Love & Marriage

We've had 11 weeks of the I Am series. It's been a powerful series. Amen.

We talked about all the I Am's that God says he is and a few extra. And today we're going to talk about what God is and something that was his idea. He is love. God is love, and marriage is God's idea. But I thought just to start on a little bit of a lighter note, I would tell y' all a story.

And by the way, I'll give you the disclaimer, this is just a joke, so y' all can take a chill pill if you take it too serious. A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go and choose a husband. Some of y' all already want to go visit the store. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates. You may visit the store only once.

There are six floors, and the attributes of the men increase as the shopper ascends in flights. There is, however, a catch. You may choose any man from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building. So a woman goes to the husband's store to find herself a husband on the first floor. The sign on the door reads, Floor 1.

These men have jobs. And so she thought, well, that's positive, but I'm going to keep going up in floors. The second floor she goes to is floor two. And the sign reads, these men have jobs and love kids. She's like, well, it's getting a little better, but I can't stop there.

So she goes up to the next floor, but knowing if she goes up, she can't go back down. The third floor sign reads floor three. These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely gorgeous. Wow, she thinks. But she feels compelled to keep going up.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads, these men have jobs, love kids, or drop dead gorgeous and help with housework and do the dishes. Oh, mercy me. She exclaimed. I can hardly stand it. That's what my wife would say.

Still, she can't help herself. She can't stop there. She goes to the fifth floor and the floor five reads, these men have jobs, love kids, or drop dead gorgeous. Help with housework and have a strong romantic streak. She says, well, the way this is going, I can't stop here.

So she's tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor. When she arrives at the sixth floor, it says this. You are a visitor. 31,456,000 to this floor. There are no men on this floor.

This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.

But it's not over.

There is also a wife store across the street. The new wives store opened across the street. The first floor has wives that love sex. The second floor have wives that love sex and have money. The third through the sixth floor have never been visited by a man.

Ever. Just saying, I had to, I had to. We live in a world that is looking to find the perfect man and the perfect woman. They are looking to find that one that they would say completes me, that looks like a Disney movie or a fairy tale. Or even from a young age, many girls would say, I want to find what my Prince Charming.

I want to find the one that fulfills me, that satisfies my desires. That perfect man, that perfect woman. But here's the truth. This will set our foundation for everything we're going to talk about today. No man or woman can do that for you or be that for you.

You might think they can for a while when you have young love, but eventually they will let you down. Here's the problem. They were never intended to be that for you. You look for a spouse to fulfill something that only Christ can do. Let me say that again.

So many in this world look for a spouse to do something for them and fulfill something in them that only Christ can do. And here's the truth. You will never. You will never love your spouse as you should until you love God as you should. Let that soak in.

You will never truly love your spouse as God has intended unless you truly love God as you should. Colossians 2:9 says this. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete. Us?

We are complete. Through your what Church? Union with who? Christ, who is the head over every ruler in authority. We are complete.

We are fulfilled with our union. To who? Christ. No person, no marriage, no spouse. Not in romance, not in validation, not in sex, not in attention.

In Christ alone are we made full. And if you do not find your fulfillment in him, nothing else will truly fill that void in your life. Oh, you'll try. The world tries with everything more and more and more, and still it doesn't satisfy. Many of you know, and you've experienced that in your life firsthand.

In First John 4:19 it says this. We love each other because he loved us what church First. We love only because he loved us first. God is love. True love flows from the love you have received from him, then it transfers from you to others.

That's the only true love there is. And if you have never received his love, you will never love anyone like God intended. Love is not what this world has defined love as. Love is not sex. Love is not warm and fuzzy feelings.

Love is not a song. Love has a name. And in 1st John 4:16 it says this. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God?

What church is love? Say that with me. God is love. And all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. God is love.

It is who he is. It's his very essence. It's his character. It's what the one who laid His Son's life down for you defines it as. It's sacrificial love.

He is love. And when he is in us, we love because his love flows through us. Everything is not true love, and it doesn't last. What is the first fruit of the spirit? In Galatians 5:22 it says this.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit when his presence is in our life, when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes to dwell inside of us. What is the first fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. There is no law against these things.

How could we ever love as he has intended if it is not His Spirit flowing through us? But when we have His Spirit, it loves because he does. And truly, this is all that matters. This is the love we have received from God, this love that His Spirit gives us. Many of you know the love chapter in the Bible.

