Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage - God's Dream for Your Marriage, Part 1

The German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, speaking to a young couple, said, You think it is your love that will cause your marriage to grow.

You're wrong. It is your marriage that will allow your love to be sustained. You know, falling in love is great, but it's commitment, it's communication, it's God's dream, and practicing what He's given us is what makes for a marriage that lasts, that's rich, that's deep, and you can have that. Today, we'll learn how.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram, and today he begins his series, Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage. For the next handful of broadcasts, Chip will share a step-by-step process to make our relationship with our spouse the best it can be.

And even if you're not married, there are still some lessons and truths for you in this series, so don't go away. But before we get going, let me encourage you to try using Chip's message notes while you listen. They contain his outline, scripture references, and key fill-ins to help you remember what you hear.

To download these message notes, go to the Broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tab, fill-in notes. Well, if you have a Bible, go to Genesis chapter 2 as Chip kicks off his series. Well, we are going to begin a journey together, and the journey is called Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage. It's not just that God has a dream.

It's about experiencing it. Some people don't have any idea how God designed marriage. Other people have a very clear idea, but what they know about marriage in their head and what they're experiencing in their heart and their relationship, it just doesn't add up. And one of the questions I'd like to start with in this first session, we're going to spend six sessions together, is why do our dreams about marriage so often end in nightmares? I mean, when you look at this backdrop, I mean, here's this couple hand in hand, right?

The ocean. Do they got dreams? They're on their honeymoon. Or here's this couple. I mean, it's their wedding day right here, and she's got her eyes closed, this big hunk of a man saying, I've been waiting for you my whole life. And he's going, you're so beautiful.

You're so wonderful. We're never going to have any problems. And, you know, over here, you know, they're in those seasons of you can tell they've been married for a while, and, you know, they've just learned so much. I've got news for you.

That's not exactly how it's working out there. I mean, we all have dreams. No one married someone thinking this is probably going to work out very well, right? And so God has a dream. And he plants it in our heart because we all have these things that we say, that's what I want it to be like. And what I want to talk to you about is how you can experience God's dream for your marriage.

I've learned there's seasons and God gives grace through each season, and there's things you've got to work on. And until Jesus comes or you die, there's always going to be errors. You're never going to be fully satisfied. The idea that there's this perfect person, perfect marriage, you're totally fulfilled and never have a problem is a lie from the pit of hell. And as Francis Schaeffer once said, sometimes the greatest deterrent to a very good marriage is believing that you ought to have a perfect one. And so I want to encourage you to start looking at what you do have instead of kind of complaining in your heart and your mind about what you don't have, and then go to work together to begin to experience what God wants to give you. So you ready to dig in?

Okay, let's go for it. You notice there is a picture, and the picture is that equilateral triangle. It has God at the top. On one corner we have woman.

On the other corner we have woman. And then you notice there are arrows that go up toward God. God created marriage.

And then you notice there's arrows that go toward one another. This is the blueprint that God has for marriage. He gives it to us in Genesis chapter one. If you have your Bible with you, open to chapter one. And I just want to read a few verses, and then I want to just overlay that over this blueprint so you get a picture from God's perspective. As you open your Bibles, you remember that Genesis chapter one is like the wide angle lens of creation. And God goes, woo, here it is. And then after he gives us chapter one, he doesn't give us another story of creation. He takes that lens and says, now I gave you the big picture of what I've created.

Now with the zoom in lens, let me tell you specifically how it happened. So you know the story. There was darkness and it hovered over the earth and God spoke and let there be light and all of creation occurred. And then skip down to verse 26 when he gets at the pinnacle of creation. He says, then God said, let us make man in our image, the idea of mankind, according to our likeness.

And then notice there's this dream. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and 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. And God blessed them. And he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves. And so, first of all, I just want you to see, God is the author of marriage. God has a plan. He has a blueprint.

It's not just haphazard. It's not just, you know, hormones. It's not just animal instinct. God has made us in his image, male and female. And he has a plan for us to come together. And he has a plan for us together to have purposes in the earth. Now skip over to chapter two, because then he begins to describe specifically the reason and how it actually occurred.

