Okay, I want to read Genesis chapter 2, this is the last part of it, as we get started this evening. So this is Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 18. So hear the word of the Lord. And Yahweh God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Out of the ground, Yahweh God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. And Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, one of his sides, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the side which Yahweh God had taken from man He made, He built into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Amen. Let's pray. Thank you Lord again for your goodness to us and for your faithfulness and your amazing mercies that you've displayed to us in Christ Jesus our Savior. We ask that you will help us to not only learn those things but that you will mold us by them so that we too will respond to one another in the same way. Help us to love one another and especially help us to love our mates. Thank you for your mercies in marriage. Uphold us now and help us to understand your word for Jesus' sake. Amen. Okay, so marriage is more than meets the eye. It's far more than finding someone that you think you'd be happy to live with for the rest of your life and getting them to say, I do, by one way or another. Paul says that marriage is a great mystery. It reveals the whole purpose of God in Jesus. It's a picture of Jesus' marriage to His bride, the Church. And God designed marriage to depict the relationship of Jesus and the Church, and to display His own merciful love in the covenant. So our marriages are to be illustrations of what God is doing in history. preparing a bride for his son. Now, you may not think, well, you know, I'm not so, I mean, I hear that, but I don't see how that really has an effect on people. It has a great effect on people. And it's going to have even greater effect as time goes on and more and more, um, the fruit of the lies of Satan manifest themselves in the brokenness of marriage and relationships all around. It will be quite distinctive. It already is quite distinctive. And just, if you, if you have a unbelieving neighbors or friends, I can promise you they probably are amazed at your family, and that's the way it ought to be. We want to, in a humble and gracious way, provoke them to jealousy, to desire what God has given to us. But we're to be a living illustration of what God is doing in history, and what he's doing in history, of course, is preparing a bride for his son. And the first picture of this is right here in Genesis 2 when God brings a wife to Adam. And that's the picture. He's almost like saying, OK, this is what's going to be going on throughout history. I'm going to be bringing and preparing a bride for my son, just as I do for my son, Adam. And this tells us a great deal about what marriage is to be like. Marriage is not primarily for the purpose of making us happy or merely to meet our needs. It is that, but it's bigger than that. Marriage is for the good of the world. And our marriages are to be patterned after the grand marriage of history of Jesus and the church. So Jesus took a bride, not for his pleasure primarily, but for the good of the world. Now he rejoices in his bride, and he takes pleasure in his people. So I don't want you to say, oh yeah, there was nothing about romance there. Of course there is. The Lord says he rejoices over us like a bridegroom does on his wedding night. There's great joy and pleasure in his bride, and he takes pleasure in his people, just like you ought to have high levels of romance in the marriage. There ought to be that, and that needs to be continued throughout the marriage. That's not odd, and that's not some kind of Arminian bad thing. That's biblical. That's what we ought to be like, because that's the way God is. So marriage is like everything else though, if it's rightly understood, it exists primarily for the glory of God, for the good of the kingdom, for the advancement of the blessings of God's love in the world. We want to see the love of God spread throughout the earth. And this perspective is essential if our marriages are to be fruitful like they ought to be. And so it also tells us then how we ought to operate in our marriage. Just as the cross is the center of the grand marriage, Jesus loved us and gave himself for us, so it has to be the center of our marriages. Unless we learn to die in our marriages, our marriages will never survive. And that's because the rule of life is this. If you're seeking to save your life, you're going to lose it. If you're always seeking to try to get other people to pay you and make you bigger and better, you're going to be poorer. There's no doubt about it. If you seek to save your life, you lose it. You only, when you lose your life, then you gain it. That's the rule. That's the way the kingdom works. And that's what it's so hard to get into our heads. We think if I give something to you, I'll be the poorer. God says, no, that's not the way it works. If you give something to others, you become richer just like they do. That's the way grace works. That's the way my kingdom works. And that's the way marriages work. Marriages which have self-fulfillment and personal satisfaction at the center will never survive and prosper like they should. You may continue to be married, but practically you're not getting any of the joy or the fruit of it. It will never survive and prosper because they are only another means of self-love. You're only trying to love yourself and technically with another person in the house. The chief end of marriage is God's glory and the advancement of the kingdom through gospel reenactment. Husbands who love their wives and wives who love their husbands and honor them. So this means that marriage not only illustrates the gospel, but it's desperately in need of the gospel in order to survive and prosper. It finds its true meaning and direction only when its goal and purpose is serving something bigger than itself. So that brought me to the first thing this morning, which was that marriage requires a commitment to love one