Maybe you had a wedding and it was reddited. I can think of probably 90% of the weddings that I've done. We've read this passage. Turn with me to First Corinthians 13, starting in verse one. It says, if I could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would be only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all the knowledge, and if I had such faith that I couldn't move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I had to the poor, even sacrifice my body, I could boast about it. But if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rooted, is not devoted, demand its own way.

It is not Irritable. It keeps no record of being wrong. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins. Love never gives up. Love never loses.

Faith is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever. Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete. Even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture.

But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror. But then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All I know now is partial and incomplete. But then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is what?

Church love. He says, if I could do all the greatest things, but I don't have love, I'm nothing. What if we applied these words to our marriage? What if we lived by them? Let's go back to verse four.

It says, this love is patient. Is that your marriage? It's kind.

It's not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It's not irritable. Oh, boy, right. We all struggle with that.

It keeps no records of being wrong. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins. Love never gives up. Is that our marriages? Love never gives up, never loses Faith is always hopeful, endures through every circumstance.

It never gives up. Does that sound like marriages today? Many tend to give up really easy patience. Is that our marriages? Not jealous, kind.

Doesn't keep records of wrong. Or we're like, no, I'm not going to let them live that down for their whole life. I'm never going to forget about that.

Why do we struggle with these many times? Because so many times the love we have is worldly love. It's not based on his love. This kind of love that he's talking about forgives. Why?

Because Jesus forgives. It gives grace. Why? Because we have been given grace. God does.

One of the greatest blessings to me on this earth is my wife. In Proverbs 18:22, it says this. The man who finds a wife finds a treasure. And he receives favor from the Lord. Marriage is a blessing.

It is intended from God to be a blessing for our lives. I thought I'd ask a few questions and give you a few statistics as we kind of get the groundwork of what we're talking about today. The first is an easy one I just saw when I was doing some study. But most everybody in the first service got this wrong. What month in the US has the most weddings?

December. He said, you can say this one out loud. Sometimes I don't want you to respond. You'll throw me off, but. So just say one out loud.

May. June. I thought June. I was married in June. A lot of people think, oh, it's summer months.

Well, we would be all wrong. It is October. Everybody wants. Who in here is an October marriage? See, we got several hands.

They wanted to not sit out there and burn up and sweat through their clothes in the middle of summer to have a wedding. Because I've done a lot of weddings in summer and it was really hot and sweaty. What is the average age of marriage in the US they're gonna go to the next slide. It says this. Men about 30.2 years of age.

Women about 28.6 years old, from 24 to 25. But now let's go to the next slide. In 1960, let's go back a few years. The median age at first marriage was just about 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women. So today people are getting married 8 to 10 years later than they did a generation ago.

Why? You have to ask? Right? That's a pretty big difference. Many would say that cramped my lifestyle, right?

I got some life to live and I don't want some ball chain hanging me, holding me down. I'm going to travel the world. Many would say we've become a selfish generation. Many would say college people become career driven. That affects that.

I thought. In the midst of studying all this, I did find one interesting thing is it talked about age. And what's greatly affected this in a generation is it's no mistake that God created a woman's body to have children when they are younger. It's not as easy when you get older. Yet now, because of this, many wait much longer.

I thought that was very interesting. The next thing. What's the average amount of kids couples have in the US study says about 1.6 to 1.9 children per family with children. Now, if we go back to the 60s, 2.3 in the 60s, around a 17 to 20% drop in the amount of children. You think, well, that's not bad.

You multiply that over a lot of years and that's a lot of children. It's a big difference. Why the drop?

Because kids would what affect my plans Maybe selfishness comes into that again. Maybe careers, a lot of other plans.

Stats don't lie. Something has changed. Another sobering stat. Estimates suggest that 40 to 45% of first marriages eventually end in divorce. And what's even more sobering is this.

30 to 35% of Christian marriages end in divorce. What's that say? That the church isn't really looking much different than the world. What about this? 15% of all couples don't get married.

They just live together in the U.S. 15%. It's a lot of people. 15%. In 1967, fewer than 1% of people living together weren't married. That's a pretty daggone big gap.

What's happened? What about this statistic? 69% of adults say living together is acceptable even without marriage plans.

About 25 to 30% of married people report having a sexual affair at some point during their marriage. Some of you, you've experienced that statistic in your own marriage, in your own life. Roughly 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 in the US have had an affair at some point in their life. What's going on? It's a big deal and it matters.

