God's Design For Marriage_1

Marriage at the Next Level is a podcast discussing God's design for marriage. They emphasize that marriage is a union of three: man, woman, and God. They explain that leaving one's parents and cleaving to one's spouse is part of this design. They stress the importance of establishing independence from one's family and relying on God in order to have a successful marriage. They also discuss the significance of the husband and wife becoming one flesh and highlight the importance of understanding and following God's design for marriage. Welcome to Marriage at the Next Level. I'm Dr. Mike. And I'm Natalia Jackson. How are you doing today, dear? I'm doing wonderful in this spring, winter day. Okay. I'm getting a little tickle whether we don't make up his mind what we want to do. But I'm blessed to be here in the house. I'm blessed to be here with you. And I'm blessed to be talking about the topic that we're going to talk about today. So what we're talking about today? We're talking about God's design for marriage this morning. God's design for marriage. We're talking about God's design for marriage. So I think when we talk about God's design for marriage, we need to begin at the beginning of creation, mankind, Genesis. See God is the author of marriage. Oftentimes people think, you know, marriage is just something that man made. But God is the author of marriage. He is the one who brought it about. He is the one that instituted it. He's the one that set the rules for marriage. So again, here at Marriage at the Next Level, we believe that if you want to have a successful marriage, you have to do it God's way. That's right. All right. So let's take a look at some things here today. We're going to talk about God's design for marriage. And we find out that a godly marriage is described in his word. Biblical marriage is a union of three. Man, woman, and God. Man, woman, and God. We have a scripture for that, don't we? Yes, we do. We have Ecclesiastes 4.12, and it reads this way. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. Now again, like I said in the introduction, marriage is a union of three. Oftentimes people think marriage is a union of two, but marriage is a union of three. You have the husband and the wife. You have the man and the woman. You have to clarify that. Man and the woman, and you have God. In order for a marriage to be successful, there's a three-strand cord, man, woman, and God, that's not easily broken. It's not easily broken. Now this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm not saying. I'm not saying it can't be broken. I'm saying it's not easily broken. Not easily. Yeah, not easily broken. If you want to have a sustained marriage relationship, you have to make sure that the three-strand cord is tight. All right? And the only way you can do that, again, is by understanding God's design for marriage. God's design for marriage, because if you try to design your own marriage, it's not going to work. And that's what we find out a lot today. People trying to design their own marriage, or they try to imitate the marriage of their parents, or they try to imitate a marriage that they see on television without knowing all of the ingredients that's involved in that. Absolutely. And I'm glad you used that word. Life is like making a cake. Yeah. I'm glad you used that word. Not knowing all of the ingredients, not knowing all of the changes, the challenges, the adjustments that have to be made along the way. Oftentimes I encounter people who see a couple, watch a couple, and say, oh, I wish I had that, or I wish I would have invested the time and had that. And I'm like, you know what? Applaud them, celebrate them, because you don't know what it took for them to get there. Right. And you learn from them. See, that's why we're doing what we're doing here on the podcast, because we are sharing with other people our 33-year journey of marriage. And again, somebody might say, okay, they have a great marriage, but it didn't happen after we said, I do. No, absolutely not. It started after we said, I do, but it took those ingredients and those ingredients coming together. But here's my point, getting back to Ecclesiastes 4, 12. Without God, see, none of those things that we would have done would have came together. See, because either intentionally or unintentionally, we did our best, we did our utmost based on the knowledge that we had, for our marriage to be in accordance with God's design for marriage that's found in his word. Meaning that we had to submit now to what God wanted us to do, how God wanted us to do it, in order for the marriage to be successful. Because if not, that marriage could be easily broken. And there's a lot of marriages that are broken today. And it's because there's two involved in a marriage and not three. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack from that, because we say it's a three-chord strand, okay? And it requires that three chord. And it talks about the one supporting the other, and if one falls, the other one picks up the other. And sometimes, when you are interceding for your marriage, it may be that only one of them is interceding during one season. Any given season, it may be just one individual interceding for that marriage, but at least one is connected. And that's the beautiful thing, that covers all, so everybody gets a hold of it. You've got your Bible out there, right? Yes, I do. Look up Genesis 2.18. I'm getting there, I'm getting there. What verse am I using? You said Genesis 2.18. And that will be the Amplified Version, and it says, Now the Lord God said, It is not good, beneficial, for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper, one who balances him, a counterpart who is suitable and complementary for him. Okay, now, now, hold on now. We're going to unpack that scripture on a later podcast, but in light of what you were reading in Ecclesiastes 4 about when one falls, somebody will be there to help them up. See, that's the purpose of the three-strand chord. That's the purpose of marriage, see? And it's going to be beneficial for both parties. And the couple have to be invested. We're going to talk about that today. They have to be invested in the marriage relationship so that when one does fall, and let me say this, it's not a matter if they fall, but when they fall. When I say fall, I'm not talking about falling into some ungodly sin or anything, but just fall, you know? We're human beings. Sometimes we get weak. Sometimes we fall short of our expectations, and we need encouragement. We need to build one another up, and we need to strengthen one another, because again, it's a journey. It's a journey, and so along this journey, you're going to hit bumps. You're going to hit obstacles or roadblocks that's going to come in the way, and so you need that partnership, that godly partnership, that godly relationship with God first that's going to keep everything together. I got another slide I want to show you here, and we can talk about it. This is the one I shared here about the godly relationship. Notice God is at top. God is the center. God is the head. God has to be the head of this relationship. See, if God is not the head of the relationship, then the two individuals here are the ones that's going to determine how the relationship is based on how they want to design it. That's what we're talking about today. We're talking about God's design for marriage. Again, the reason why marriages fail and are easily broken is because they have nothing to draw from. Like I said in my introduction, they're trying to go by the mom in their marriage. They're trying to go by something they see on TV without knowing everything that went along with it, but if you seek first the kingdom of God, that's what Matthew 633 says. If you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all the things in this particular context is talking about marriage will be added unto you. Again, as a Christian married couple, we always have to be seeking God. We can tell some stories about times that we... Let's go ahead and say we had some, we call it, the phrase you used to say? Intense moments of fellowship? Intense moments of fellowship. You know, because you're human, I'm human. I saw it one way, you saw it another way. But what helped us is it doesn't matter how I saw it, it didn't matter how you saw it. What helped us was how did God see it and see him. When we submitted our will to his will, then everything worked itself out. The beautiful thing is... As long as you and I were bumping heads, nothing got resolved. The beautiful thing is that we had a foundation. That's it. We had a foundation. We have a foundation to the sense that we knew that we had to seek God as authority or his guidance and his direction. Even that was a process. We'll talk about that in another podcast. That was even a process, but that's where you have to be or else the marriage will be quickly broken, easily broken, and we don't want that. Now, let's talk about the marriage union. There's another scripture in Genesis chapter 2, verse 24 that talks about the marriage union. Can you read that for me? Genesis 2, 24 reads like this. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one flesh. All right. The wife, the husband and the wife both have to leave their mother and their father and are joined together, and the two are united into one flesh. Now, we're talking about a oneness now. We're talking about a marriage union. Is this one flesh automatic? No. How does this happen? Again, I go back to that process of becoming one. It's a continuous process, and like I said in our earlier podcast, I don't care if it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, you are still in the process of becoming one until the day that you die. You know, that's the beauty of it. As I study this about marriage, that's the beautiful part about marriage. People don't understand that. It's the two becoming one. You and I sometimes, we sit back and we think about things that happen, both good and bad, in our journey. We can smile about it. We can be at peace about it. We can see how we've grown and how we've developed. It's the journey, but it's a process of two becoming one. There's still some things after 30-some odd years, there's still some things about you that I'm still learning, because you're still growing. You're still developing in your walk with the Lord. I'm still growing. I'm still developing in my walk with the Lord. So, we're still growing and developing our walk with the Lord. So every day is a new experience, something new, a new experience in life. And I think that's the way marriage should be. And then next thing you know, bam, 30 years. And also understanding there are different seasons in marriage. We don't talk all about that. Yeah, there are different seasons, there are different levels. And understanding every season is not going to be a birthday party. No, no, every season will not be, but there are seasons. You just talked about it in the beginning of the podcast here. We don't know what season it is right now. Is it spring? It feels like it's winter. It's winter right now. And sometimes you're in marriage as well. Sometimes you don't