another as Jesus loved us. A persistent, persevering commitment to love one another throughout all your days, which means then you're saying, I'm going to act in a certain way towards you forever. That's what that vow really means. If your wife or your husband has to ask you, do you love me? That ought to be something obvious, not only because of what I say, but because of what I do. And it ought to be manifest every day. Because of the way God's created us, our actions shape and mold our feelings and attitudes. You are what you do. And when you do what God says, regardless of how you feel, you become conformed to what you ought to feel. Your feelings will come into conformity with your actions. You're simply acting out what you are. I didn't mention this morning, And I almost hesitate to mention it because I can't quite remember the whole movie. This movie was called Parisia Tom and it was an experimental thing where they got like 16 directors and said, you've got eight minutes. We need you to give us a story about love in Paris in eight minutes. And they didn't, they let the guys just do whatever they wanted. I think most of the things are not very good, and like I say, I hate to mention movies because I always forget something, and so if you go out and look at it, you go, he recommended that? Oh, he's such a, I thought he had discernment. I really don't. I mean, some things I like, some things I don't. But there's one little vignette in this movie where a man, the story is a man's decided to leave his wife, and he's been having an affair. And his girl has said, you've got to leave your wife. And he's decided, I'm going to do it. And he makes an appointment for lunch with his wife. And he's going to meet her in a restaurant. And the whole thing is, when she sits down after they greet one another, he's going to say, I need to tell you that I'm leaving. Well, she comes to the restaurant. And they greet each other. And he sits down and gets her in her chair. And she turns to him and says, I need to tell you something. And he says, what's that? And she said, I've just been to the doctor. And he goes, well, so what? And she says, well, I only have six months to live. And he goes, my goodness. And this first thought is, well, this is working out OK. But then he says, but I'll need to stay. You know, he's thinking in his mind, but I'm going to have to stay with her and I will stay with her until she dies and and, you know, help her. And so he stays with her. And during her time of illness, he's there to serve and to help her. And he brings her meals. He brings her tea. Then they sit and talk. And all of a sudden, you see, he's paying attention to her like he never has. And he's doing the little things that husbands do when they care for their wives. And what happens is he begins to love her. So that he starts dreading the fact that she's getting worse and that she's not going to live. And when she dies, he falls apart. And then the last line, if I'm remembering this correctly, the last thing that comes up on the movie is this line. He began to act like a husband and became one. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful movie. And if you could only just take that one thing out. But now I said, don't go rent it and all that. I can't remember. I don't think the rest of them are very good, but that was outstanding lesson. That's exactly right. That's what we're talking about. That's exactly what God, that's the way God has made us. Now, I mentioned this morning something about lust, and I thought, no, I shouldn't have said lust, because lust is sin in the Bible. If you understand it biblically, then lust is simply self-love. If I'm lusting, all I'm interested in is myself. I'm not interested in you. I'm not interested in the girl. All I'm interested in is my own pleasure, and God condemns that because it is self-love. It's not love at all. Lust is centered on the fulfillment of my own selfish desires, regardless of the needs of others. I don't really care about the other person. They're just an object and an instrument to give me satisfaction and pleasure. That's all it is. And so, lust is self-love, which is why it's sin. It's not true love, and it's not an expression of love, as C.S. Lewis points out in his really wonderful book, The Four Loves. In The Four Loves, though, Lewis observes that it's a mistake to identify eros, or erotic love, or eroticism, with sin. He says erotic love is something different. He says, we unfortunately use the idiom, when there's a lustful man prowling the streets, we use the idiom, he wants a woman. Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. So he really doesn't want her, he just wants to use her. She's just an instrument for him. He doesn't really care about her. Eros, Lewis says, by contrast, makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. He gets focused on this one woman. And that's the idea of eroticism in a biblical sense. Now, you know, if I said, I want you to have erotic love, that wouldn't sound right on the tape, and anybody would go nuts. The point that Lewis is making is, if you have erotic love, you're focusing upon the good and the true and the beautiful and the beloved, and you're just dominated by that. And that means that Christ's prohibition against lust was not an attack on Eros, but the opposite. It's actually an appeal for true eroticism, Lewis says. I'm using all of his logic here, and I think he's right. He says, we have to have a desiring love that doesn't reduce the beloved merely to a sexual object, but one that is captivated by the beauty of the person loved, which ultimately is a reflection of the image of God in them. And so understood in this way, there's nothing sinful in erotic love. In fact, it's precisely what Christians are called to express in the whole of their marriage. When a man and a woman commit themselves to each other, they're not only pledging sexual faithfulness, they are promising more than that. They're promising to be preoccupied with one another as long as they live. In other words, I'm cleaving to you. The eroticism comes in in the cleaving