Connection between marriage and family: Marriage and family is the foundation upon which all other institutions are built. It was God’s idea. That means it’s a good thing. Amen. Do you want to get crossways with me? Here’s how you get crossways with me: If you’re not married in here, then you probably can’t do this, but if you want to get crossways with me, here’s what you do. You are a man who’s married to a woman and talks badly about marriage. Oh, we’ll get crossways real fast. Yeah, the old ball and chain. See, see, see that right there. That’s one of them right there. Well, you know, I used to have fun, then I got married. Marriage is a good thing. Marriage is a beautiful thing. I wish I were born married.
And one of the things that I always prayerfully consider is the words that come out of my mouth about something that God created. And I don’t ever want to talk down about something God created. You don’t want to get married? Bless you. But don’t talk bad about it. Don’t talk bad about something God created. It’s a beautiful thing. It was God’s idea. By the way, it’s God’s idea before the fall. So, it’s not something that was thought up after everything went haywire. It was God’s idea before the fall. It is a beautiful thing. It is a pure thing. It is a holy thing. It’s awesome. Don’t talk bad about it. If it’s not something that you’ve been called to, man, bless you.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
Keep on stepping, but don’t talk bad about something God created, especially when you understand why. Look at the next part of the passage. I will make him a helper suitable for him. That’s interesting. Marriage is God’s idea, which means that the purpose for marriage or purposes for marriage must also come from God. And I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the purposes of marriage. And a lot of them come straight out of whatever our selfish, egocentric, narcissistic culture. There are two basic biblical purposes for marriage. There were two basic purposes for marriage. There were two basic purposes for marriage. But I realized that two of them were subsets of the other two. Two basic purposes. Purpose number one is procreation. Amen. Have babies.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
Had lots of them. That was purpose number one. By the way, the text says, ‘I will make him one to come along and be his corresponding part.’ ‘I will make him one to come along and complete him.’ I will make him one to come alongside him so that he can accomplish what it is that I have him accomplish that he cannot accomplish on his own. What was she to help him name the animals? Nope. He did that all by himself. Was she there to help him tend the garden? Nope. Doing that all by himself. One thing, however, that brother was not going to figure out all on his own. There were not going to be any babies. Adam didn’t get Eve. Procreation. It’s one of the purposes.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
And by the way, by procreation, here’s what I’m talking about. Don’t sell this one short because the idea is not just that we would bring children into the world. But the idea is that we would bring children into the world and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So, the idea is that we would spread the image of God throughout the earth. That we would subdue the earth. That we would conquer the earth. We would go as far as we can individually. And that through our descendants, we extend even further than we can physically extend ourselves. That’s what it’s about. And our children are a blessing and an inheritance from the Lord. Do you want to get crossways with me again? Talk bad about the babies.
Talked to a guy who had three kids. Told me his last kid, the third kid, was named Miney. Miney? Yep. Eeny, meeny, and money. We ain’t having no more. Isn’t that interesting? And I just asked him. I said, Brother if your boss came to you three times and gave you a raise and blessed you and gave you a promotion and blessed you. And then he walked up to you a fourth time and tried to give you a raise and a promotion and bless you. Would he say, would you look at him and say, hold on, brother? I know why you’re coming. You’ve already blessed me three times. Don’t you give me another raise or another promotion? He said, no, I wouldn’t. I said, interesting. The Bible says your children are a blessing and an inheritance from God.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
But you say to God, no thanks. Our attitude toward children burdens me. My wife and I had two children early on in our marriage. And then we bought the lie. We listened to people in our family. We listened to people in our culture who said to us, ‘You have a daughter, you have a son, you have altogether now the perfect little family.’ We believe that. We decided that we wouldn’t have any more kids. We decided that we would tell God, ‘God, you’re through.’ I stood there, and I watched as my son was born, and the doctor went in and tied my wife’s tubes. Several years later, she walked up to me, tears running down her face. And she said, Bodie, I need you to forgive me for something.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
I said, what? She said, ‘I denied you more children.’ And that was wrong. I said, ‘Baby, I was right there.’ She said, ‘Listen, I need you to hear me on this. You forgive me.’ I said, ‘Yes, I forgive you.’ She said, ‘If you forgive me, then will you take me to the doctor so we can get this undone?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘It’ll cost about $10,000.’ I said, ‘Baby, why did you do that? We go to the doctor. And we find out that they can’t undo what was done. It was terrible. They couldn’t undo what was done. We were getting all excited about God blessing us with some more babies.