And if I was to just. And I have some. If I was to sit and just mull on that and think about that and think about how things have changed. The root is this. We've strayed from this.

We strayed from the source of truth. We've strayed from the plumb line, from God's standard. Yes. Even though they Weren't perfect in 1960, there was a world in a culture that held this higher in authority than we do now. Right.

There's a lot more of. I'd rather hear man's opinion than God's opinion. No one's going to tell me how to live my life. Right. That's the world we live in right now.

I'm not going to take some authority from a book, but that's the world that we live in. We have strayed from the truth. We've done what feels good to us. And we know every one of us are born with what the sinful nature and left to itself that will rise up in us. And we will lead ourselves to destruction without the word of God.

And it will lead our marriages to destruction without the word of God. When we do things our way instead of his, it matters. But sadly, most in this world don't think it does. Marriage is God's idea. This world has tried to redefine it.

This world has tried to change it, tried to pollute It. But God created the standard of marriage between one man and one woman. He established it in the garden, right? He saw that it wasn't good that Adam would be alone, so he created him a helper. So from his ribs he made the woman, the two became one flesh.

God didn't make for him another man, he made for him a woman. And it was God's idea for a marriage between one man and one woman. Now that's contrary to what a lot of people believe in this culture. But this is how God created it, established marriage between one man and one woman.

And God's standard doesn't change. Scripture says that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. And this should be simple, but it's under attack. 80 years ago, they would have never thought we would be having these kind of conversations. There are approximately 1.2 million same sex couple households in the US.

Roughly 59% of these households were married, while the rest were unmarried. Marriage has been redefined according to what man says it is, not what God says it is or what God defines it as. Because God would say those aren't marriages.

Many are trying to change what gender they are. Again, man's opinion versus God's opinion. We are in a spiritual battle as a culture. In Psalms 139, you know this passage that David writes? He says this in verse 13, you made all the delicate inner parts of my body.

You knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. Church.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Church. Our God doesn't make mistakes. He formed us and decided if we were going to be a man or a woman in our mother's womb. But many, actually most have trusted what Hollywood in this world defines a successful marriage rather than what God says.

Many have turned to their feelings. But here's the truth. Just because you have feelings don't mean they're right to act upon them. Just because you have feelings don't mean that it's right to act upon them. I don't deny that there are some that have an attraction to the same sex or a desire to change their gender.

But here's the truth. We all every day wake up and we have a choice how we're going to live if we're going to live to obey what God's word says or what my flesh says.

You might have a desire every day to look at pornography, but do you let the flesh rule you and let that rot your mind? Many do, and they give in. And then there are those that might have that desire, but they say, no, I'm not going to let my flesh rule me. I'm going to be obedient to Christ.

Or you might know that you can't stop at one drink of alcohol. So do you stop drinking or you continue and you let it rule your life? That's your choice. And everyone has a choice. Those that want to live in a same sex lifestyle, that's their choice.

No one's stopping them. Those of you that want to look at pornography, no one's stopping you. And we could go on and on about sins in our life, and that's your choice. But there'll be one thing that we all, one day won't be able to choose. We will all stand before a holy and righteous God.

And on that day, Scripture says every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. And on that day, every one of us doesn't matter what sin it was. We will stand before a holy and righteous God and we will give an account of our lives.

And so we're going to have to decide, are we going to do it God's way? Are we going to do it our way? Are we going to do marriage God's way? Are we going to do marriage our way? Are we going to live and treat marriage like the world does?

Or how God has called us to, because Romans 8:6 says this. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to what church? Death. But letting the spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. And I want life and peace, don't you?

Amen. The lust of the flesh always ends in death, but his spirit always ends in life. What we are really saying when we say no is I know a better way than God. I know a better way than my Creator. And we live in a world that says you have to test drive a car before you buy it.

Right. Sex before marriage is normal. Living together normal.

And I want to touch on that before I go any farther when I say living together is normal. We used to do a ton of weddings at this church, really where it was hard to get them all in, but not so much anymore. Why? Because most do not want to live up to the standard that we as a church hold because we uphold what the word of God says. In First Thessalonians 4, 1:8, it says this.

God's will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and Honor, not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. It's hard. Young people that are single, it's hard. I know, I was once there.

Older singles. It's hard. It's hard to remain pure. But it's what God has called us to. It's hard when you're dating to remain pure.