to one another and saying, I'm happy, I'm committing myself to you, I'm cleaving to you, and I will never have another. That's the kind of thing that Lewis says is really the essence of eroticism, biblically understood. So, and this helps us to understand something else. Another, I think, fallacy is, and the Puritans kind of taught this, and I think they meant well, but I'm afraid it's kind of borne the wrong idea in our heads. They said that agape, which is supposed to reflect God's love, is disinterested love. In other words, you love without any desire for any return. And Lewis says that's not correct, because God doesn't love like that. God does desire a return. Right? He loves you so that you will love him. And he desires a reciprocation in his love. And there's nothing wrong with that. All of us have that. But the Puritans said, well, you shouldn't have that. You should be disinterested. Disinterested love is the highest love. Well, it's not human. That's not human. That's not the way God is. That's not the way we are as his image bearers. If I love you, I want you to love me. And there's nothing selfish about that. That's just the way love works. If I'm giving, to you, I want to see the joy and the fullness and the happiness that my love for you brings. So God loves us in the same way. His love for us is, in this sense, erotic. He loves us and he does so in order to evoke love from us. And God's love includes, then, his desire to be loved in return. Jesus says, the Father sent me because he seeks worshipers. What are worshipers? It's people who love him and who reverence him and give themselves to him. So what has he done? God says, I give myself to the world in the desire that the world respond and give themselves to me. And there's nothing sinful or odd or out of line about that, obviously. So true Eros desires a return in love, but it's a particular kind of return, a return with a difference. A true exchange of love is never an identical exchange. If I gave Wendy an engagement ring and she took it, and then next week came back and said, I have a gift for you. I said, what is it? She gives me that ring back. I'm not going, oh, hey, whoo. I mean, what in the world? What is that saying? You know, an exchange like that is saying, I don't want this ring. I'm not looking for that kind of return. I'm looking for a different kind of return. You see, we want a return with a difference, a return of love, a reciprocation, but a reciprocation with a difference. And so reciprocated love is going to look different than than your love. The love you gave and the love that is returned always looks different. But men and women can't get this in their head. So the men wants the woman to be like him. If you love me, you're going to love football. If you don't love football, you don't love me. And women do it too. If you love me, you will love you've got mail. Which I happen to do. Thank you, thank you, yes, I do. No, and women want men to be like them, and men want women to be like them, and we fight. And then you start manipulating each other and say, OK, look, I'm going to be like you for a little bit, but you've got to be like me for a little bit, too. And you start bargaining. And that's not love. You see, so that we have to understand this is when you're loving a woman, she's going to return your love as a woman. Which is all she can do. It's only fair, right? And it means the same for your love. When a man wants only what he can give, there's no point in getting married. Just hang out with the guys. In the same way, when a woman gives herself in love to her husband, she should expect not that he would respond to her in the same way she responds to him, but he will love her as a man. In fact, not just any man, but as this particular man that she's loved and given herself to. This all reflects the love of God that he has in himself. The Father pours out his love on the Son and the Spirit, and he desires the Son and the Spirit to love him in return. And they do, but they do it in different ways. So the Son responds in the way that a Son responds. He gives the Father the love of the Son. In the response to the love of the Father and the Son, the Spirit returns only what the Spirit can give. And so Peter Lightheart says, to the melody of the Father's song, the Son and the Spirit respond, not by repeating the melody, but with harmonious counter themes. And that's what makes it love. That's what makes it special. We're not singing in unison. I'm not saying the same thing back. I'm saying something different, and it makes it fuller and richer and more beautiful. So, just as the love of the Father for the Son and the Spirit is ever fresh and continues to break out in new ways, and it does, so the love of the husband and wife continues to grow and mature in fresh and creative ways throughout their lives together. And it doesn't look the same as it did when they were first married. And it shouldn't. Our love matures and changes and expresses itself in different ways so that newlyweds act differently than people who have been married 40 years. And that's not a bad thing, and it doesn't mean the people who have been married 40 years have gotten bored. It just looks different. In fact, usually, if they've done it right, you see, if God has blessed them, they've lived faithfully, their love is so much deeper and wider and richer than it ever was when they first, when they walked out of the church after the wedding. That's just to finish out what I wanted to say this morning. Now that leads to the second thing that must be true for our marriages to be for the world. If our marriages are to be for the world, then it's going to require a willingness to seek forgiveness and grant it. Sin divides and hardens. And if you refuse to deal with sin properly, you're going to find yourself increasingly distant from one another, increasingly indifferent to one another, and increasingly suspicious of one another. And that's what happens. Since sinning against one another is inevitable, no marriage can survive and mature in fruitfulness and faithfulness if sin is not dealt with