They couldn’t undo what was done.’ What’s worse, we also found out about some other medical issues that my wife had that eventually put her life in jeopardy. She almost died, but God healed her. And God also birthed in us an unquenchable desire for more babies. So what were we going to do? We walked into an adoption agency a little over two years ago. And we said, you know what? We want to adopt three or four babies from you over the next few years if that’s okay. Ma’am, are you all right? She said, yeah. I thought you just walked in here with two big old kids of yours who feed themselves and clothe themselves and said you want three or four babies over the next few years. I said, yes, ma’am.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
That’s what we said. Ma’am, where are you going? She comes back in with her supervisor. She said, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. She says, tell her what you just told me. I said, ma’am, we’d like to adopt three or four children over the next few years. Lady asked us why. My wife looked at her and said, we don’t have enough babies. Ma’am, are you okay? Ace told us right there, we love you. Sixteen months ago, little Elijah came home. And any day now, we’re expecting baby number four. The most incredible thing in the world. Because we understand something, we understand that our life is about more than just us and our satisfaction and our desires.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
Our life is about more than just getting all we can and canning all we get and sitting on the can. And then, when it comes to an end, we want to be able to look out there at a house full of ballistic missiles that have been fully trained to be launched into this lost, hurting, and dying world that desperately needs to be destroyed. We understand that our life is about more than just us and our needs for us to have a whole bunch of babies and train them in righteousness. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
The second purpose is illustration. Illustration. Procreation illustration. A living example of the relationship between Christ and the church. That’s what we’re going to spend much of our time on over the next few weeks. That picture in Ephesians chapter five of the husband and the wife is a living illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church. Now, if I believe that marriage is all about me and my happiness, then when I’m not happy, I walk. And I’ve heard this so many times. I’m just, I’m leaving. Why are you leaving? Because I’m just not happy anymore. Well, get unhappy. Well, I don’t believe that God would want me unhappy. Two purposes for marriage in the Scriptures, your happiness is not one of them. Suck it up and go work it out.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
If I look at it selfishly, that’s what happens. When I’m not happy anymore, when I’m not satisfied anymore, when I’m not fulfilled anymore, I’m ready to walk. But if I understand that our marriage is an illustration, a picture of the relationship between Christ and his church, then I understand that I am here for the long haul. I tell my wife all the time, girl, you leave me, I’m going with you. An illustration of the relationship between Christ and his church. This changes everything, folks. This changes what we look for in a mate. I mean, if I’m looking for, you know, somebody who just looks for me, I’m going to look real good. By the way, two things about people who look really good. Number one, they don’t stay that way.
I used to be skinny. Number two, they don’t stay that way. There are so many more important things in life than that. And I’ve met several people who have been willing to completely compromise on the more important things because somebody looked good. Whenever anybody around them would point out the fact that there was a difference between Christ and his church, there were so many more important things that were missing in this individual. They accused them of being jealous because that person looked so good. Again, if you can’t say amen, you ought to say ouch. There’s so much more than that. Suppose we understand that it’s about procreation and a godly line. In that case, if we understand that it’s about illustration and us being a living, breathing example of the relationship between Christ and his church, it completely changes what we look for.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
Thirdly, look at what he says: Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the land and said to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to the cattle and the birds of the sky and every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was no helper suitable for him. Here’s the deal. The third principle we learn, God is the one who causes us to desire marriage. Adam didn’t know that he was alone. He didn’t know what alone was. He had no idea that he needed a corresponding part. God’s the one who made him aware by giving him an assignment.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
And so all of a sudden, God says, Adam, I want you to name the animals. And Adam starts naming the animals and something funny happens. Adam sits there, and he goes, ‘Okay, that right there, that’s a gorilla.’ That’s a he gorilla and a she gorilla. Crocodiles right there. Alligators are right behind them. They’re different. Their heads are different sizes right there. He alligator and she alligator. And he crocodile and the crocodile. That’s an elephant right there. And he elephant and she elephant. God, everybody got somebody. I don’t like any of them. He didn’t even know till he named the animals. God is the one who awakens in us a yearning and a desire to be married. You know, it’s sad. There are so many people in our culture who treat that like it’s a sin.