I have kids that are growing up. This is not easy. This is not an easy world for them to grow up in and remain pure. I know it is easier to just do what the world does, to go along many times. Yeah, it's more convenient just to live together before you're married.

But guess what? We're not living for convenience. We're not living for what feels good. We're living for a king, and his name is Jesus Church. That king has called us to walk a narrow road.

And there's a road full of those that are walking the wide road and that's their choice. But we know through His Word where that wide road leads. And I don't want to go there. And I don't want those that I love to go there. And I don't want to have a marriage that's walking down that wide road.

I want to be leading the ones I love down that narrow road, even if there is few that's on it. Even if it's the hard decision. Even if it's a daily battle and a daily struggle, because I realize that one day it's going to be worth it. In First John 2, 6 it says this. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

No, you're not going to be perfect, but you will everyday live to honor Christ and live a life that is pleasing to Him. We strive to live holy lives because he is holy. First Corinthians 6, 18 says this. I always tell this, especially to young men when I'm talking about this stuff. And they struggle.

I love his first word in this passage. What's it say? Run, run, run from sexual sin. You know the story in Scripture with Joseph, right? And she tries to grab his robe.

What does he do? He runs. He flees.

Says run from sexual sin. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is sin against one's own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Who lives in you was given to you by God.

You do not belong to yourself, for you were bought with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. Run church, Run Young singles, older singles, when you're tempted to sin, to give in to what the world does, run from the way the world does things. Why? Because it's saying we don't belong to ourselves.

We were purchased. If you called upon the name of Jesus, he purchased you. And we live in a world right now that says, this is my body, right? I can do what I want. I can have an abortion if I want.

I can do whatever I want. This is mine. And God says, to the contrary, I purchased you with my son's very life. And there'll be a day that you want that life to be saved. But for your life to be saved on that day, you have to give me your life.

Now you have to give me the reins and the steering wheel and the control of your life. But we live in a world that doesn't want to relinquish control of their life.

We were purchased the next two weeks, Palm Sunday and Easter coming up, we are going to be celebrating what he did when he purchased us. It was a high price and church. Would we allow his body? If he lives inside of us, then we are his. Would we allow his body to be a part of sex outside of marriage?

Would we allow this body that would be joined to him to be unfaithful to our spouse? Would we allow this body that has been joined to Christ and He lives inside of us to look at pornography to be sexually impure? Would we allow that if this is his temple and he dwells inside of us? First Peter 2:11 says, this, beloved, I urge you as what church, aliens and strangers to abstain from the sensual urges that wage war against your soul. It says aliens.

I think that if there was an alien in this room, that we would notice it. I guess. I've never saw any in person, but I'm guessing so right. They would not fit in. They would look different.

That's what he's trying to relay in this passage. You're going to look different. Your marriage is going to look different. Your relationships are going to look different. Your purity is going to look different.

Because we don't do things the way the world does things. We date different. We treat sex different. And so, disclaimer. If you ask any staff at Nineveh to marry you to do your wedding, we would love to.

As long as you want to do it God's way, we will say, we will do your wedding as long as you don't live together till you're married and you commit to remaining pure. No, we can't change what's happened in the past.

And praise God. We serve a God that gives grace and mercy and he's not going to hold that against you. But you can commit to from this day forward, I'm going to honor God with, with my life and my marriage and this relationship. We'll ask you to remain sexually pure until you are married. And you might have already messed that up, but you can say, from this point on, we're going to do it God's way.

And we'll ask you to move out into you have a wedding. Or we'll say, go ahead and get married now. And if you have a problem with this, you don't have a problem with us, you have a problem with this. I like to tell people, I don't write the mail, I deliver it. I don't write the mail, I deliver it.

And if you have a problem with God's standard, you don't have a problem with me or anyone else. You have a problem with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And that's a bigger problem than with any human. And we best align our lives to his standard.

And many would say, why do you have to do that? Why do you have to say all that to have those standards? You are going to ask us to ask God to bless your marriage as you are entering into a covenant with him. And we are not going because we are held to a high standard. We are not going to ask God to bless something that from the start, you're not going to want to do it his way.

Maybe you already have kids together and you're living together. You've never got married. Then get married, get married, honor him, do it his way.

We don't live like the world. We are set apart church. And we are called out.

In church. When you marry someone, it's for life. You become one flesh. Scripture says, it's not like an oil changer, like, well, this one's good for 5,000 miles and I'll probably find another one. No, this is for life.