In verse 18, we pick it up. Then the Lord God said, you know, Adam has experienced creation and he's been given a little job assignment and he's been told about how he should work and, you know, in the wisdom of God, God wants him to name these animals. And, you know, Adam is the smartest man who's ever lived at this point. There's never been sin, right? And God has this little thing that happens and two of these animals go by and then two of those animals go by and two of those animals go by and names them, names them, names them, names them. And since he's so very smart, he makes this deduction. Two of them, two of them, two of them, two of them, two of them, two of them, one of me.

All right? See, God wanted to create need. God wanted Adam to know that there's something missing. Pick it up in verse 18 where God tells us one of the primary purposes of marriage.

Then the Lord said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. By the way, that word helper is not a low word.

That's not like a derogatory second class. This same word, it means a corresponding part. And this Hebrew word actually is used of God in the Psalms of being the helper of his people. So it's about God doing something that will meet the deepest needs of man and by contrast correspondingly will meet the deepest needs of woman. And out of the ground, the Lord brought forth every beast of the earth and bird of the sky. He brought them to man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called them, the living creature was his name. And the man gave the names to the cattle and to the birds of the sky and the beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned and he took out the rib, closes it up and the rib which he had taken from man, he created Eve and he brought her to the man. God brought the woman to the man. And then the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And as one Hebrew scholar said, it's hard to translate this response, but it's kind of like wowee.

So it's kind of hard to get that through. But I mean, this is not like this woman comes and he's had this experience and he's living this perfect environment and the woman comes and this is not like Adam going, oh man, that was a pretty good nap. It felt pretty good.

Oh, hi, who are you? Not bad. It was like, whoa, whoa, thank you. I mean, it was like something kinetic inside of him said, oh wow. He was now experiencing what he observed with the animals, but at levels beyond anything they could because he's made in the image of God. He has a mind, a will and emotions. He can feel, he can think and create. And then notice for this cause, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were unashamed. Notice first and foremost that God created man. He created woman first for himself.

And that's the arrow. So he creates the equilateral triangle. God created marriage.

Okay. Second, those lines go toward one another. God desired a special relationship. In the middle of your triangle, write the word oneness. Write the word oneness and underneath of it, write Genesis 2 24. It is the pivotal passage in all of the Bible concerning marriage.

It happens here. Jesus will quote it in Matthew 5, Matthew 19. The apostle Paul will quote it when he talks about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7.

This will be quoted later when he talks about even when a man comes and connects to a prostitute in 1 Corinthians. This is going to be the core passage on marriage. God's desire is for oneness.

Here's all I want you to know. The whole world is going to tell you there's someone out there and they look different or they have this or they own that or they provide that. God says, I created marriage and I made you for oneness, but the route to oneness is not out there. The route to oneness isn't even here.

The route to oneness first starts with me. And the greatest thing you ever do in your marriage is walk with God. See, what you need in your marriage is the ability. Are you ready for this? To not need your mate.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get back to our series, Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage, in just a minute. But first, if this teaching has ministered to you, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial support goes a long way to help us encourage pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with today's youth.

Visit LivingOnTheEdge.org to learn how to support us today. Well, with that, here again is Chip. See, if I demand Teresa come through for me, Teresa come through for me, I put all this pressure on her. When you put pressure on people, what do they do? They feel overwhelmed.

They know they're inadequate, and so they run away. And so God says, what I want you to know is you need to find your sufficiency in me so you can be a giver in the relationship. And when you're a giver in the relationship, that person responds, and you have this going closer, closer, closer.

And notice in what areas, spiritually first, God wants us to have this unconditional love. This isn't ooey-gooey love. This isn't Hollywood love. This isn't romance novel love.

This isn't feeling love. God's first priority is that your fellow worshipers. Agape love, God's plan is your fellow worshipers. First and foremost, as a man and a woman, you come before God together, and you worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that's why praying together has such a powerful impact in a marriage. Then God has made you not only, we're in His image, right? Spiritual beings, body, soul, and spirit.

