What Does God Want For My Relationship?

Dive into it, And the question that we're going to be answering today is relational: , how many of you are in a relationship? Now, let me clarify You. You might be married, you might have a fiance, you might be dating, you might have friends, you might have kids, you might have employers or employees or co-workers. So now, raise your hand if you're in a relationship.

That should be everybody.

If not, come talk to me. We need to get you out the house. We're all in a relationship. Now, the vast majority of this conversation will relate most adequately to people who are married, But I need you to know if you're single, this still will help you significantly, And I know we have an increasing number of people who are coming to church, who aren't married, but they're going to get married, And right now you're single and you know you're ready for that next step.

This will help you significantly.

And so I'll dive in a moment. I'm going to have you turn to Genesis, chapter 3, but I want to give you a little bit of context as we jump into it. The general question we're trying to answer is the one that we- the ones that we received here-, the first question was: what does God want for my relationship? The second question was: I love this.

How do I know if the person I'm with is the one God has for me?

So I'm going to try to answer those two questions today. We'll jump into Genesis 3 in a moment, but I got to give you kind of the backstory to it. Most of you, if you've ever tried to read your Bible, probably read the chapters that we're going through today, but I'm still going to summarize it just in case you missed something. The one time you started your Bible reading plan and got to Genesis 12 and then quit, Anyone ever started the reading plan and then stopped before?

Be honest, Come on somebody.

Hey, you started. I. I mean it's hard, . But we get to Leviticus and we're like: I don't know what these sundury laws are.

I don't have an ax or a cart that it's pulling, so I don't know how to deal with this stuff.

I get it, It's difficult, But let me, let me catch you up. So in Genesis, chapter 1, we have what I'll call the general articulation or narrative of creation. This is where God spent six days, creating the heavens and the earth, filling those things with animals and humans, And on day seven he rested. So six days of creation, one day of rest.

This is the general creation story.

You can say it like this: is the macro creation story, the big picture viewpoint, Because in chapter 2, what we have in Genesis is a jump from chapter 1, where it's macro, to chapter 2, where it's very specific, And you've got to keep in mind when it's jumping that it's trying to tell a story, a true story. Don't hear me the wrong way. It is a true story, not a mythology. It is a true story.

But the first five books of the Bible are what we call the Penetuk or the Torah, And most conservative biblical scholars believe those first five books of the Bible- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy- are written by anyone know, Moses.

Almost all your conservative biblical scholars will say that all five of those are written by Moses, or at least his scribe, And Moses is writing to a specific group of people. When you read the Bible, you always got to ask some of these: who, what, where and why- questions that you learned in third grade or fourth grade, depending on where you grew up. Right, You got to ask those questions, And so that's what I do when I approach Scripture. And Moses is writing to a group of people who had just left Egypt across the Red Sea.

He's writing to a group of people who are trying to enter into a new land of promise from Yahweh God.

They're trying to start up a whole new structure, a new organization, a new country, And they were formerly- y'all remember what they were in Egypt- Slaves. This is who Moses is writing to. This is helpful when you're reading Genesis, because a lot of times we bring questions to Genesis that might be answered by Genesis, but I can almost promise you the audience Moses was writing to were not asking those questions. The book of Genesis is the origin story of the people group that would go into that land of promise, the Hebrews- And I believe that what Genesis chapter 1 says is 100% true.

But then we have this jump into chapter 2, where Moses gets very specific and it says: before there was anything on the ground, before anything was happening, before the rain had ever touched anything happened, God took a man, formed him from the dust and put him into a garden.

So we go from general creation, chapter 1, to specific creation, chapter 2, where God creates Adam and he creates Eve from Adam's rib And he places them in this garden. He gives some specific geographic locations. I don't need to give you that. You can go read it and do all the research on Jet GBT if you want to.

But he places them in the midst of the garden.

He gives them some basic instructions. He says: 'You can eat from any tree in the garden, but there's one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that you cannot eat from that lest you die. That's the one bit bit of instruction he gives him. They have full access to all of creation within that garden.

And there's one thing they cannot do- And in Genesis, chapter 3, enter in the antagonist or the serpent who has a conversation with Eve.

And this is where we jump in Genesis, chapter 3, beginning verse 6. When the woman saw that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, And she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked And they swed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord called to the man and said to him: "Where are you".

The man said: "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself". And he said: "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat". The man said: y'all hear that, Listen to this.

The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.

Then the Lord God said to the woman: "What is this you have done". And the woman said: "The serpent deceived me and I ate". And I want to give you two basic points today based on these questions that were asked. The first point I'll give you, talking about your relationships with people, is: they aren't the one.

They aren't the one, Because what?