We think that's funny, but I think some people's got the odometer set at 5,000 and then they go to the next. We got a world full of that, faithful to them. Hebrews 13:4 says this, Give honor to marriage. Remain what church faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

Malachi 2:16 says this for I what church hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel. To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, says the Lord of heaven's armies, so guard your heart and do not be unfaithful to your wife. He hates it. He doesn't hate the person that does it, but he hates what divorce does.

It was never his plan. It was never his intention. When two become one flesh, this is a big deal to God, and it should be a big deal to us as well. But sadly, yes, it's like many treat marriage like a new car, that I would like a newer model. And that's not how it works.

This is for life. And what you say in your marriage vows to each other and to God matters. What do we say? For rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, till death do us part? As God is my witness, I give you this vow in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We shouldn't say these words lightly or go back on these words.

I'm so thankful that there are so many that have been faithful to their spouses all these years. Even when it was hard meaning in the room, even when you wanted to throw in the towel because it would have been easier, you remember those vows that you made to each other and to God. Some of you are, like, doing this to each other right now because you're like, yep, I wanted to give up on you a long time ago. You better be thankful for Jesus. When money issues were there, when issues with the kids, when issues with the in laws, and all through that, many of you, even through unfaithfulness, you stayed and you didn't give up.

We're thankful for you today. We want to do something a little different. If you have been married 25 years or older or longer than 25 years or longer, would you stand up this morning? If you've been married 25 years or longer, let's give them a hand.

So I want you to stay standing and we're going to weed out a few of you. So let's go up to 35 years. If you've been married 35 years, stay standing. The rest of you, sit down. 35 years, stay standing.

Let's give them a hand.

All right, now we'll go in smaller increments. What you don't know is I'm revealing your all's age.

40 years, 40 years or longer, stay standing. Let's give them a hand.

All right. 50 years or longer, stay standing.

I think.

I think some of y'. All. Did y' all meet Jesus?

55 years or longer, Stay standing.

All right. 60 years or longer, stay standing. All right. Did that weed everybody Out. All right, you got to stand back up.

We're going to find who's the longest. 55. Come back up. All right, let's see. 57 years or longer.

Stay standing. I see one over here. How long y' all been married? What? 57.

How long? 57.

What about. How long was he over here? 56. All right, so we got three. Andre's gonna help me.

Are both of y' all 57?

We got a 58.

He said, hey, all right, wait, we got a 59. And then what's this one over here? 58. All right, so we got 59. He said, I've counted those years.

I'm getting credit.

Andre has got a gift card for a date night for you guys. So where's that?

We are thankful for your faithfulness and all of those in here that have stayed faithful throughout all of these years. And I know that there's some of you in here that you're just starting the journey. You're just a few years in. You probably still shut the door when you go to the bathroom when you're in the house. That'll soon change.

But here's the truth. All those that have committed for the long haul to love each other and to stay faithful, what they're really saying is this, that they're building their marriage upon Christ Jesus. In Psalms 127:1, it says this.

Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with centuries will do no good. What the writer is saying is this. If the house is not built on the Lord, you're wasting your time, because everything else is sinking sand in church. What you are building your marriage upon, your relationships upon matters.

And most get it backwards. I tell couples when we meet before we'll do a wedding, the goal of your relationship is that you are both growing closer to Christ. And as you grow closer to Christ, you are growing closer to each other. Because it's really hard if you're growing closer to Christ and. And the other person's going the other direction, and they're not a believer.

Scripture calls this unequally yoked. In 2nd Corinthians 6:14, it says this. Do not be what church yoked that would be joined together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I used to tell young people this when I was a youth minister. There is no such thing in the Bible. You will not find it. There is no such thing as missionary dating, we are called to save the lost. We are not called to date them.

And some of you will say, because I've already heard it, you'll say, well, it worked for me. And I'll say, praise God. It did. Praise God. But that is not God's plan.

And how he intends you to date into Mary, God desires for you to be yoked with a believer. And as you grow in your relationship with Christ, you would grow together. Because God the Father, in all of his wisdom, realized that if there's a believer and an unbeliever, that it's like a team of oxen trying to pull, and one's going this way and one's going this way, you're going to get nowhere. You're going to be going in circles. I can't even begin to tell you the situations that we know within the church.