You want a husband; you want a wife. People say, well, you’re just not very spiritual. If you were more spiritual, you’d pray; you’d be satisfied. Help you. God made that boy want a wife. I’ve been there. Told you. Met her on January 21st and married her on June 30th. The only reason I waited till June 30th was because she wanted her family to be there. If it wasn’t for that, we got married and then showed up and said, ‘Here we are.’ People ask all the time, you know, why, why did you do that? Because I hear this stuff, you know, these people who are, you know, these two-year engagements because somewhere in the book of second hesitations, it says that you have to, you got to, graduate from college, you know, because you got to graduate from college before you get married.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
You know, as you have these people, you know, it’s a sophomore year, and they’re supposed to be all in love and, you know, and they say they’re gonna get married, and they have these like two and a half year engagement. Something wrong with that, man. That’s not right. Here’s the deal. I wanted her. Do you hear me? I wanted that woman. And I was like, people were like, well, you need to wait till you graduate from college. I ain’t gonna make it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Me being engaged to her that long, I mean, that’d be like going shopping without any money. Either I leave frustrated, or I take something that doesn’t belong to me. Those are my only two choices, man.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
If you can fix your mouth to say, let’s wait two and a half years, you don’t need to be married. Uh-uh. No. Whoo, man. Bless you. Here’s the deal. The strongest man in the Bible, the wisest man in the Bible, and the most godly man in the Bible all fell into sexual immorality. For me to try to wait to marry, Bridget would have been for me to ask myself to be wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and more godly than David. And I am not. So we got married in six months. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And that’s not for everybody, but it was for me. And here’s what had happened. God had birthed in me a desire for a man. And I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know.’ I don’t know.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. And I knew what I wanted. I was praying. I had a list of stuff. And we’re going to talk about that over the next couple of weeks. This list of stuff. And I’m like, ‘Lord, I just, here’s the deal.’ This is the stuff. This is the non-negotiable stuff right here. I have looked in your word, and this is what it says a godly woman ought to look like. These are the non-negotiable things right here. On the back, that’s just some stuff that if you love me a whole lot, please, can I just have that too right there? Now, I don’t have to, but you know, the Bible says you have not because you ask not.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
So I’m putting a whole list of stuff over there on the back. You know, I meet this woman and she is all that in a bag of chips. She is, she’s things that I didn’t even have sense enough to ask for. Okay. And I, I, I meet her and I go back and I’m like, God, please don’t be teasing me. That night, I told my roommate I met the woman I was going to marry soon. And we did. I’ll never forget that night, January 21st. I walked up to her. We were talking about marriage. We were talking about marriage. It was just smooth. I asked her to dance again. She said, no, I had it right where I wanted her. But here’s the interesting thing.
God had awakened in her the same desire and the same yearning. Marriage is God’s idea.
He’s the one who determines its purpose. And he’s the one who creates in us a yearning for it. Don’t you dare go around being ashamed because you want what God designed you for? Don’t you dare go around apologizing because you agree with God when he says it’s just not good for that boy right there to be alone? Amen. Next, look at the next part of this passage. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. The Lord took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord got fashioned into a woman, the rib, which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
Look at this. The man said, this is now. The bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh, she should be called woman because she was taken out of man. That first phrase right there, you know, I was joking when I said, in the Hebrew, it’s not far off. He was happy. When a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing. I want you to know that God desires to give you the best. Here’s the problem. We have no idea what that means. The best. Our culture says the best is the one with the right degree from the right school so that he will have the right job. The best is the one with the right degree from the right school so that he will have the right job.
