Healthy Relationships

Love and Marriage…They STILL Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage

Love and marriage, love and marriage
They go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you, brother
You can't have one without the other

Love and marriage, love and marriage
It's an institute you can't disparage
Ask the local gentry
And they will say it's elementary

Try, try, try to separate them
It's an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion

The biggest life altering decision that you will make outside of Jesus being your Lord and Savior is who your friends are and who you will marry!! (or perhaps in today’s world who you will connect with)

Three types of people in the Room, and today we will talk about all three not as the world sees it but underneath biblical conversation and a biblical worldview.  Because if our relationship with the Lord is correct and we are communicating, meditating, and fixating on Him we will want correct relationship with the opposite sex (and notice that I did say opposite sex)

If our relationship with God was established in the Garden of Eden was so was our relationship with the opposite sex in fact in says in

Genesis 2:18-25

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for^[e] him.” ¹⁹ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed^[f] every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam^[g] there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made^[h] into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”^[i]

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This was before sin entered the world. 

This was the plan of God.

Before the curse that was placed on the man, the woman, and the enemy.

And so, to think of the healthiness of the three people groups inside of a broken world we are going to have to look at what the Bible says to us at each phase in our lives and ask yourself these questions in this phase…

Is your Singleness Healthy?

Might want to have to say this one again “is your Singleness Healthy?”

God created us single.  We will return to single.

We are complete in and of ourselves and found in Christ and singleness (whether you believe it or not) is a Gift from God, it is astonishing how positive the New Testament is about singleness.

Paul speaks of it as a “gift” (1 Cor. 7:7),

and Jesus says it is good “for those to whom it has been given” (Matt. 19:11).

A friend of mine once belonged to a young adult church group called “Pairs and Spares.” Single people can be made to feel like spare parts in their families, social groups, and churches. One man was so fed up with being asked “Are you still single?” that he began to respond, “Are you still married?”

Single people are spared the “troubles” of marriage. There are many great blessings in marriage, but there are difficulties too. Understandably, Christian couples don’t often talk openly about the hard things they face, which can give singles a rose-tinted view of marriage. But there’s a downside even when a married couple’s relationship is good: life is more complicated.

Single people can devote themselves more fully to God’s work: “An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided”

This is where your heart for the Lord is established.  Serving Him.  Missions. 

It is some of the most beautiful times of your life no matter what age of singleness you are in.

And some of the hardest as well. 

As a church body we have to be there for our brother and sisters.

Single people are therefore likely to struggle with loneliness (tell of the story of Elizabeth Elliot wrote in her book called loneliness and sexual temptation).

Those two battles are closely related. The lonelier we are, the more likely we are to struggle with sexual fantasy and fall into sin or date the wrong people or just give up in general.  Church we have to lift our fellow brothers and sisters up.  Invite them over.  Be a part of their lives.  Encourage them. 

Is your Dating healthy?

You really only need to start with one prayer

1.God if this person is not for me show me and/or take them out of my life?

That answer doesn’t take a long time.  If you are praying honestly and sincerely I would say two to three dates and you will know if the dates have to stop or allow God to stop them for you.  (Ted and 50 lovers)

2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

This is my suggestion though I think it is based in Godly principles, no physical contact (no hanky panky if you would) because that clouds judgement and makes you continue in something that should have been stopped a long time ago.  A couple of dates should ultimately lead to the next question and prayer, because if you are not in it to get married you really shouldn’t be in it.

2. God is this the person I am to marry?

Depending on how you old are (obviously if you are 13…seriously why even date…is different if you are seventeen…is different if you are 37) Have other Godly believers help you in making this decision.  Sometimes love can be blind, and you don’t see what is obvious in front of everything else.

Is that person running toward Jesus?

Is that person helping you run toward Jesus?

Is that a person a hard worker?

Is that person in healthy relationships?

What do the people that love you most and want the best think?

(Ex.) of your Mom and Dad praying and fasting for you because a decision towards marriage is that important and that life changing. 

Is Your Marriage Healthy?

Ephesians 5:15-33  Wives and Husbands

¹⁵ Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, ²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.  ²² Wives, submit (Submission (hupotasso) means to get under and lift up, or to put in order.) a sort of voluntary raising everyone else to your own personal level of importance and worthiness.  to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Spiritually in the family that means that God holds the husband primarily accountable for what happens. This doesn’t mean that a wife should be totally passive if her husband is being irresponsible, but it does mean that come judgment day, men, you can’t blame your wife for the lack of spiritual direction in your home! The issue of authority and submission in marriage should not come up very often. A loving, sensitive husband will not force his wife to do anything against God’s will, and he will not push her into anything distasteful or harmful to her. He will never assert his authority to get his own way. When there are disagreements, they should be worked through calmly in love. In making decisions, a wise husband will solicit and carefully weigh his wife’s insights, so that most decisions will be mutually agreed on.

You’re it! As men, we need to take the initiative in the family to read the Bible, to pray, to be involved in the church and in serving the Lord, and to train our children in the things of God.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.^{[a] 28} In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Many who are presently single will one day marry it’s a picture of Christ!!

Others will remain single throughout their lives. But no Christian is single forever.

Human marriage reflects the marriage God wants to enjoy with his people forever. The Bible speaks of Jesus as the bridegroom who will one day return to take his bride, the church, to be with him in the perfect new creation.

On that day all pain will disappear, including the pain of a difficult marriage or singleness. God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and a great shout will be heard: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (Rev. 7:17; 19:7).

In my experience, no matter what relationship stage you are in, the grass typically looks greener in the other field.  Single people think a good relationship could solve all their problems, and married people think their marriage is their problem.  In all cases we are giving people too much responsibility in our lives.  No one’s heart is big enough to meet all of our needs. No human will ever meet all of our expectations all the time.  

Single, dating, widowed, divorced, married we aren’t all that different.  No matter our status, if we put our hope in Jesus Christ, we are God’s beloved.  And the biggest way that we can live is content and flourishing and Godly in the relationship status that God has given. Let’s live healthy.   As people are walking out