Today’s message summary of September 25, 2016 from Pastor Gus Brown:
For some people who jump into marriage, they assume that it will create happiness. There is nothing in Scripture that supports that view. There is a lot that is to be experienced within the relationship, and it is to be focused with the presence of Jesus Christ.
If a person fails to recognize or act with purpose and function within the marriage relationship, there is a loss of identity within your own relationship with God.
Male and female, husband and wife, father and mother…
What is my purpose and function within the marriage relationship?
We are to learn how to function in our respective roles. For example, the husband is to be the security for the family.
Both the man and the woman are seeking to know their identity–their function in the relationship; however, your true value comes from God Himself.
God provides the direction as to how one functions within the marriage relationship and enables the person to fulfill it. God provides the groundwork for the relationship in His Word.
Here are questions that may come up throughout the course of a marriage:
Are we equal or do we have the same value?
Do men and women have the same rights, privileges and abilities?
Answer: We are equal in personhood but not in function.
Do men and women have the same strength and power? No, but each has special strength within their function.
Adam recognized that there was a difference when he saw Eve.
Genesis 3:16
He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
Genesis 3:17
And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
Your identity was established from the beginning:
Genesis 1:27-28
So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”
Both man and woman have the same authority given by God. They have the same responsibility. After God created everything else, He placed the man in the garden of Eden “to work it and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15).
God was specific as to how Adam was created (Genesis 2:7) and what his work would be (Genesis 2:15, 19-20).
God created Eve differently (Genesis 2:22) and allowed Adam to name His creation (Genesis 2:23). The woman’s function is to be a helper in caring for the creation where there was none before (Genesis 2:20).
Within marriage, it is important for the individual to grow and develop in Christ as we grow in life. It is the growth and the patience of the two that will nurture the relationship.
Romans 8:25
But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
God allowed Adam to do his job without help for a while. God and Adam were forming and building a relationship before the woman is created, and He learned that God ruled over him.
After Eve was created, there was a greater establishment of authority and responsibility. Authority and governing is a responsibility (Genesis 3:12, 16-17). Contrast this with those who become fearful and want to run away from responsibility. There has to be a mutual relationship. To be desirous of other things reflects a selfishness that is contrary to what is necessary within a marriage.
Titus 2:1-7
But you must say the things that are consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be level headed, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love and endurance. In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to much wine. They are to teach what is good, so they may encourage the young women to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive to their husbands, so that God’s message will not be slandered. In the same way, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in everything. Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching.
Colossians 3:19
Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and His ministering angels are for marriage (Hebrews 1:14).
Satan and the host of fallen angels (Ephesians 6:12) and his tools—the love of the world, the lust of the eyes, etc. (1 John 2:15)—are against marriage and seek to destroy it.
Adam and Eve struggled with these desires when they sinned and diverted them from what their responsibilities to each other within the relationship.
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