Marriages that struggle because one spouse comes to church and the other won't come because one loves the Lord. God's changed their heart, and the other one doesn't care. And it's hard. Some of you, that's you this morning. And in scripture, it addresses this and it says, those of you that are in a marriage like this with an unbeliever, that we don't quite understand it all, but God says that he's going to bless you if you're already in that relationship for staying faithful to them, and that there's something that happens with your righteousness that's going to bring a blessing upon them and that you pray and that you don't give up on them.

But the scripture also says that you won't leave them, that you'll stay faithful. But that other party, if they're an unbeliever, if they leave, you don't stop them. And that's what God's word says.

But God's desire is that there is not a house that is divided. And so young people, older singles, in this room, when you are searching for a mate above all else, first make sure that they love the Lord, their God, above all else. Because guess why? Looks will fade, emotions will fade, but their love for the Lord will change everything.

The goal is that two believers join. And as you grow in Christ, you will grow closer to each other. Christ is the foundation. Because let's be honest, it's not always perfect and easy when you are in Christ. But without him, we see what's happened.

We see what happens. And in a marriage, it's like you're building on something.

I had Doug Voorhees helped Me build this. And as you're starting a relationship and you're wanting to start a relationship with someone, the base, the foundation block of the building, the life, the marriage, what you want to build and eventually have, the foundation always has to be Christ first. The spiritual should come first and foremost. If you're not right with God, you're never going to be able to treat anybody, love anybody, like you should. And then you have the social part.

You start hanging out, you start seeing some people, you're like, yeah, she looks pretty good, I'd like to marry her one day, right? Some of y' all were there. You remember those years back, 75 years ago.

And then you start having a personal relationship with this person, right? I guess back then you would telegraph each other, but I'm joking, I took it too far. Now we call and we text, but you start a one on one relationship and then that starts to get emotional and you start feeling your heart and becoming connected and you start telling each other your feelings. And at this point, there becomes a point where you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person. And so that you're joined, the two become one.

You get married. And then after you are married, what happens? The physical, the sexual part of marriage. But we live in a world that's like, what? No, we got to try that first, right?

They put this first with hundreds of people right before they try to get here. And we wonder why it doesn't work. Because the foundation isn't firm, it isn't true, it isn't secure. Because it's not on Christ Jesus. It's on feelings.

It's on a desire that comes and goes. And Satan loves it. And Satan will destroy people's lives with it. And we live in a world right now that puts the this first instead of this.

We got everything backwards in a world that has bigger houses and bigger schedules and nicer cars and nicer jobs, but families that are falling apart and marriages that are falling apart and wives and husbands that sit across the table and don't talk and they look at their phones and they lay in the bed and they don't talk. And their kids want their attention, but they're too busy working or distracted, chasing everything else. When we need a foundation.

Many of you need to learn to say no to a lot of things and say yes to some main things in your life and in your marriage, in your relationship and with your kids.

Men, be the godly men and leaders that God has called you to be for your family and for your wife. In Ephesians 5:21 33, the title of this in the new living translation says Spirit Guided Relationships to Wives and Husbands. It says this and further, submit to one another out of reverence. For who? For Christ.

Do it for him. 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 and everything.

For husbands, 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. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it. Just as Christ cares for the Church 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.

Is this you, men?

Do you love her like Christ loves the Church?

Christ gave his all for the Church. He laid down his life. Do you serve your wife? Do you look for her needs above yours? Do you look to honor her and to serve?

Or is it a selfish thing like I put my needs first? Or is her desires above yours because that's what Christ has done?

Men, she wants you, your time and your attention and your leadership and your trust sacrificially. Love her and put her needs to before your own.

And to the women. We live in a culture that resists the word submit. But God's order is not about inferiority or it's about divine design. Not because you are any less, because of this. This is God's plan.

Submission in Scripture is not about silence. It's not about weakness. It's not about being less. It's about the alignment with God's order. Maybe you've never thought of it this way, but just as Christ submits to the Father in row, yet is equal in nature, so marriage reflects divine structure.

Submission is not saying, I'm Beneath you. It's saying, I trust God's design. And notice church, that submission is the safest when a man is loving like Christ God. God never designed submission without sacrificial love. So, husbands, if you want your wife to respect you and submit to you, then love her as Christ loves the church and she won't have a hard time loving you and submitting to you.

Now don't love Christ and live for yourself and she's going to have a hard time wanting to honor you because you're living for all your selfish desires and not honoring and serving her. This is God's design. This is God's plan and God's order, not man's. He wired us. He knit us together in our mother's womb.