What we often do in our relationships with other people is we make them the pinnacle of importance in our lives. Now I want to be very clear with you, because some of you in the room are not treating your spouse as importantly as maybe they should be treated. I'm not telling you that you're fine to treat your spouse with less importance than they need to be treated, But if you treat them as more important than your creator, you're making a big mistake. God has to be the pinnacle.

He has to be the first and foremost.

God has to be priority. It was God who breathed life into Adam's nostrils. It was God who took a rib from Adam and created Eve. Now, fundamentally, Adam and Eve screwed up when they forgot about God in the midst of the garden and decided to make their own decisions.

And many of us we're trying to make good parenting decisions, good marriage decisions, good life decisions, good job decisions, And we do it without the Lord.

So often it is easy to do, but when we do that we're making a mistake. We will lose wisdom when we try to go our own way as opposed to God's. That's why I say they aren't the one We've been told from when we were a young age and I know we've tried to like push against that. But I don't know what movies you grew up on.

I grew up on the normal chick flicks like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Disney movies.

I call those chick flicks because they ruined my teenage years, with girls expecting more out of me than I was capable of giving as a-, puberty ridden teenager, teenage boy at that. Just, I mean not that you needed to know that, but it's like you can picture a teenage boy- I- I was not capable of being Matthew McConna and how to lose a guy in 10 days at 15 years old, But that's what we were raised on. We were raised looking for the right one. I talk to single people sometimes and they're still looking for the right one.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having standards.

How many of you know it's important to have standards? You don't want to be that 27, 28-year-old who's not married yet and decides to lower their standards because they want to get married more than they want the right person that God sends them. I'm not telling you to lower your standards. I'm just telling you there's not like pursuing the one is not helpful if you're not pursuing Christ Jesus.

He's the one, He's the one person who can save you.

He's the one who can give you eternity. He's the one who forgives you. He's the one who gives you peace. He's the one who gives you abundant joy, Neverending joy That like that's God.

God created you.

If he can breathe life into your nostrils, he can breathe life into everything that you do. It is crucial for us to choose him first, And I would say, if you're talking about pursuing the one, I hope you're talking about God. I'm talking about you who are married too, because you're looking at your spouse right now- Not all of you, I'm just. I'm just talking generically here.

You may be looking at your spouse right now, thinking "I thought they were the one", But then they clip their toenails differently than I anticipated, They use the bathroom differently than I anticipated, They don't do everything that I asked them to do.

Then I open to certain things that, while I shouldn't have experience those things at a younger age, I did, And now I want my spouse to be open to those things. They don't fit the superficial list of expectations that you have on the one, And if you keep looking for this one that you have conjured up in your mind, you're never going to find that one. Now I'm going to give you, in my second point, the solution to that problem, But I want to tell you upfront If you're looking for the one, or if you're looking for your spouse to be the one. They can't handle that pressure.

There is one who can handle that pressure and it's the one who created you.

He gave you the things that you now anticipate. He gave you the desire for eternity. What does it say? It says he placed eternity on our hearts.

And you're looking at someone physical, saying "I hope you're the one".

Woo, The pressure. I'm glad my wife was super spiritual when I met her, because if she had put that kind of pressure on me, If she wasn't seeking Jesus first, I'd have to be her savior. And I am not capable of doing that, Goodness. I'm not capable of washing clothes by myself consistently and frequently.

I'm not capable of so many things.

Goodness, gracious, I'm glad you got the Lord, cuz the pressure on me would be unbearable. We can all have the Lord at the center of our lives. In fact, that's our vision. We want you to find peace, develop purpose, have better marriages, have better parenting situations, have better time at your jobs by revolving everything around Jesus.

If you make him the one, you're going to find that person more quickly.

If you're single, If you make him the one you're going to, you're going to have a much happier marriage. I've got some stats for you. I don't know if you like stats. I like stats U, because otherwise it's just me giving my opinion on God's word up here and some of y'all won't trust that.

So I'm going to give you stats that come from the University of Virginia and the Gottman Institute.

Can I do that? Say yeah, Okay, Cool, Cool. Here's a couple of them: Couples who attend church weekly. This is just.

This is one stat.

Couples who attend church weekly are 35% less likely to get divorced. That's probably why a lot of you come to church for the first time when you're about to get divorced. You know it's like it's really good, That's, That's good. We always try to keep that in mind.

We never know where people are at.

Here's another one. When both spouses- both spouses hear me out- When both spouses say God is at the center of their marriage, 92% say they're happy in their marriage. I think the 8% are probably newly wets, but 92% say that they're happy in their marriage When Jesus is at the center of both of their lives. I'm trying to tell you: when you make him the one, your life is better.

When you make him the one, your marriage looks better.

I got one more for you. You're going to love this one. This comes directly from the University of Virginia. Not the Bible, so you might trust it more.

