[Music] [Music] well I'm excited about the subjective marriage because of what it means to the plan and program of God marriages come on difficult times these days it's being attacked in every direction no matter where you look there's a crisis that is bringing about disarray in the lives of men and women and the breakdown of families because of the breakdown of marriage and so our our goal in Kingdom marriage is to help people understand what God had in mind when he created this institution one lady said I was looking for the ideal it became an
ordeal so now I want a new deal when you look at a lot of relationships it looks like it has been birthed by the Secretary of War and not the justice of the peace because there's so much conflict and yet how could such an awesome institution such as marriage which is the foundation of family which is the foundation of civilization being such disrepair today I'd like to suggest it is because there has become a disconnect from what God had in mind related to his kingdom and how we are defining it and how we are living
it out in our lives today you see the the theological foundation for marriage is not to be disconnected from God's kingdom purposes in the world thus Kingdom marriage the unifying theme of Scripture is the glory of God through the expansion of his kingdom in the world everything God does he intended it to plug into his kingdom when marriage gets disconnected from that bigger purpose and cause then it is inviting the greater possibility of the integration and conflict and so we want to start off by laying a foundation now foundations aren't necessarily pretty when you're building
a house foundations aren't necessarily exciting when you're building a home everybody is they looking forward to the superstructure that will be built on the foundation yet foundations are critical because when they crack everything else resting on it is in trouble the doors shift the window shift and all kinds of other things happen because the foundation isn't solid and so we want to launch into our time discussing Kingdom marriage in laying a theological foundation for all the practical issues that show up in a marriage relationship because if we can get a solid foundation in understanding why
the institution exists in the first place we're in a better place to understand how to work it in the various challenges of life so let me start off with the definition of Kingdom marriage Kingdom marriage may be defined as a coven ental union between a husband and wife who commit themselves to function in unison under divine authority in order to replicate God's image and expand his rule in the world through their individual calling now let me repeat that again Kingdom marriage if the covenantal union will explain that as we go along in our series between
a husband and a wife who commit themselves to function in unison under divine authority in order to replicate God's image and expand his rule in the world through their individual calling if I would boil it down to two words it's replicating and ruling let me put it another way when God created marriage your happiness was not his first concern most people think about being happy being fulfilled in a relationship when they think about marriage and marriage should provide happiness and fulfillment but that's not the purpose of marriage that is the benefit of marriage when you
take the benefit and make it the purpose you flipped what God has in mind so when people are no longer happy they often don't want to stay married or decide to just live in misery while married because they've made personal happiness and fulfillment the reason for the marriage relationship that was not why God created it that was supposed to be the outworking of it and a simple shift in your thinking about why it exists changes everything and opens the door for the benefits that we want to come out of it because once we go back
to the purpose we get God's greater involvement in it this purpose was established in Genesis chapter 1 when God established the reason why he created man he says in Genesis 1 verse 26 then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him
male and female he created them God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it there you have ruling and replicating let them rule and let them replicate replicate what replicate my image the word image means to mirror something an image of something is a mirroring of something so God wanted marriage to mirror him through the male and female relationship which is or would become marriage now why why did he set this up this way what was it about the world that he put this relationship of marriage
male and female ruling and replicating as how he starts off history in Genesis chapter 1 well let me give you a little backstory because the back story of an event helps you to understand the event Satan rebelled against God that's recorded for us in Ezekiel 28 1914 he rebelled against God in order to establish a rival kingdom against the rule of God kingdom means rule so he wanted his own kingdom and his own rule when he rebelled against God god of course being omniscient discovered that rebellion and sentence Satan and all the angels that followed
him to judgment the Bible says in Matthew chapter 12 hell was prepared for Satan and his angels but God decided not to carry out that judgment right away rather he would use the rebellion of Satan to demonstrate his greater glory so Satan and his angels were exiled to the third planet from the Sun earth which is why when you open up your Bible earth is separated from the rest of God's creation in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth earth is segmented from everything else because it would become the center of a place