He knows what makes our heartbeat, what makes us function.

Have you ever noticed that the Bible starts with a wedding and it ends with a wedding? Have you? In Genesis, it starts with a wedding, and in Revelation it ends with a wedding. In Genesis 2:18, we see this first wedding. Turn with me to 2:18.

It says this. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them.

And whatever the man called each living creature, that was the name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

Then the Lord made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his mother and father and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

It's the first marriage. God looks at Adam and he says, it's not good for you to be alone. And out of his love, out of God's love for Adam, he creates Eve and he brings her to the man. In the first wedding God initiates. God is present there.

And God designs it in this union where the two become one. And they stand before him buck naked. Some of you are like that. Would be a really awkward wedding. But in their purity, it was not.

They were naked and unashamed, and they were fully known and fully loved and fully accepted. Marriage was not Adam's idea. Marriage was not Eve's idea. It was God's idea. But this first wedding was pointing to something so much greater.

In a minute, when we look in Revelation 19, we see another wedding. You're going to see the wedding feast of the Lamb. And this time it's not just one man and one woman in the garden. It's a redeemed multitude. It's Christ and his bride.

It's the fulfillment of the first marriage and what it foreshadowed. In Genesis, a bride was formed out of Adam's side. In Revelation, the bride is formed through Christ's suffering.

In Genesis, God brings the bride to the man. In Revelation, the bride has made herself ready for the Lamb. In Genesis, there is intimacy without shame. And in Revelation, there is celebration without end. The Bible church is one great love story.

It begins with a wedding in the garden, and it ends with a wedding in glory. And between those two weddings is the story of redemption, of a God who refused to leave his people alone, to leave us alone, who would go and at any length to restore what was lost in the Garden of Eden. This first wedding showed what relationship was supposed to be. And the final wedding shows what our relationship will be, fully restored. And so today, as we live between these two weddings, we are the bride of Christ being prepared.

We are the ones invited to the feast. We are the recipients of a love story written before the foundation of the world. So as Scripture closes, it doesn't end in defeat. Scripture doesn't end with darkness. It ends with the celebration, with a feast, with a union that will never be broken again.

Because the Bible starts with the wedding and it ends with the wedding. And that means that history itself is moving toward a marriage. We are all moving toward a marriage, toward joy, toward forever with Him. And we're getting ready to read. He says, blessed are those that are invited to the wedding feast, the wedding supper of the Lamb and church.

May we be ready, may we be faithful, and may we now live in light of that coming day, the wedding feast of the Lamb. From the beginning, marriage was meant to point beyond itself. Every godly marriage, your marriages in this room should be a reflection, a shadow, a living illustration of something greater. Christ and his bride. So, husbands, when you love your wife faithfully, sacrificially, and consistently, you are preaching a sermon about Christ, that how he was faithful, that how he was obedient to the Father even unto death.

You are being a representation of that union. And wives, when you honor and stand beside your husband in covenant love, you are reflecting the devotion of the church.

Marriage is not just about companionship. It's not just about happiness. Marriage is about a covenant. It's about faithfulness, about reflecting the love story of redemption. So when we fight for our marriages, when we forgive, when we stay committed, when we choose the covenant that we made over the convenience, we are participating in a story so much greater than ourselves.

The Bible starts with a marriage, and it ends with a marriage. And that means that marriage matters. It mattered in the garden, and it will matter in glory. And it matters today in your homes. And so Church, may our marriages reflect his faithfulness.

May our homes display his love. And may we live as people who understand that covenant love is not temporary. It's eternal. As I close, I want to read from this last wedding in Revelation 19:6. Will you turn with me to Revelation 19:6?

It says this.

Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder. Praise the Lord. For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb.

And his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear. For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God's holy people. And the angel said to me, write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.

And he added, these are true words that come from God.

Church today. May our marriages represent and shadow the love Christ has for us today. Maybe you're in this room and you're divorced. God sees you. Maybe you have made horrible marriage mistakes in the past.

We serve a big God who is able to forgive anything. He forgives you of what you can't even forgive yourself of today. Maybe you're a single mom. God sees you. Stay faithful to him and he will honor you.

To the single dads in the room, stay faithful. He sees you and he loves you. Today, maybe your marriage is struggling. Maybe right now, as you sit in the room or you listen online, your marriage is on the rocks. You're hanging on for dear life.