So that I can live in the right house in the right neighbourhood, our culture says the best is the girl who looks like, you know, that so that all my friends will say, oh man, oh man. That’s what the world says. And that’s the best. But when you understand what the purposes of marriage are, the best sounds completely different. And it looks completely different. But when you understand who you are and what you need, understand the desires that God has given you. And all of a sudden, you open your eyes one day, and you realize that he has put you to sleep and fashioned exactly what you need, exactly what you desire, and more than you could ever have asked for.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
You come to a place where you realize that marriage is a gift to you from God. That doesn’t mean that he loves people who are married more than people who are not. Jesus, for example, talks in Matthew chapter 19 very clearly about people who are eunuchs for the cause of the kingdom, individuals who are called upon and who are gifted to not have need of marriage, shall we say. But they’re the exception and not the rule. And we’re not saying that God less loves them. That’s not the point at all. But if God places in you that desire, and then he gives you exactly what you need to meet that desire from a biblical perspective, it’s a good thing. And it is an incredible gift from God.
Marriage has not always been easy for me, but it’s always been good. It is a gift from God, even in the most difficult days, that he uses to shape and mould me. Marriage has chiselled away at me and has made me a better man. The difficult days, the difficult days. I wouldn’t trade my worst day with Bridget for a dream date with Tyra Banks or Halle Berry or Tyra Banks and Halle Berry because she’s a gift to me from all my exactly. Look at the last part of this. For this reason, shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they two should become one flesh. The man and the wife were both naked and unashamed. This is wonderful.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
This talks about how the marriage relationship transcends all other relationships. For this cause, a man will leave his mother and his father. I love my mama, and I love my daddy. I didn’t always know my father. I love him. I love my mama. I love my daddy. I love my mama. I love my daddy. I love my mother. But I didn’t understand the significance of marriage until I realized that I had met someone for whom I was willing to say mama, I love you, and I’m grateful to you, but I’m going to live with her. This relationship transcends all relationships. It transcends my relationship with my boys. You know, I remember when I was single, it was my boys, man.
And all of a sudden, you know, when I got married and you know, the guys were all, oh man, you used to, you used to hang out. You used to do this; you used to do all that. Then you got married, and then I said, right there, back up. Then I got married. I don’t want to be with y’all anymore. I mean, I love you and everything, but I found something better. And I’ll see you every once in a while, and I’ll pray for you. I’ll do something with you here and there. But I found something a whole lot better. It transcends all of the relationships. And until you find that individual, you haven’t found the person that God’s called you to marry. You find somebody that’s just all right.
You’re not there yet. This is the crucial one. This is the most important one. How important is this relationship? How important is the marriage and the family to God? You know what’s interesting? Among those who would lead God’s church, there are two requirements, two requirements of an elder or pastor just two. There are a lot of character issues that have to be there, but two skills, not two requirements, two skills. One skill is to be able to teach. The other is to manage a household well. You know what’s interesting? I’m going to take all of my degrees and my training for ministry and stack them up over here. And I take my marriage to Bridget and my role as the father of Jasmine and Trey and Elijah and baby next and next and next and next.
This pile is way up higher than that. There’s nothing more important. Do you want to know who I am? The place to find out who I am is in my relationship with my wife and my children. That’s where you really know who I am. Do you want to know who I’m becoming? You look at my relationship with my wife and my children. Do you want to know where my flaws are? You ask my wife and my children. There are things that I can hide from anyone and everybody that can never be hidden from them; that’s why those relationships are so incredibly meaningful. There are several things that I’ve asked God for throughout my life. I never get, you know, when I was younger, I, you know, I wanted people to just remember me as a ball player.