biblically. And we often just take this for granted, you know, so that you think, okay, I yelled, I said something I shouldn't, but she knows I didn't mean it. And so you don't say anything. And you do something to him and you go, well, but he knows that's how I am. And so you don't say anything. And so you just walk around, you know, I got knifed here. And she got one of my arrows there, and we just start walking around with the knife and the arrow. And then pretty soon, one day, I just give her another one, and then sit back and live, and, oh, she understands. And you end up just killing each other slowly. That's what sin does. That's why it's critical to keep short accounts with one another. Don't run up big bills. When you run up big bills, people decide pretty soon they can't pay them, and they want to get out and run away and escape payment altogether. Resolve conflicts quickly. Paul says, be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. That's a time limit. If you want to be angry, two requirements, you can't sin when you're angry and you can only be angry to the sun goes down. OK, so that's the limit. When the sun goes down, you've got to be happy again. And that's the rule. and we can't ignore it. You see, sin is real and it causes real damage just as much as dropping a piece of casserole on the carpet or spilling milk on the floor. It doesn't get better if I just leave it there. It gets worse. It was all right if I dropped the carrots on the rug and I pick them up. Well, they're almost ready to eat, you know. Nothing wrong with that. I can go ahead and stuff them in. But if I leave them there for about a couple of weeks, that ain't the same. It's not the same carrots I dropped. I mean, they're nasty. And nobody won't, the dog won't eat them. Nobody will eat them. It gets worse. Things get worse by ignoring them. The milk doesn't get better by leaving it all over the floor. It gets worse and nastier. And that's what we have to remember about sin. When you sin, seek forgiveness and seek it quickly as possible. I think Doug Wilson says, you know, you can drop a thousand things on the carpet if you pick them up, though, it's fine. But if you don't pick them up, it gets to be a mess after a while. And that's really the point here. Always think long term. Consider the consequences of your words and your actions before you speak and act. Curb your tongue. Control, restrain your anger. Don't say something that's going to cause deep wounds that require a great deal of treatment and attention and repair later on. Seek to interpret your spouse's words and actions in the best possible way, with sympathy and the judgment of charity. Rather than interpreting his words in the worst way possible, give the benefit of the doubt. The less damage you do in the heat of the moment, the fewer repairs you have to make later on. You know, what happens is everybody, first it's just a little, you know, you pinch, it's like pinching. And you don't say, oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Forgive me. But you don't. You just pinch her. So she turns around and slaps. And you turn around and punch. And she goes and gets the shotgun. And pretty soon, you've got a mess around there. When really, all we did was pinch. That was just a pinch. I didn't mean to pull out the weaponry. But that's what happens, and you know I'm not exaggerating. I mean, maybe not literally, but that's exactly the way arguments and fights happen. And before you know it, eight minutes later, you've got huge holes in the wall, and there's a lot of blood scattered around, and you don't know what in the world, why did that happen? What went on here? It's a terrible crime scene. So the less damage you make, that's why you be quiet, restrain yourself, restrain, pray that God help you not to say things in the heat of the moment because it doesn't help things. Don't do it unless it's going to help. You want to make things better, not worse. So the less damage you do in the heat of the moment, the fewer repairs you have to make later on. Don't hold grudges. Don't let bitterness take root. And that means, you see, the only way this can all happen is if you get reconciled as quickly as possible. As soon as you realize, I sin, I shouldn't have said that, immediately go and ask forgiveness and express the reconciliation in a tangible way. Wounds caused by sinful words are not healed by repentant words. We think they are. What we do sometimes is just deal in words. So I did something that hurt you. I come to you and say, I shouldn't have said that. Will you forgive me? Go. Yes, I forgive you. Yes. Forget it. So there's been, I ask forgiveness. I got it. Right. And that's supposed to settle it. Why does that not make me happy? Why do I not feel like that settled? I mean, technically, I asked forgiveness. She said she forgave me and she told me it was okay. Forget it. Because wounds caused by words are not healed by words. I want to know that there really is forgiveness and that's shown in tangible ways, not just by words, especially not words with certain inflections. We need to back up our words with tangible expressions of love and repentance. So the boys had to hug and, you know, charity didn't mind hugging them. They didn't like it. And it was worse than a spanking for them in a lot of ways, because that's what they needed. They needed to actually have a tangible, you know, expression of forgiveness. And that made the forgiveness actually real. that made the reconciliation real. So confess your sins to one another, express forgiveness to one another, and then demonstrate this newly restored relationship in a tangible way by showing favor to one another. But to do that, it requires humility. And that's why we don't like to do it. That's why we almost refuse to do it. That's why we almost have to be forced to do it. Because we don't like to humble ourselves before anybody. I don't like to have to come to you. And this, by the way, just to talk a little bit about words. This is why I want to insist on saying, will you forgive me rather than I'm sorry and I apologize. Now, I know