Genesis 2:4-25 – The Nexus

It is necessary and often good to talk about the challenges facing a marriage. Until we properly understand the nature of the problem, we don’t know what it is we are trying to solve. However, unless we have a positive vision and understanding of what marriage was designed for in the first place, we’re not going to be able to point things in a direction that can help prevent future challenges. Last time, as we started our new teaching series, The Journey of a Lifetime, looking at what the Scriptures have to say about marriage, we identified the problem: sin. This week we are going to look at what marriage was designed for in the beginning so that we can walk away from the problem in the right direction.

More Like Him

I’m going to show you an image of something, and I want to see if you know what it is? For some of you, this is probably going to be really easy, but a few of you might not have any idea. In fact, I’m going to show you a couple of different images for us to talk about. Let’s start with that first image. What is the thing sticking up out of the container here? Be honest with me now: How many of you knew this was a potato masher without being told or without cheating by reading the answer in your copy of my manuscript before the service even started? How many of you genuinely didn’t know what this thing was and wouldn’t have known without being told? Everyone else apparently is just confused.

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This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, Married for Good. For the next five weeks we are going to be talking about marriage: what it is, how it works, and how to do it well. If you are married, have been married, might be married someday, or even don’t have it on your radar at all, there is going to be something for you in this series. Let’s start today, though, by clarifying just what exactly it is. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Made for Each Other

Weddings are big business…marriages, not so much. This is because everyone loves the idea of getting married. Well, that’s not completely true. The idea of marriage itself has fallen on somewhat hard times of late, but nonetheless, most everyone enjoys a love story that ends with exchanged, “I dos,” at an altar. And, true to form, people will spend enormous amounts of money on a wedding. I did a bit of digging, and the best estimate I could find held that the U.S. wedding industry is worth about $78 billion this year. As much money as we are willing to spend on getting married, however, most folks are not willing to spend quite as much money on staying married. Once we get across that particular line, we tend to treat it like we have arrived. We’ve crossed the finish line and now we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of our many labors. Of course, if you are someone who has experienced any part of a marriage journey, you know that this isn’t perhaps quite so true as our culture makes it out to be—as indeed as we would like for it to be. Marriage can be harder than it is often made to seem.

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