Maybe there's some of you've already been thinking about the best way to get out of it.

Church, don't give up. Christ didn't give up on us.

And if he can defeat death and go into a grave and come out three days later. I think he can handle what you're dealing with in your marriages if you will just surrender it to him with open hands.

Maybe you're struggling with unforgiveness. Christ forgave the unforgivable in us. Maybe you haven't been doing it God's way. You've been living in sexual sin. Maybe today you've been living together with someone outside of the outside of marriage.

Maybe you have kids and you've never got married. Then today God has grace and mercy revealed. Repent and turn to him. His grace is enough, and we don't leave it at that. This morning, as the body of Christ, as Nineveh Christian church, we challenge you.

Get married. Get married. Do it God's way. Honor him. Right now.

If you go to the Church center app and you look at the first little square on the Church center app, it says get married. You can click on that. You can go to the website, There's a thing that says get married. You can click on that. You can give us your name and your phone number and information, your situation.

And we would love for you to get married this week. We will move whatever we need to do for you to get right, for you to honor God and to get married this week. We've already had people from the first service sign up to do it.

Honor God. Trust that his plan and his ways are so much better than yours.

If your marriage isn't built on him today, church that can change. Maybe today there's some couples. This happened at first service. There's some couples that need to come up here and you need to fall on your knees. There's a couple and say, we've been doing it all wrong.

You've not been the foundation. You've not been the bedrock. You know, they say couples that pray together stay together. We don't even pray together. There's no spiritual aspect, our relationship or our marriage today.

Come and fall on your knees and we serve a gracious God. Commit your marriage to him. Say, from this point on, it's going to change husbands. Maybe you haven't been loving your wife as Christ loves the church. That can change today.

Me and maybe your wife has been had to be the spiritual leader of your house. That's ridiculous. God has called you to be the man and the leader of your house spiritually. Step up and be the man that God has called you to be today. Maybe you need to come and you need to repent and tell your wife, I'm sorry, I should have been the one that's leading.

And you've been having to lead, and that's going to change today.

Wives, maybe you haven't been letting your husband lead. You've been trying to have control then today, surrender that to God. Surrender your marriage to him. Church we love because he first loved us. And you can only love your spouse if you love Christ first.

The angel said to me, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Church on that day, I want all of you to be there. I want both sides of your marriage to be there on that day, standing in front of him, being found faithful. Cory and the band are going to come out. As I close this week, as I was rehashing all of it and thinking as I was how I was going to end today, and I was thinking about all the.

Unfortunately, I know so many situations, the church, so many marriages, so many good things, bad things. But I thought as I look at all the marriages in the church, I asked myself what encourages me, what challenges me from the marriages that I see in the body of Christ? And as I was thinking through that, the Spirit brought to me.

I think of the marriages in this church that reflect Christ. Most of these names you won't know, but there are people that go here. I think of Mike and Sarah Grace.

Mike had a stroke a couple years ago. They've lived in hospitals and rehabilitations for about two years. And every day she has gone and came and gone and came. Why? Because there was a day when they stood before God and they said, in sickness and in health, for good or for bad, till death do his part.

As God is my witness, I give you this vow because we believe that those words matter, that that commitment that we made to God matters. I think of Adam and Sheila Leeds. Sheila has been dealing with cancer for a good while now. They also have to raise a daughter with special needs named Shelby. Adam stopped everything and he just takes care of them.

The goal of his life because he wanted to honor the covenant that he made to his wife and he made to God. I could go on and on. I think of John and Janie Bayless as he's been struggling with cancer and she's supporting he. And I could think of Larry and Loretta Maddox as she's had health issues for years, and he's honored her and stayed faithful to her. I could go on and on and on.

I could tell you of the couples that I know they wanted to give up, that there's been unfaithfulness and they've just they've dug in and they said, I'm not going to give up on my marriage because it matters. In church this morning, it matters. Marriage is God's idea. It's not ours. And so God, I pray right now, church, the foundation of your marriage would be Christ.

And if it's not that, today you would surrender that to him. Whether it means that you need to get married and make it right, you need to come as a couple, and you need to change things in your marriage and commit to him, whatever that looks like for you, just say, yes, Lord.

Because there will be one day when we will have the wedding feast of the Lamb, and it will last forever. And on that day, it'll all be worth it. Let's stand as we have this time of invitation.