift and grow out of a connection. We don’t want to invest the precious commodity of time in someone else, when we ultimately need to focus on ourselves if we are to create a fulfilling life and do our part to aid in the transformation of this brave, new world.When we try to commit, we often get burned... We end up sacrificing our path and purpose to take care of someone else, who hasn’t figured out how to do it on their own…

7. I see a generation that is collectively coming to terms with the existential truth that humans are species that will forever be alone, together.” Alison Sher, “Why Millennials Aren’t Getting Married."

8. to know and be known

9. ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

10. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

11. For husbands, Paul says... this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. Ephesians 5:21-28

12. Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.

13. "No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.

14. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Ephesians 5:29-33

15. As man and woman join their lives together and become one in their uniqueness, the bow represents the energy of their togetherness.

16. Sacrificial love

17. Purifying Love

18. Caring Love

19. Unbreakable Love

20. Marriage is a temporal relationship only meant for this side of Heaven that points to an eternal reality, which is this: God wants you to be his… together, forever.

21. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, 'Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.' And the one sitting on the throne said, 'Look, I am making everything new!’ " Revelation 21:1-5

22. In Christ, you’re worth more than your ‘full potential.'