that we're saying we mean so many times you mean the same things, but there's something about saying, will you forgive me? That's harder than saying, I apologize. And I think it's rooted in the word that we instinctively know that an apology is a defense. Right? When I went to seminary, I was so dumb. I thought apologetics was a lesson, you know, was a course on how to ask, you know, somebody to quit being mad at you. How to do apologies, you know. But the word means defending. So apologetics is defending the faith. An apology is offering a defense for your position. And there's a reason why that became a substitute in a way for forgiveness, because it's easier to defend myself than it is to ask your forgiveness and take responsibility for messing up. I want to make it where you just misunderstood. And so I like to say it this way. Well, if you were offended by what I did, I'm sorry. And what I'm saying there is if you are so stupid to misunderstand the wise thing I did, I'm sorry you're so stupid. That's easy for me to say. What's hard for me to say is, you know what? I sinned against you. I don't have any excuse for that. It was nasty. It was mean. It was wrong. And I shouldn't have done it. Will you forgive me for me being rebellious and unloving and stupid? I don't want to say that. Use the right words and then follow it up with a confirmation, a tangible confirmation. But that again, it takes humility. That's why we don't do it. But this is a rule. If our marriages are to be for the world, we must grow in humility. Paul begins the section on marital relations and directions to husbands and wives with this command, remember, submit to one another in the fear of God. Men like to say submission is for women. That's what the woman does. Paul says, no, it isn't. That's what you do with your wife. Yes, she does submit to you. That's true. But I want you to submit to her, too. If you don't humble yourself to be her servant, don't demand that she be yours. Jesus didn't come to be served. He didn't come to be ministered unto, He came to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. And for that reason, we gladly submit to Him. And we submit to Him because we know we can trust Him. Because He's demonstrated His love for us by giving up everything for us. He humbled Himself to the point of death, even to the death of the cross. so that we might be delivered from that horrible death. And when you have a husband like that, it's easy to submit. I don't ever, I'm never afraid to submit to him. Why? Because he's proven he will give himself. He gives himself for me. He will die for me. And therefore I can trust him with my life. But a guy who's always just sitting in the easy chair bossing everybody around and getting offended if everybody doesn't act like he's the king of the world and the oracle of wisdom, and he gets offended every time somebody doesn't kiss his ring, that's a little bit more difficult to submit to him, a little bit more difficult to honor him, and to give the reverence that a wife ought to give to him. And when he starts complaining about that and demanding that everyone start doing it, That makes it a lot more hard. He doesn't know the first thing about what it means to be one who is respected and honored. You can't demand respect. You have to earn it. Jesus calls us to bow down to him, and we don't ever sit back and say, why? Well, I mean, unbelievers do, but we know why. He's earned the right. to call for our submission. And we see it be a horrible, horrible offense of arrogance if someone refuses to submit to Him. Because there's trampling upon His love for them and His mercy and His grace. And that's the way it ought to be when wives say, I'm not going to attend again. We ought to go, horrible, after all this man has done, after all he's demonstrated to you and to us and to everyone. This is a man who gives himself for you and for your children, for all the church and for his neighbors. That's his life. How could you ever refuse to honor him like that? It's a great disgrace, or it should be for a wife not to honor her husband. Just as much of a disgrace for the church not to submit to Jesus, you see. But the problem is, we don't humble ourselves, we don't therefore earn the respect that would draw forth that kind of submission. Glad, happy, trusting submission. But Paul wants to lay that down right at the first by saying, submit to one another in the fear of God. In the fear of God. You have to understand that you desperately need one another to live. If you're married, that means that you're not able to live on your own. Right? You didn't get the gift of celibacy. So that you of necessity must have a mate. And this is clearly one of the things we learn from the creation account. Adam was not sufficient of himself to fulfill the purpose of his creation. So God gives Adam a helper. Why did he give him a helper? Well, because he needed help. That's why. So, you need your wife and she needs you. Now the most obvious illustration of that is having babies. Can't have them by yourself, no matter how much you want them and all the rest. That's something that you can't do on your own. But it's equally true, what we don't see, is it's equally true in every other area of life as well. Nothing will prosper in your relationship until both you and your mate understand you need one another. Now, let me quickly also say that This doesn't mean that if the Lord takes away your husband or your wife by death, that you should immediately commit suicide since you can't live without them, you know, that kind of thing. Obviously, in that situation, the Lord's going to be merciful. He's going to uphold you. It is going to be difficult, but He is going to comfort you. He'll comfort you through the family, through your family and the church, of course, and He will supply your needs as is necessary. So, clearly, I'm not making this an extreme point, but the point is we're not intended to fulfill our callings alone, and the truth is that's impossible. And since this is so, you have to have this attitude. Out of love for the Savior and fear of Him, I give