know what season you're in, but you know that you're in a season. But it's the process of two becoming one. And as we look at this scripture here, Genesis 2, 4, 24, again, it's clear that marriage is between a man and a woman. There's a Hebrew word, isha. And in this verse, Genesis 2, 24, you use the word isha, that's a Hebrew word, for the word wife. And that word is a gender-specific word. So it's clear that it cannot mean anything other than a woman, a wife, a female. So there's no passage in scripture that mentions a marriage involving anything other than a man and a woman. And I believe it's significant that we get this out on the table in the beginning, because again, this is a Christian podcast. Okay? And again, I know there's some things that's going on in the world politically, and they're trying to redefine marriage. They're trying to redefine who can marry who. But again, that's not a God-designed marriage. That's not a God-designed marriage. God, who is all-powerful, who is all-knowing, who is ever-present, he's sovereign. He knows. He created man. And not create man. God created man. And he created man for a purpose, and he created man for a reason. So again, we just got to leave it there. And as Christians, we can't debate it, and we definitely can't defend it. So biblically, marriage is defined as a union of one man and one woman in relationship with God forever. Let me show that. Let me share this screen again. Here it is. One man, one woman in relationship with God forever. That's how God designed marriage to be. Now we said there was a... Let's break down the scripture here, Genesis 2, 24, because there's some interesting things in here. Because again, read the scripture again, Genesis 2, 24. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one flesh. Okay, so we got three components here in that verse of scripture. You got the leaving, and you got a joining, or if you have one of those versions of the Bible that says cleaving. All right, so you have a leaving, you have a cleaving, a joining to each other in oneness. So what does it mean to leave? When it says that you have to leave, what does it mean to leave? It means to separate. Sometimes it's a physical separation. Sometimes you move away. You get married and you move away. But in essence, I want the audience to understand what we're not saying. We're not saying kick your parents to the curb. We're absolutely not saying that. But there is going to be a change in the relationship. What it's saying is that each partner in the marriage must leave their respective families. They are going to leave the role that they occupy. They have to create a new independent family unit. So that's what the leaving means. Before I married you, you belonged to your father and your mother. And they did a good job, by the way. They did a really good job. Excellent. Good job. And if you notice, part of the marriage ceremony is that the father of the bride brings the bride down and he ceremonially gives the bride to the husband. This is what the scripture is talking about here in Genesis 2.24. There's a leaving. And again, you had to leave your mother and father, had to leave my mother and father, and we had to come together now to create a new independent family unit. And the word I want to stress here is independent. You're no longer dependent on your mother and your father. You're now dependent on your husband, and your husband is dependent on the wife. So there's a change in relationship. There's a change in relationship. And there's a word for that, we call that interdependence. You are dependent on your husband now, and your husband is dependent upon his wife. And they form this new family unit, this new family structure. Now it's a cutting of ties with the family. And I think that's what you were trying to allude to there. And we need to understand what that means is a cutting of ties with the family emotionally, financially. See, there's a cutting from the security of your family. Because you think about it, this has been your life for up to the time you got married. You were depending on them. Now you have to leave them to form this new family unit. And oftentimes it's in that process where a lot of things happen in marriage relationships. We're going to talk about this, not today, but we're going to talk about this, where if boundaries aren't established. There's a mess. There's a mess. Wow. I want to go back to that point of the change in relationship. You know, the emotional and the financial dependency changes from the mother and the father now to it's between you and your husband. You're depending on one another. You've got each other's back. And the relationship with your parents changes. It goes from parent to child to now you are an adult. So, you know, there's that part of the leaving and the cleaving. And I add to that, there's a grieving because there is an end of a type of relationship between the parent and the child. And now there's a new relationship forming. So just understanding that those pieces, all the pieces, how the pieces fit together is very important. But there will be a grieving if both parties don't understand what's going on. Again, the parents got to understand that I'm leaving. That's why I'm saying go back to the ceremonial walking down the aisle. That ceremony, that's the father as the head of the family releasing the daughter to the husband, his son. All right. Now, that's symbolic. But the reality of that, again, if there's not boundaries set, the reality of that could be, could blow up if it's not established right. So you're not totally kicking your parents