In today’s religious and popular culture, marriage has become an idol and the ultimate symbol of happiness and completion. This week we discuss marriage, as a tool for seeing God’s glory and experiencing real love.
In today’s religious and popular culture, marriage has become an idol and the ultimate symbol of happiness and completion. This week we discuss marriage, as a tool for seeing God’s glory and experiencing real love.
Hey, what's up Ken folk, how y'all doing listen, uh, I'm PT, Gullo, and I'm Ray Sanders. All right. So the question for today, the question for today was this. I wish I knew about the different types of love, the Bible references, especially the three types and songs of songs, romantic commitment, and sexual wish. I had a better understanding of God's love before getting married, though his wisdom and timing didn't provide that. And I know I can trust his plan. Wish I knew how to reject teachings that idolized marriage, rather than ponder them as possibly credible. So this is a multipart question, uh, that our friend Sonia asked. And so we're not gonna get to the whole question today, but I, what I wanted to deal with today was specifically her thought of idolizing marriage. And, you know, this is a conversation. And so for those of you who are there, um, man, we just, we want to just foster a conversation between us and you and whoever else is gonna be joining us about marriage. And whether you think in the culture is idolized. And so I'm a, I'm gonna let Ray talk a few Ray, what's up first off. I obviously I'm not married. Yeah. And I would, I'm pursuing that that path, but how do you not idolize the world? What do you think that it's idolized? Yeah, I think, I think that the, the, what I want to tackle is the fairy tale that Disney has sold us, that there's a happily ever after. And that marriage is built upon love and love will make everything better. And although that's true, I think that we romanticize it a little too much. So that's why I think the idolization comes because, uh, I don't want to sound too extreme, but it, it, to me, from what I've seen and heard, it seems like the altar is more of a picture, uh, picture time and not necessary. I think a lot of people don't think past the altar and the cameo and the pitcher and the celebration. Yo, I used to have a saying, we nobody thinks about, well, I want say it's very, very sex. I don't have the side of, is this safe, safe space? I don't know if it's safe or not.<laugh>, they're safe for me, man. I gotta go home. But no, uh, I used to have this saying, everybody thinks about the wedding. Nobody thinks about, I used to say, nobody thinks about being a wife, but conversely, everybody thinks about the wedding, right? Nobody thinks about being a husband, you know, and what that entails and what that's going to take. And that's where I met with it. What, like, what does it, after, after the honeymoon is where the marriage I feel really takes place. So how do we go from what we've seen? Like the, the bat Tourettes, the, the, uh, the fairytale weddings. How do we go from that to really understanding that you gotta dig in? Yeah. And how does, how does God look at a marriage and how do we look at it? Like God. So we see it the right way. Well, yeah, man, it's, it's funny that you say that cuz the rest of her question kind of alluded to some of the things you're talking about cuz um, she, she, she went on to say specifically ones that subversively promote marriage as excluding, replacing other friendships and make marriage seem like a necessary tool of salvation rather than one of the many things God uses to bless us and grow us. So I guess, I guess today, what do we, what do we really need marriage for? Yeah. No. Okay. First of all, I love being married. Um, but I think, I think we, we go into marriage sometimes looking for marriage to serve us rather than for us to serve God through the marriage. Um, there's uh, a passage of scripture I'd like to look at it's Ephesians chapter five. I wish I could pull it up for y'all but I'm gonna just pull it up on my own. Ephesians chapter five, verse 25, he'll say husbands, love your wives. Justice Christ love the church and gave himself up for, to make a holy cleansing her by the washing with water, through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without staying or rink or any other blemish, but holy and blameless in this same way, husbands out to love their wives as their own bodies. He loves his wife, loves himself after all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body. Just as Christ does the church for, we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be United to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So then, you know, he's taught my man, but then he goes on in verse 32 to say, this is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church and you, you know, he, he basically takes marriage and he says that basically it's a earthly copy of a heavenly reality. It's supposed to help us see the ultimate marriage Christ and his church. And so, you know, when we talk about the gospel message, when you go to a wedding and, and people are at a wedding and you're just like, yo it, you, you see the bride and groom get together. It's supposed to remind each and each and every one of us of this eternal unending, undying love that we have, uh, with Jesus Christ that's possible. Uh, because cuz we are his bride of course. And he's uh, he's out, he's outgrow. And so rather than it pointing to, you know, so, so I think what happens sometimes is like we don't see that the weddings here, point to the ultimate wedding that we have in Christ Jesus and the gospel. So in today's