So your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. And that's phileo love. That's the Greek word for best friends. He wants you to have fun. He wants you to enjoy one another. He wants that person that you live with, not to be just someone who cooks over here, or who you go to activities over here, or you're both, you know, juggling jobs and having kids.

He wants you to be fellow worshipers, and He wants you to be best friends. See, that's oneness of spirit, oneness of soul, and by the way, He wants you to be passionate lovers. That's oneness of body. That's eros love. And by the way, for some of you in your backgrounds, you know, one out of four ladies in the United States have been sexually abused.

I hope that statistic is absolutely wrong, but I don't have any reason not to believe it. There's an awful lot of Christian that when this idea of eros or sex comes up, they divorce it from all the rest. This is how God created us. He created us to have spiritual unity, fellow worshipers.

He created us to have soul unity, best friends, and He created us to have physical unity, to be passionate lovers. Now, here's the deal. All three of those things go together, or they don't go together. Let me give you that again, because some of you are thinking, I think I got that.

No, you sort of got it. All three of those things go together, or they don't go together. And if we interviewed all the women, this isn't true, I mean, you know, there's a wide variety between men and women, but if we interviewed all the women statistically and all the men statistically, the men would come out on, what I need more in my marriage is a lot more eros. And the average woman would say, what I need a lot more in my marriage is a lot more spiritual leadership and best friendness. And so what we tend to do is play the game where when I start getting this, I'll start giving that. When you start giving this, I'll start giving that.

And it's kind of like the classic standoff. This is God's blueprint. His dream and design for you and for me is that we would be one, one of body, one of soul, one of spirit.

You got it? Now, let's look at his game plan. How does it work? How do you get there? How in the world can you become one spiritually, emotionally, physically? This is God's game plan or the process. Verse 24 says, for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, shall cleave to his wife, and shall become one flesh. I want you to circle the word leave in your notes.

I want you to circle the word cleave in your notes. And I want you to circle the phrase become one flesh. Notice the first phrase is for this cause. It's a response to God. It's obedience. And all I want to say here is that marriage is God's idea and marriage and living together are not the same thing. Marriage is the same thing. It's not the same thing. Marriage is a volitional, legal, public, and spiritual commitment to another person. And living together is not the same thing. Notice now then, he says, a man shall leave his father and a mother. The first is a response to God. We say marriage, it's God's way.

Let's do it God's way. Response to parents is independence. There has to be an emotional and financial detachment from parents.

There's no lack of respect. They're still your mother and your father. You honor them, but the relationship changes. And by the way, many a marriage does not work because emotional and financial detachment has occurred. You got to break the former in order to connect with the new. Because if you don't leave financially, there's always strings of manipulation.

And if you don't leave emotionally, then your heart isn't free to connect with your mate. And she said, you know, I was married about six months and I mean, you know, it was going real well. And then we had our first knock down, drag out, up all night, vein popping, eyes bulging, screaming at one another. I can't believe I married you.

I can't believe I married you. We started talking about our heritage and our parents and our backgrounds. And I was in tears and he slammed the door. And finally, in my nightgown, I got in my nightgown, I put on my robe and I got in my car and I drove to my mother's. She tells the story. It's great.

And she says, it's like 6 a.m. is about a 45 minute drive. And the whole drive, just tears, you know, flowing on my face. And how did I marry this guy? It's the biggest mistake I've ever made.

It's the biggest fight. I can't believe it. And she goes, I rang the doorbell and my mom's an early riser. And then I knock on it and where is she?

And you got to picture this. She said, she said, you know, it was one of those doors where, you know, they have little curtains where you can pull the curtains and see who it is. And so she says, she heard the knock and she pulled the curtains and she looked at me and she put them back. And she said, mom, mom, open the door. And she pulled the curtains almost like I'm going to make sure it's my daughter and looked again. And then she opens the door, but she put her foot in it and she leaned out. She said, honey, did you have a fight with your husband?