Here lies Votie Bauckham. The boy could play. And then I matured a little bit, you know. Here lies Votie Bauckham. The boy could play. And he was smart, too. A little picture of a guy with a Heisman pose, you know, graduation cap on. Come to a place in my life where there are just a few things that I ask God for. One of them that I pray for regularly is that God would allow me to spend my last day on this earth with my wife. So that I can look her in the face and tell her that I was faithful to her to the day, they put me in the ground. Another thing that I ask for is that I would raise my children in such a way that after I’m done scratching and clawing.
And fighting for the cause of the kingdom. After I have reached out as far as I could go for the sake of Christ, I will have raised my children in such a way that rather than pursue the things of this world; they would climb over me and pick up where I left and go further and further and further. I could never imagine that I could ever have gone in and of myself. That’s what I want more than anything else in this world. That’s what I want. And my prayer for you is that you would not buy the lie of this culture that sees marriage as a merger. That you would not buy the lie of this culture that says it’s temporary, that you would not buy the lie of this culture that says that it’s just about you being satisfied and comfortable.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
But you would not buy the lie of this culture that says that it’s just about you finding the prettiest person that you could find and staring at them until they don’t look so pretty. Anymore but that you would grab hold of this concept that God desires to use you for his glory and his honour, and that part of that may include that he would bring one alongside you who would send you along further than you could have ever gone by yourself and with whom you can bear and raise children who come to know and serve the Lord and go on, even from don’t buy the lie. The truth is so much more gratified, so much more satisfied, so much more real.
For some of you in this room, you may need to just go and reassess where you are, what you’ve been looking for, what you’ve been after, and take a few steps back. Others of you in this room may need to wake up and smell coffee and realize that whatever it is that you’ve been waiting for, you don’t have to have a six-figure income and a 401k before you get married. You man, I wouldn’t; I wouldn’t trade that first part of our web; we were poor, not poor; we couldn’t afford the other o and r; we were just poor. It was good; I told some of you before I; you know, I was a student-athlete; I was on a football scholarship, and I didn’t know that there was an NCAA regulation that said I couldn’t have a job during the season, so during the season my wife and I had to live on three hundred and twenty-four dollars a month.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
I can eat that all by myself, but when the two of us sit and reminisce about the good days, those days are, you know why, because we found out that the money, the success, the mortgage-those are not the things that constitute the good days are when we look one another in the eye and each of us knows the other’s not going anywhere and if there’s no place that either of us my prayer for you is that God would give you that he would bless you with that and that you’d receive that and that you’d receive that and that you’d receive it with open arms and that you would rejoice in it and you’d speak well of it and that you’d hold on to it for dear life like it was the most precious thing that you’d ever been given because newsflash just about his father, thank you for the privilege that you’ve given us to be in your presence among your people, the opportunity we’ve had to enter into this two-way conversation that we call worship, to say some things to you and about you that we know and believe to be true, and to anxiously anticipate those moments where you would speak to us clearly and powerfully through your word, to the end that our lives would be touched and challenged and changed and transformed, conformed to the very image of Christ.
Still on Connection between marriage and family
I pray that tonight, and over the rest of the time that we have together, You will continue to break through the lies that the culture has built up; it’s given us such an erroneous view of marriage, a view that has led to nothing. But selfishness and destruction, and that we would see a great change in the glorious picture of what it is that You have in store for those to whom You would call to this ministry that we call marriage. We love You, and we are so grateful to You. Ask that You would burn these truths indelibly on the forefront of our minds and we desire to hear and to heed every word You speak. We pray these things and ask these things because we believe they’re in accordance with the will and the nature and the authority of Jesus, the Bridegroom and Lover of our souls.
How Monitoring and Familiar Spirits Attack Chosen Ones (They Watch 24/7).
Would you like to Earn Money Online with just your mobile device?
If yes then click on the link below:
https://earnbean.ng/