to the curb, but you're doing things intentionally. That's why I said cutting ties to establish your own independence. Let me give you an example of a will that you had to do when we were engaged. You moved out of your parents' house. You moved out of your mother's house. And you established your own independence. All right. Now, again, I'm not, it's been a while now. So it's like the home that you left from and the home that you moved to. You know. But the thing about it, it was yours. It was yours. It was yours. You were paying the rent. You were paying the bills. That's part of independence. That was yours. If it wasn't the Taj Mahal, you didn't have all the comforts that you were used to, but it was yours. But that was you establishing that independence. You had to do whatever you had to do to establish that independence. And oftentimes people don't want to do that. They don't want to cut the umbilical cord. They keep going back to the parents for things. They keep going back to the parents for things like they used to. And that's going to create a dependency and a problem down the road because there's no independence now being established by the husband and the wife. When you go back and depend on your parents, you are aborting the process that you started of getting independent, becoming independent. Say that again. You're what? You are aborting. Every time you go back to mama for something or every time you go back to daddy for something, you are aborting the process of becoming independent. And plus the lines are being blurred now because again, I think it's going to be establishing a dependency, independency, but you're still dependent. And let's go, we keep it real here at Marriage Next Level. The more involved you have with your parents, the more unrealistic expectations they may have, meaning if you depend on your parents now for financial, let's go ahead and keep it because emotional, yeah, there's going to be some tears and crying. I miss my mama. But reality is when you start coming in with the money, when you start mixing money now, okay, say for instance, you go to your father for some money. Say, dad, you know, Mike and I, we're coming up short this month. Can you let me hold $100? Never happens. Never will happen. I know, I know. Hypothetically, hypothetically, your father wouldn't like that. But hypothetically, okay, now if I'm the father, I'm thinking, let me know. I just gave my daughter to this man, not financially able to take care of her. What's going on here? So now that's going to cause him or her to become involved. Not only that, but have some thoughts about it. Have some thoughts. About the situation. Watch this out, watch this out. If I'm giving you money, now that means I can call shots. And you know, sometimes it's very subtle. Sometimes it's very subtle. It's not that definite. Sometimes it's very subtle. It goes back to what I'm saying before, those boundaries. If those boundaries aren't established, these things can happen. So like we did, we would rather do without. We'd rather do without and establish our own and to be dependent. Because that can lead to some devastating things relationally with the family relationship. Because it's still a unit, but it's an independent unit. That's still your mother, that's still your father, that's still my mother-in-law, that's still my father-in-law. And if things aren't handled correctly, outlaws can become, in-laws can become outlaws. And the whole family, now you don't want to go around them. There's already children. Thanksgiving dinner, family reunions, Christmas, Gavin's become very uncomfortable when those financial lines start to be blurred and things start happening that don't need to happen. Another practical way to see it is your emergency contact is no longer your mom or your daddy. It's your husband. Or your wife. Or the wife, vice versa. That's something that practical, something that simple. You know, your emergency contact is no longer your parents, it's your husband. The beneficiaries in all your documents is now your husband or your wife. It's no longer your parents because your relationship has changed. So my point here as we try to close out this session today, there's a leaving. And it's the way you leave, the correct way to leave, boundaries. We're going to talk more about that next time we get together, boundaries, to protect the independent unit that you have. And to make sure the family relationship continues. Because you want to have a peaceful relationship with your families. You know, because again, we're going to talk about it when you get married, you've got families. That are coming together. And so, you know, that right there is a process of its own. And so, but the couple, the married couple has to be the one to establish the boundaries on both sets of parents. The husband's parents and the wife's parents. So they can respect the marriage unit, the independent marriage unit that's being established. And so that they can be there to be a support. And not a hindrance. All right? Absolutely. So listen, what we're going to have to do, we're going to have to pick up here the next time we get together. There's been an interesting conversation that we're having about leaving and cleaving and becoming one. So the next time we get together, we're going to pick up right here on this point from Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, leaving and cleaving and becoming one. All right? So I want to thank everybody for being part of the Marriage at the Next Level podcast today. So until our next podcast, everybody have a blessed week. Have a great one.