Yes. And you can't believe what he, she said, honey, go home and make it right. And she shut the door and locked it and went upstairs. And that lady said, my mom gave me the greatest gift in the first six months of our marriage we ever received. Because see, when you get wounded and you get hurt, it's easy to run back to mom or run back to dad and to make them your emotional base of how you resolve issues and hurts and pains and conflicts. And so there's got to be emotional and financial detachment. And I would say to some of you that are a little bit older and you have, like I have, I have grown kids that are married, be careful with your money.

Don't help them too much. You know, when you look back on your life, you think of, you know, those, you know, you talk to people who've been married 25, 35 years. Boy, those early years, they were tough.

They were difficult, but that's what made us. And so what do you want to do? You want to relieve all that pressure from you. Oh, here's a house. We'll give you the down payment for this. We'll take care of this. Oh, your car is broken.

We'll repair it. And you have parents now because we're more affluent than ever before coming in and solving problems for their kids that were God-given and designed for them to learn to trust and come together. Does that mean you never help?

Absolutely not. It means when you give, there's no strings and you be very careful what you give and how much, because if you create any dependency or you put a block between them and their mate, you destroy. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, God's Dream for Your Marriage from our series Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Movies, romance novels, and social media constantly tell us that the purpose of marriage is to find love or a soulmate. But in reality, that idea hasn't really worked out for many couples, has it? In this 12-part study, Chip examines the biblical design for marriage and explains how you and your spouse can experience all God intended for your relationship. Now if you want a marriage that lasts and is more fulfilling than any fairy tale, don't miss any part of this series. Well, Chip's in studio with me now, and Chip, we're just settling in for your series on marriage, and I thought it'd be helpful for our listeners to hear where this teaching came from and what they'll be learning in the coming programs.

So would you take just a few minutes and talk to them? I'd be glad to, Dave. The first couple years that Therese and I were married, we ended up in marriage counseling, and a lot of the best stuff that I'm going to share with you, I had to pay a lot of money for, and it's in the form of pictures and practical tools.

And then I'm going to give you the theology and the teaching of the Bible to really help you grow. You know, if you're kind of listening to my voice and you're thinking, boy, my marriage needs help, or I don't even know if I want to stay in this marriage, or you're looking at the landscape and you see all these young couples and they're struggling and you want to mentor them and you want a great tool, this is what this series is going to be about—how to experience God's dream for your marriage. Great setup, Chip. Well, I hope you'll join us for every part of this series, and because of how practical and insightful this teaching is for husbands and wives, let me encourage you to invite a few couples to listen with you, either through the Chip Ingram app or at LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well, with that, here again is Chip with a few final thoughts for us to think about. You know, I did not grow up in a Christian home, and I know about 50 percent of all the people listening to my voice, your parents were divorced, and a lot of us never had a blueprint.

We never had a model. We never knew exactly what is marriage supposed to look like, what's my role, what's hers, and where's God in all of this, and how does it work? And so today, and then in our next broadcast, I want to give you that blueprint. And I wish, I mean, I really wish there was a visual right now that you could see what I drew on the notes that I gave to people, because it's a picture of a triangle, and then the blueprint says not only this is the picture of this triangle with God at the top and the man on one side, the woman on the other, but then there's a process by which marriage works.

And we started on it today. It's about leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh. One question, have you completely left? I mean, have you really left the emotional and financial strings of your parents? And here's a question just to keep in the back of your mind.

If I ask your spouse that, what would he or she say? Because we're going to get into the exciting stuff of what it looks like when you become one, but you can't become one until you leave where you've been. See you next broadcast. We're gonna have a great time together. Looking forward to it, Chip. As we close, are you looking to get even more plugged in with Living on the Edge and our resources? Then let me encourage you to check out the Chip Ingram app. You can listen to our most recent series, sign up for daily discipleship, and more. We want to help you grow in your walk with Jesus, and the Chip Ingram app is a great way to immerse yourself in godly, enriching content. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series, Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage. Until then, I'm Dave Drouie, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.