called history Satan is here when you open up your Bibles it says that the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep so when you open up your Bible you look at a very chaotic situation darkness even though God is light the water and the land was mixed together that's a swamp God has got to bring light he's got to separate the water from the dry land he's got to place order why because of who lives here Satan and his angels who were exiled here because wherever he shows
up garbage shows up the Hebrew phrase is Tabo without form and void emptiness a darkness so that's the world so God decided that he would do something it's recorded to us and Psalm chapter 8 where it says he would make a lower creature a creature less than angels inferiority intellectually inferior wouldn't be able to fly around wouldn't be able to disappear like angels can do he would be an inferior creature a little lower than the angels why so that he could demonstrate what he could do with less when less was dependent upon him then he
could do with more when more was in rebellion against him so man was created as the lesser creature to demonstrate to the greater creature who was already on the planet which is why the serpent is already in the garden that if he can use the lesser creature to follow him he can do through them what he couldn't do with angels that were in rebellion against him so you were created and the marriage relationship was created for something bigger than your happiness your happiness is important and we'll discover that as we go along but it was
created for God's kingdom purposes and when our marriage gets disconnected from that that we don't understand why there is so much chaos we think it's just the other person's personality the other person's history the other person's background the other person's gender the other person's desire when actually it's Satan seeking to establish his kingdom in your home the same Satan that rebelled against God and took one-third of the angels with him is the same Satan that's rebelling against your marriage to take one or both of you and your offspring with him he hasn't changed his agenda
he's just applying it to your relationship and so he says that the purpose of marriage was to be fruitful and multiply and to replicate God's image let's talk about image for a moment God's image or the mirroring of God is to reflect who he is and what he's about on the planet that he created he said three words let them rule now those are not minor words because what he meant by that was he would determine what he would do based on what we do that is why he gives you choices he gives you choices
so that he is not forcing your decisions but he is supporting your decisions that's why he will allow Adam and Eve to rebel against him even though it was not his will but he gives you the right to choose him or not to choose him that's why he places two trees in the middle of a garden a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil because you only get God and experience him by choice not by mandate so if the evil one can get us to choose against God he can
throw at God's kingdom rule in our lives in our homes with our children and now we're seeing it in our society so if I can get us to relook at marriage theologically and not first personally although it involves our person if I can get us to begin to look at my job as a man or woman and in our relationship is to expand the rule of God then we'll discover happiness along the way but if the enemy gets me to not look at it that way and purely look at am I being fulfilled am I
happy you know am i smiling am i joyful and I get to focus on that outside of God's kingdom purposes unbeknownst to ourselves we have invited the enemy into our home in order to destroy it because your marriage is a spiritual issue not merely a personal issue and so he wants you to reflect his image that's something bout that a little bit further God is a triune being God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit now you may say but this part isn't exciting I want you to tell me how to be happy
but I can't get to how to get happy like I can't build a pretty house on a rickety foundation God is God the Father God the Son of God the Holy Spirit these three are one they're not three gods there's one God it's like a pretzel with three holes it's only one pretzel it's got three holes but they're all tied together by the same dough okay so the father's not the son the son is not the spirit but they make up the Godhead when it comes to history the Godhead has a specific role or function
to carry out so the father sends the son and when Jesus left he sent the Spirit but they all derive out of the same nature they all have divine nature so guess what when God made man he cut Adam he took from him the rib so the woman was created out of the man when the woman gets pregnant the child comes out of the woman so when it comes to functioning in history there is a procession that takes place even though man woman and child are all made up of the same ingredients because what God
wanted to do was reflect his image even as a Trinitarian being so in understanding this image of God God is sinking through our family starting with our marriage to replicate himself in history and then he says I want you to rule let them rule the concept of rule is a concept we call in theology Dominion it's called the Dominion covenant and we'll discover a covenant here shortly but this Dominion means that if the couple male and female he created them will come underneath my rule as I prescribed it then I will through them exercise divine
authority it's very important because Satan doesn't want God to exercise authority through your marriage relationship he's got to interfere with that relationship he knows if he ever gets you on the same page with God if you ever decide that we're gonna work this relationship out under divine rulers he prescribes it for the purpose the kingdom purpose for which he established it that you will actually be able to rule that is exercised divine authority in your life lies personally in your home collectively and in the world he knows if you ever get this right that as