myself to the duty of loving you, seeking your good, doing everything possible to make you what you're called to be. That's what I'm saying when I say I do. to these vows. If you are looking at your marriage only in terms of what you can get out of it, rather than what you can give to it, you will never have anything. If you're always focusing on your expectations of your mate, rather than your duty towards your mate, you're going to have a poverty-stricken relationship and you're going to go around feeling sorry for yourself and complaining to your friends about what a terrible wife you have, what a terrible husband you have, and embarrass yourself and them and undermine them publicly. If you're always concerned to balance the ledger, you don't understand what submission to each other is all about. I've seen this in younger couples as well as older couples. They always try to keep track of what they have done for their wives so that they can be sure to be paid back, you know, equal value. I don't ever want to give more than I'm getting back. I mean, that's not good business, is it? It might not be good business, but we're talking about marriage, aren't we? And if you're going to love like God loves, then that's not the way God loves. But this is the way we think. If I let you go shopping, I get to go to the ballgame. And if you get to be with the girls, then I get to go hunting. I'll let you do that, and I get to do this. We keep the thing balanced, so that every time I let you do something, you have to let me do something. Or it's not fair. It's not a fair relationship. I changed three diapers, so nothing's getting changed until you change three diapers. Well, the spirit behind that spirit is not love. That's Satan. That's the way Satan thinks, because he will never, never Get less than he receives. That's the way he wants, at least. Get less than he gives, I should say. The spirit, then, is not love. Love focuses not upon repayment, but enrichment. Where would you be if God loved you like that? I'll keep you alive tonight, but then tomorrow. You're pretty unconscious when you sleep, aren't you? Who keeps that liver working for you? I'll do that for you. No, you'd be dead. If God loved you like that, you wouldn't survive a day. And yet you think, that's okay, that's the way we work our marriage, because we have a 50-50 marriage, you know. Really? Well, you don't have a marriage, you know. You went through a ceremony, you got a certificate, you got the official legal title, but you don't really have a marriage, because that's not love. That's not the way you love one another. When you focus on serving your wife and pleasing her and helping her and delighting in her, then all of a sudden, you know what? You don't get it back. You get more than you ever gave. Which stirs you to say, no, no, no, I don't deserve you to respond like that. Because I owe you, I owe you. And she's going, no, I owe you. And you're both trying to give to each other because you feel so indebted and grateful for each other. And so you end up trying to out-give each other. That's the way faithful Christians respond to God. Every time the Lord gives us things, we go, I can't believe it, I don't deserve this. And it stirs you to want to give Him more. Because that's the way love works. It's concerned about enrichment, not repayment. And one of the problems here, Paul says it, doesn't he? He says, if you love your wife, then you're loving yourself. Because she is one with you, of course. And no man ever hates his own flesh, but he nourishes and cherishes it. So you've got to keep in mind who she is. She's not some woman that you got legally bound to, she is you. You're one. And so to love her is to love yourself. To give yourself to her is to seek, in the right way, your own best interest. And so when you do that, all of a sudden, the relationship picks up speed. And you begin to have joy because you're living like God says to live. You're living like God. He gives without He gives and continues to give because He loves us and loves to enrich us, and His love provokes us to love Him. We love Him, John says, because He first loved us. His love initiates our love. But this requires humility, the humility of Jesus, a willingness to forget yourself for the good of others, Because that's exactly what Jesus does for us. He humbled himself. He became obedient to the point of death. He won his bride by his humility and obedience and his sacrifice for her. And so he serves us by giving his life for us. And it's through his willing submission and humble service for us that he was glorified in life and we are glorified in him. This is how our marriages will be glorified and flourish. And if you ignore this, this is why your marriage dies. And then the fourth thing. If our marriages are to be for the world, we must be increasing in the fear of God. Paul said that. You've got to submit to one another in the fear of God. And if you're committed to serving the Savior and pleasing Him, you'll never be able, unless you're committed to Him, unless you fear Him and serve Him, you'll never be able to humble yourself before your wife or submit to your husband. Usually you hear this among those who've been married about three weeks. I love my wife so much. I mean, nothing she asks me is too much. I am so happy. I will do anything she says, because I just love her so much. And you go, oh, you're so sweetly naive. You don't know what life is like. It's the voice of inexperience, and we know it, we hear it. After a few years of sinning and being sinned against, it's easy to become selfish and self-centered and hard and indifferent. And you begin to feel like, if I don't look out for myself, I'll never get anything out of this. I had a friend, an older lady, she married a man who wasn't a Christian, and she knew she had done wrong, but she was trying to be faithful to him. And he was a mess. He did things, it was just a terrible, terrible life for her. But she said, she told me one day, you know when I was first married I loved my husband so much I could have eaten him up. Now I wish I had. What can