in today's world is really just our opportunity to see what the relationship will be like when Christ comes back kind of. Yeah, well, yes. But then also now, like we have the opportunity to experience, to feel and to experience unending UN committed love right now. Like I don't need to settle for anything less than God's best, which is Jesus in the church. So that, so that every time I'm at a wedding, it should remind me, Ooh, I got the same love available to me right now, whether I'm married or whether I'm single. That's a lot. That is a lot, man. We, uh, uh, it's something, you know, I, I think over, over time you kind of, you know, I, I, I think sometimes like the culture says, Hey, everybody needs to get married. And you know, when you look at the statistics, that's not gonna bear itself out. You know, if you know, 80% of people, you know, if we talk about African Americans, 80% of, uh, women are in are single, you know, not married then you know those numbers, aren't going to bear themselves out. And so is it that God wants us to have less than his best or is it that God uses the, the temporary, uh, institution of marriage to point us to where we can get love real love right now with the way love and marriage is going. What do you think, what do you think is pointing to like with the divorce rates, the marriage rates, the what in the macro sense, is there a problem with the way that we are looking at marriage? Or is it a misunderstanding of marriage or, well, well, I think a lot of times we put the, the eternal weight of Godhead on marriage. Like all my problems, all my issues, all my needs, all my, whatever, like on that person and that person can't bear the weight of God, like at, at, and vice versa. And so ultimately sometimes I think some of our, um, broken or sometimes the, that, that breaking or tearing of that union is it sometimes I will, a lot of times I think it's it's I idolize the person I married. I thought they were God. I mean, no one will say that, but they weren't and they always let you down. Okay. So, I mean, look at the movies and stuff that we watch. I, I can go all like, everything is like, yo, like I watch one. I, this person, yeah. My life becomes complete because I can depend on this person, yo look, EV like, okay, I don't hold it radar. Nobody's afraid, but no, we got to I, no, no, I don't. I mean, I watch these movies right. And great movies. And, and I also watch, uh, Marvel movies that ain't real too. So nobody don't nobody. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, but like it's, they meet the person head over heels and then instantly life is 50 times better and they live heavily ever after. That's what we sell every time you see one of these. So then, so then what do you think happens with the individuals, uh, that are looking for love and looking for something real and meaningful? Oh, it gets deeper than that because you see the, you see the movies, right. You see the happily ever athlete. Right. Then you look at your parents. Mm. So now where do you exactly look for the actual reality of what love and relationship and marriage. So then you start to idolize, you know what it seems like, because if they're putting it on TV, that means, well, I guess subconsciously I could say from my point of view, it means that this is what society is really thinking since they're putting it on movies, putting it on screen. Yeah. This must be what majority of society is thinking. And if somebody that doesn't really think clear critically to me, if they don't look at it, like this is just a movie, then they're looking at society. Like this is what it should be. And then that's their expectations for yeah. I, I, so I'm with you there, but okay. So I'm gonna push a little bit. Okay. What if that's what we were design for and like, instead of suppressing the, the, the want and desire to be fully loved and fully known, um, what if we are just looking for love in the wrong places, but where, but where are the right places? Well, and see, that's what I've said. I think we were designed for a love that no. Wow. No other human can give you that mud came full circle, right? No other human. Well, if his name is G and, and that's really what we said, love it. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. So deep down in our soul, you know, I used to say this all the time. Um, I took it from GK Chesterton, he's from the 18th century. And so I had to bring it in into today. A man, uh, a man goes into a strip club looking for God like that, that deep down in every one of you'll catch that other way.<laugh> right. That, that deep down in every one of our souls, right. There's this, there's this hunger, uh, for God. Okay. And we just feel it with junk food. Yeah. And you know how we eat, eat some junk food, eat a little bit here, eat a little bit, there, you get hungry with in an hour, two hours and you want to eat again. Right. That's how I ate my last paint on ice cream. Right. That's exactly how I did it. Right. You know, I mean, but, but the full meal is Christ is Jesus, right? Yeah. And I think everything in our world pulls us away from that. Yeah. Uh, and there're tantalizing things that we see with our eyes each and every day that take our focus and that sometimes even lie to us and say, that's not glorious. Jesus. I am. Oh, that brings me to another question. So I saw, oh, okay. Like serious come. So this, so this, uh, I, I think I might have sent you the video, this, uh, Muslim devout, Muslim, Muslim, like not the, um, nation. Yeah. Not nation, no Muslim Muslim. He was saying that, um, one, some of the differences between, uh, was, is Islam and Christianity is that with the women covering up and the men, you know, how, how they dress is to keep the distractions down. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. So we look at them crazy for the women having to dress up mm-hmm<affirmative>, but in their eyes, they're looking at, if, if I marry this woman and she's dressed up and the only time that I get to see her undresses me being married in her, in our room together, then I won't get distracted by the social media, the women outside that are, I don't want that dress. However they want to dress. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so what you just said, just resonate with me is everything in this world is distracting. So how do you feel about the way that Muslim, the Muslim society? Do you think that there's a connection between the two? Yeah, so I, I think, okay. All of us are, I think at some level we all know that we are susceptible to distractions that there's something better out there, but there's something in us that is keeping us from being able to get that something out there. Yeah. So I think there's two, that's two problems. We've note. Uh, and so classically, we would say the first problem internally is, is us or whatever, you know, sin, whatever the word people want to use sin. Right. And then, uh, then externally the problem is I can't find what I'm looking for. If I'm looking for a one of one. Right. But everything in me says it, it says there is no one of one out there. Just do whatever it is that you're doing. You got two problems. One I need to be, I need somebody to help me internally. And then I need somebody to show me the one of one externally. So see, to me, I think the issue with the Muslims and all of us is we try to solve our problems with, with solutions that can't keep us. Right. So I, I, I'm sitting here, I'm, I'm watching this, you know, and I'm like, oh, okay, well, if I do X, Y, and Z, then I won't be distracted. But then, but then the problem is, and I think this is where Christianity comes in. Okay. This is, we need divine intervention. I need somebody to come in, remake me, right. Or regenerate me or renew me or make me a new man. I new woman, whatever, like, cuz my heart is desperately wicked. And no matter what I try to do, I try to do to change it. Nothing happens. Right. Or, you know, and you, you you've heard in some of those cultures, there's a lot of abuse. Mm-hmm<affirmative> it it's undercover, but it ain't. Right. So all you'd really do is you push the abuse underground versus Hey Lord, I need help. I I'm a sinner. Change me, remake me. And, and so John talks about the new birth experience that happens from the inside out rather than from the outside in. So then now I can see that there's something that is one of one out there that no other human being is. And notice I don't, I count Jesus as a human, no other human being can meet except Jesus Christ. The, the God man. And so I think you gotta have that two point process. We were going back full circle with, uh, needing divine intervention to get, get, hold against cuz instead of looking for the worldly things that will help fill that void, like the LUS, the affection, the, the looks that we're looking for in our partner, stuff like that. So we need Christ to, to renew us, make us new so that we can see that he's the most glorious. So he is the most glorious thing that, that, that we, we can have. I mean, uh, uh, listen, um, if I put, uh, a Ford TAUs in the, in a Bentley Azu in front of you now you automatically know which car to pick, but if you were seven years old, you might not know cuz you would just look at two cars. You, you might pick the tourist, right. Might pick the it's a chance that you might pick the tours because at seven you don't have the, you don't have the knowledge probably never driven before you kind of just learning about cars or whatnot. And you might pick the tours, but when your eyes have been open and you have an appreciation, that's when you see a Bentley and a tourists together, you are 10 outta 10 going pick the tours. Yeah. See when God, and this is divine intervention. This is actually when people come to faith, he takes them from seven olds to adults. He opens their eyes so that they can see that, that Bentley of a life that he has. And if you look at that Bentley, let's say that Bentley is Jesus. Okay. I hate to objectify Jesus, but it is the only way I could, I, this is how I, this is how I think if, if you see that, that, that Bitly and uh, uh, you can appreciate it. But before he does his work in our heart, you're blind to it. John nine talks about the man who was born blind. Like we were all born blind and it takes Jesus to open our eyes. So that now when we look it's irresistible, when you see, see him for who he is, you're going to choose him 10 outta 10 times. Right? And so I think this is the process. You know, this is gone from Mary to this, but I think that's, that's literally, I think what happens. We idolize the TAUs marriage, right? Because we think it's the ultimate. But until somebody helps us to see in somebody being, Jesus helps us to see that know there's a Bentley standing right next to it. We will not, we will always put the way the God head on the marriage situation and run that little towards ragged and run that and run that towards ragged and then do then go and then complain that, and then go by a new car, right? Another TAs and run it ragged another TA versus me seeing, okay, wait, this, this, this can't sustain me. Me. This can so that if God blesses me to have this other situation, this my situation, I, I, I can tell I, I can, instead of the tool, that's what I was saying. Instead of the tool using me, I can use a tool