a couple your impact and influence will be unstoppable because you were rule so he's got to interject himself and interfere with that by creating discord now we're gonna talk about discord and disunity as we go along but he's got a split that thing up because he knows if he can split you up he can keep God away because he knows God will not function in an atmosphere of discord so the fight isn't about what you fighting about what you fighting about is a secondary issue to what's happening in the marriage what you're fighting about and
all marriages have conflicts at various levels but have you ever noticed that you start fighting about one thing and now you fightin about something else that had nothing to do with the one thing you started fighting about in fact you might be fighting about something and you don't even remember how he got started and then that fight goes on for days and weeks and months and years until you don't even want to live together anymore I remember one couple I was dealing with and it was wanting to get a divorce and when we worked that
thing back to win all got started it was her she was cooking the eggs it got started by how she was cooking the eggs that left one thing that led to name-calling that led to disrespect that led to you not only can't cook egg you can't do anything right so now I can't live with him anymore and I can't live with her anymore how can something so small like fried and scrambled eggs wind up in a divorce court you remember the UH the old commercial with Conrad Doble and a football player you know he go
Brown about to be a commercial tastes great it tastes great less filling so he go around getting people argue about tastes great less filling tastes great that's it so now focal fight over whether beer tastes great or is less filling because there was somebody behind the scenes whispering in folks ears causing them to take a stand leading to conflict in order to disrupt the whole football station well that's somebody whispering in the ear of husbands and wives and even children to divide you ever notice how your children can divide you huh one child can go
to one parent another child can go to another parent and now you don't want to be parents anymore you only want to be married and you only want to claim them as your kids anymore I mean it's it just gets wild and out of hand that's because there's something bigger going on and what's bigger that's going on is that Satan wants to disrupt a kingdom purpose so that now prayers are being answered Authority isn't being recognized and we're gonna we're gonna give you some secrets as we go along of how to see God do some
things in your home and in your lives and with the issues that you're facing so that you see as together you not only fulfill your individual calling but you have authority you have authority to bring heaven to history God tells Adam he says now Adam here's how we gonna work this thing from every tree in the garden you may freely eat but of this tree in the middle of a garden don't eat it or it will kill you you have the choice the choice is between human reasoning good and evil you figure it out or
revelation what I reveal you have a choice you can live by your own logic and marriages are full of this because coming I much need to go around talking about well I think as human reasoning this is what I think and most of our marriages have been influenced by the holes we grew up in that have affected how we perceive it the people we know who are as miserable as we are what the media says about it or the environment in which we live all of those influence our perspectives or merit everybody has an idea
my son Anthony when he was young had a bike that I bought for Christmas and back then the store didn't really put it together for you you had to put it together yourself so you'd wait till the kids go to sleep and when the kids went to sleep you uh got up to put the toys together that tells you how old I am maybe I did do it myself back then so I had enough education enough knowledge that I decided I didn't need this manual to tell me how to put this bike together I'm an
intelligent fella I can figure this out eight hours later well just the handlebars are totally frustrated irritated exacerbated my wife came to the door shook her head and said Tony um have you ever thought about reading the directions I want to hear all that but that's what she said to me you ever thought about reading the directions what she was saying was she's saying like this cuz I wasn't gonna hear if she said like this what she said was uh could it be just is there a slight possibility that the bicycle maker knows more about
bicycle fixing then you do I mean is that just a possibility I know you telogen you went to school you got all that but could it be that's the creator of the bicycle could save you some time trying to figure this thing out on your own so I had to humble myself to humble myself and pick up the book and walk through the book and in 45 minutes I had fixed what eight hours had created frustration concerning because I gave deference to the creator and not to my own human understanding man did not make marriage
it's a divine institution so through this series we're gonna try to save you some money if I wasn't in the ministry I'd be a non-christian secular psychologist or psychiatrist because then I could charge you three hundred dollars an hour to tell you why you need to come back next week god I would just be making a killing cuz I keep you coming back we're gonna save you some time and money because maybe the marriage maker knows more about marriage fix it then we do the thing we want you to grab from this initial foundation is
that it's not first and foremost about your happiness it's about God's kingdom and if you Center the kingdom you can look forward to be [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