enable you to love a man or a woman who by nature is selfish and thoughtless? Only the fear of God. Do you see, when the fear of God is present, there's no question about authority. I receive God's word as the rule, I submit to it. There's no argument about whether it's the right thing to do or what I ought to do. That's settled. I do what God says. for me to do, and I believe what God says is true. I reject everything contrary to his word. So when there's a dispute, I never have the right to sit back waiting for my wife to take the first step, even if she started it. You see, the Bible says it's always your move. If you sin against your brother, go to him. If your brother sins against you, go to him and tell him his fault. Jesus says it both ways. We think it's only one way. If I sin, yeah, I'm the one, I gotta go do it. But if he sins, that's on him. And I ain't moving a muscle until he comes begging me on his hands and knees to forgive him. I'm sitting right here. And we like to feel righteous. But God says, you didn't listen. When your brother sins against you, you have to go. Just as much as when you sin against him. In both cases, you have to go. You have to take the initiative. And so when there's a dispute, it doesn't matter who started it. It doesn't matter who's responsible for it. When I know that my brother has an offense, I'm to go to him. When I realize my brother is sinning against me, I have to go to him. And what applies to my brother applies to my wife or my husband. And this is true regardless of the situation or the present attitude or condition of your mate. If they need to repent, nothing's more calculated to bring them to repentance than being the recipient of your love and esteem. It's not the worthiness of your mate that requires you to love, it's the worthiness of Jesus and the good of his kingdom that requires it. When you fear God, then you're willing to do it, even though you could pinch his head off, you know? But you fear God. And the man who refuses to love and esteem his wife is simply saying that Jesus and his work are not great enough to warrant my humble obedience at this point. Marriages fail for the same reason men fail in life. Unless you love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself, you will perish. And so will our marriages. And then the last thing, if our marriages are for the world, then we have to be faithful in rearing our children. Our culture tends to put the individual ahead of everybody else and often views children as an intrusion on one's life plans or economic burdens or a hassle to care. They always give us those, you know, it takes $1.8 million to rear a child until they're 18. You know, they scare you off by saying, you'd have to be a billionaire. You know, you need to be one of those multi-billionaires to have children. But that's the way the culture thinks. Why would you want to have children? They cost you. They cost you money. Good money. Come on. You could go to Europe. Oh, what did I think of that? You could have gone to Europe six times. Well, Christians can't have this attitude because children are not something tacked on to marriage as if it's an option. You know, you take, you take her to be your wife and then there's a, you know, we've got a rider here. If you'd like to pay another 1.8 million, you can have a child. It's not a rider to marriage. It's essential. It's integral to the very design of marriage. As soon as God creates man, he tells him to be fruitful and multiply. Children are integral to the marriage relationship and one of the greatest blessings and their blessings because it's through them that primarily we're able to extend and multiply our love for the world. So we love one another and our love for one another produces in God's blessing children and we love them and their love for us and they go out and they find someone who's willing to marry them. And our love is multiplied, and then they have children, and it just continues to go. And so we have a significant impact on history by loving one another. Through our children, the world is transformed and the Kingdom of God is advanced. And it's one of the key ways in which our marriage serves the common good and growth of the Kingdom. It's through our children. Because they're doing things we're not. We were talking about What would have happened if we had only had two children? There's nothing wrong with having none. If God doesn't give you children, that's okay. Nothing's gone wrong. He hasn't forgotten something. That just means that you're going to be fruitful in another way. That's all it means, so there's no worries about that. If you only have one child, that's all right. You don't have to be embarrassed about that. That's all that God gave. All right, well fine. He's going to supply, He's going to allow us to be fruitful through this one child and others. That's all right. But we were thinking about what if we just had this attitude that we're hearing about, you know, from Christian couples. Well, we only want two. Preferably a boy and a girl because that seems to balance the scales of humanity, you know. I was thinking, you know, we'd have had a lot of fun because our first two boys, it was fun watching them and we got involved in a bunch of things. Man, we would have missed out on so much from the other four. It was almost like we started thinking about all the things that we've done that we would never have done. And the things we've experienced, we would never have experienced because they got into things that we would never have gotten into. And we've gotten into them through them and met people and gone places and seen things we would never have seen and had more fun than we would ever have fun going to Europe a thousand times. We may never get to Europe, and I don't care. You know, I'll go there when the resurrection, I can go anywhere. I'll see it like it ought to be, you know, anyway. It doesn't matter. We're not going to have a boat and a yacht, and I don't care. Far better. Even if it did cost us $1.8 million, and it didn't, but even if it had, it would have been worth it. Far better