for the Gloria guide. Okay. So this opens up many dimensions of questions for me because when you use, so if we were to, I can't honestly say that I'm pursuing marriage and this is my safe space. So y'all just have to deal with it. I can't honestly say that I'm a hundred percent pursuing marriage for Christ. Right? So with, with what you've been saying, it's making me think about, so how do you actually ch cause when you're looking at cars, you look, whatever fit, whatever the card looks like is what attracts me to it. Are we doing it wrong? The way that we're looking for a relationship? Are we, are we looking too much into our natural feelings and inclinations to, to pick up a partner? I, I just think that we, we are making, when you make something ultimate, like do or die. Yeah. You put everything on it versus yo I'm F I have a found, well, hopefully I'm have a growing foundation in Christ. So that then I'm trying to figure out how can you know who okay. So then when we pick it is sometimes we're asking the wrong questions. Okay. The question probably we should ask is yo, is this person somebody I can glorify God with? Versus is this person somebody who is here solely to meet my needs, two different things. See Jesus is here to meet your needs. Right? Our, our marriage is to help praise Jesus. Yeah. And I just think it's perspective. Yeah. But, but, but you can't get that perspective if your needs ain't being met. Oh, you dropping some heavy stuff today. That's crazy. This is the only episode one. You gotta relax. I, I, I really, really, we was just supposed to do just 30. We were supposed to just do 30 minutes of me thought through 30 minutes to be done. But, but no, I mean, if you, if you, if you think about it, like, and, and so that's what I, I think God is, you know, I, uh, Piper has, it said, God is most glorified. Yeah. Um, when we are most satisfied in him, like, yo, yo, you are your, your, your needs are things that the, you know, of course, some of, some of'em, you know, oh, I need a Bentley. Well, I mean, you know, you want a Bentley, you want, do you need, do you need a Bentley, but your basic need, your basic God shape. Vacuum is, is something that Jesus meets. So that then instead, again, instead of the tools using you, you can use the tools for the glory of God. So should we even be sorry, y'all, I'm kind of like black and white with it Uhhuh. So should we even be looking for relationships until we can, until we have some kind of sense that God is satisfying our needs. I, I think there's wisdom, right. B but I, I, I don't think there's a one size fits all. Cuz some people get married and they figured out why they get married. Right. Some people wait and you know, they, you know, go to school, buy a house, do you know? And then they get married. But I do think there's some wisdom. Cause in asking the question, what is it that I am looking for in this person? Am, am I looking for, you know, am I really just looking for God? And this person is, is, is, is somebody that I'm thinking can give me God. Or, and if that's the case, then you know, I think you are at a place where man, and I've been there, you know, where I'm like, okay, wait, I feel unbalanced. I feel like I'm leaning too heavily on food or leaning too heavily on whatever, you know, and why is that? Uh, because I maybe deep down inside, I don't feel the satisfaction of knowing that I am, uh, accepted in the beloved that I am grounded in who he is. And so, you know, life gets outta balance. And so man, I just, I just think you gotta ask those questions. Those are questions you ask while you ask, is this the person? Could you list the questions again?<laugh> is there, is there a few questions that okay, so yeah. Well I would say one, what is it that I'm looking for in a person? Yeah. Right. Uh, or what is it that I'm looking for? The person. Yeah. What is it that I'm looking for in a person can sometimes help you determine what is it that you're looking for? Period. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, you know, if it's, you know, and sometimes we have these unrealistic standards or expectations that we're looking for, people mm-hmm<affirmative> and what you realize is that thing that you need is something that no, no other human other than Jesus can meet. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so once you get, once you get there, I think the next question then is, um, just escape me. The, the next question is, uh, if this is the person, uh, I think you gotta, so I guess if I broke this down as a man, what is your vision? What is God's vision for your life? Uh, how does he best want you to, um, how does he best want you to use his resources for his glory? And when you're able to answer that question, then you could say, well, is this person somebody that can come alongside me as a helpmate to fulfill this vision, you know, versus, okay, I'm just, you know, I'm going through going with the flow. Like, and, and I also wanna say this God's grace is sufficient. He can do anything with, with anybody. So, so we need the cheat code is never what you can do. The cheat code is yo Jesus makes miracles happen all the time and he can take messed up situations and make beautiful things out of it. I, the, the questions are more so like guidelines. Yo, if you are in the situation and you're thinking about it, these are some things to ask. I mean, they, uh, if anything, I learned Uhhuh quite a bit in just the little time that we, we have. I hope, I hope that everybody else got a piece of picked up one of the jewels that you dropped. Okay. Because you dropped quite a few and it, I have some pondering to do when I get home To make sure.