to have them and to have enjoyed what we've enjoyed and had the thrill and the happiness and all the things that we've had through them because of them just being alive. and getting involved in things and doing stuff and letting us have the joy of watching them and being there and being with them and having so much fun. It's been amazing. And nobody thinks about that. I talked to a couple one time. He was a doctor. She was a medical technician. Their combined income had to be close to three quarters of a million. And they had just built this beautiful house, and I had been doing exercise, so I'd walk down, they were outside, and I'd wave to them, and they'd say, hey, come and see our house, we just finished it. I said, oh, great, wow, that's huge. Huge, beautiful thing, everything's imported, everything's crafted, everything's handmade, everything's just ooh and ah, more than I've ever ooh and ah'd in my life, you know, and we're going through it, and I said, so wow, I said, man, you can raise a big family in this house and have a good time. And they said, oh, oh, oh, we don't really want children. I said, yeah, really, so why the big house? You want to trade a house? I got about five at that time, and we could use your place, you know? They said, no, we enjoy nice things, and we want to travel, and we don't want to be burdened by children. I said, you know, that'll be nice for about 25 years, maybe. But then you're going to get where you've seen about everything you want to see. You've seen the Eiffel Tower. It's a nice shape. Yeah, beautiful. And you've been on your boat, and you've circled the world, and you've met all the famous people, and you've done all the stuff you wanted to do. And then you'll sit around and say, so what do you want to do tonight? And I wish we could have somebody over and it sure is quiet at Christmas. Yeah, I'm sorry, but you forfeited all that for Paris in the spring. It's a bad trade, especially when you get sick and old and you can't go out anymore. Who's going to call you and just check on you? Think long-term. Now you see, all this plays into who you marry, children and those of you who are not married. You can't just marry somebody because he makes your heart flutter. There are a lot of people that can make your heart flutter. You always want to marry somebody handsome and beautiful. That's fine. I'm not saying don't marry somebody pretty. Everybody ought to marry a pretty girl. That's fine. But physical attraction is not the only thing and it's not the primary thing, right? Because time goes on. And she can be pretty and she can be pretty for a long time to a lot of people. Hopefully she'll always be beautiful to you. But the truth is time goes on and things change and bodies Show the wear and tear. But if you chose rightly, that's not a problem. It only bothers you when you're young and looking, you know. But when you have someone who loves you and with whom you're being encouraged and having that joy every day, they look more and more beautiful as the years go by. And that's the way it ought to be. And that's the kind of person you want to marry, because we're all going to get older and saggier and slower and, you know, all of that. And therefore, the Bible says you only, you choose your mate, not only someone who is attractive to you, that's important, not only that they must be Christians, that's vital, but here again, there all kinds of Christians in the world, and you shouldn't marry 90% of them, maybe 99% of them. That doesn't mean just because they're Christians, it's okay to marry them. There are a lot of things that you have to have together. There are a lot of reasons to have theological compatibility, for one thing, but a lot of other things as well. One of the main determining factors is having a common mission. a common view of life and service and the centrality of the church and our role in the world and who we are, who we're going to be as a family. I tell the couples who are going to get married, decide now who you are. Set some things so that this is who we are. We are a family who goes to church on Sunday. Nobody has to get up and try to decide what to do on Sunday. That's our schedule set. Our schedule is always set. We don't have to make that decision. Make all these decisions and determine who you are right now. The common calling, you see, is there. Does he have a burning desire to go to Africa? You better have a desire to go to Africa. You don't go into it saying, I'm going to teach him to hate that African thing. Man, we ain't going over there. No, you get on board with the Africa thing or don't marry. So choosing a mate is more than finding a good-looking individual who happens to be a Christian. You have to have a Christian who's devoted to living in the light of the Bible, who's embraced the biblical perspective of life and godliness, and who understands that marriage is not for his benefit, but for the world. Unless you follow that rule, you're going to remain barren and lonely and fruitless, and you'll shrivel up in your bitterness, and you'll become hardened and cynical in your anger. But when you give yourself to the Lord and your neighbor, you become a life-giving stream, a fountain of life. Your life promotes life. And that's what marriage ought to do for us. Marriage is not for you. It's for the world. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for blessing us and giving us your word and teaching us things we are too foolish to learn and sometimes too slow and stubborn to accept. But thank you for pounding into us by the example of our Savior. We praise you for Him who has loved us and given Himself for us and who continues to give Himself for us day by day as He makes intercession for us at your right hand. O Lord, help us to love Him, help us to love you with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, and truly to love one another and to love our mates, as you've called us to, and delight ourselves in them. so that we can glorify you and be fountains of life in this desert of a world. Help us to see this place blossom like a rose, for Jesus' sake. Amen.