I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding, you should trust the Bible, but I know how it gets sometimes. But the University of Virginia? You know how we listen to stats more than we listen to Scriptures. We want to question the Scriptures, but we don't question the random stats that we hear from some random person that said the University of Virginia did a study.

I'm just, that's just a thought.

University of Virginia did a study and it says that these things like if, if a couple prays daily together, it reduces their divorce risk by 50% And it also improves their closeness, their conflict resolution and their sexual satisfaction. Everybody came into church thinking we were a bunch of prudes, But apparently, apparently, when you pray together, you- who knows what I was going to say. What letter did that start with? I know there are kids in here Lay laid together.

That's that's kind of what happens when you pray together: You lay together.

You're going to remember that forever. So you're going to pray every single day, men, because I know you're looking for more of that. You just need to pray. Are there any kids in here?

Oh goodness gracious, I should have told y'all.

Disclaimer: My point is: if you prayed it, I found that to be true. I'm not going to call her out, but I found that to be true. When you pray- Okay, I'm moving on. I'm moving on- When you put Jesus at the center of your marriage or any relationship, you're going to ask less random questions that you're asking right now than you're asking right now And you're going to be happier in general.

Studies show it.

The Bible communicates it. I can tell you, as a living testimony of someone who's completely screwed up in the head half the time, that when Jesus is at the center, even a screw-up like me can figure out 12 years. I'm still young in marriage, but we're almost at 13. We got two kids.

We're trying to figure this stuff out.

I'm not stressed about this, And you know what I'm. I'm going to say this very carefully because I want you guys to know she's not perfect, but she's way less imperfect than this guy right here. Right, She's amazing. I love my spouse.

God gave me more than I deserve, But you know, you didn't fit the list.

You didn't fit the checkbox list of things that I had listed from 13 to 18. You fit the God list that I got from 19 until 23 or 22. You fit a different list. And if you use that checkbox list for the one, women, Disney movies aren't realistic.

Men, those things aren't realistic.

I'm just telling you, I didn't think y'all, y'all didn't think I was going to get this real today. All right, cool, I'm going to move on to point number two, because y'all aren't with me on that one. Maybe you are, but you just want to talk about it. I'm just being real with you today.

Number two: the problems in your marriage.

They aren't the reason, When you look at the, the Garden of Eden, like what happens here is Adam and Eve failed to prioritize God in this conversation about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And secondly, when God goes and approaches them, not only did they hide, not only did they cover their loins with cloths and think that being naked was wrong, even though God placed them in the garden naked, which was actually a sign of closeness that they were now separating from him. Yes, they separated from God. But when God came to them, what happened?

The blame game, And oh, I'm not going to say anything, but I'm going to help you If you take this advice in your marriage, if you're blaming the other person, start taking ownership right now.

Start taking ownership. In fact, if you keep blaming people, you're going to you're going to be in big trouble in your marriage. If you don't take ownership, you're going to struggle in your marriage. But what happens in the garden is God to them.

And then I'll read it for you.

The man said: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate". I don't know how you feel hearing that, but he blamed God and Eve in the same sentence for the fruit of the tree. And if you go back, I want to highlight this verse six, When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. And in your marriages, in my marriage, we tend to default to the same thing.

It's easier to look at how they don't check the boxes than it is to look inward and recognize how we aren't loving the other person the way God's called us to or we're not living up to our same standard.

Blaming will hurt your marriage, And I've been in mar- I mean not marriage. I've been in ministry for, I guess, 17 years at this point because I'm 37. Goodness, I'm getting old. Hannah, I'm a pro, I'm just kidding, I'm not.

I've been in ministry for a while now and I've seen it over and over and over.

Those who blame the other partner constantly struggle in their marriage. But those who take ownership do much better in their marriage. I could give you some research. Here's what the Gotman say.

They say couples who take responsibility for their part in conflict have an 80% higher success rate in resolving conflict long term.

Here's another one: 70% of marital problems remain unsolved when you blame, Which is why 90% of those people who blame will get divorced. You wonder why our divorce rates are so high? It's because we got way more blaming and way less ownership And in your relationship with the other person. This is a really helpful understanding of the covenant that we have with God.

God gives us metaphor after metaphor after metaphor, not only to understand our relationship with him, but to actually understand our covenant with our spouse.

God loved us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross, And he is raised up at the right hand of the father. And Paul tells us that Christ is the bride of the church. That means he's our leader and we are his bride. What did he do for his bride?

He loved us to the point of death, even death on a cross, so that we might come into a deeper connection with God, the Father right.

He loved us selflessly. In the midst of our hostility toward him, he didn't say: "Yo, they stink. Yo, they didn't check the boxes, Yo, they didn't fit what I required of them or desired from them". He said: "Forgive them, They know not what they do".

We've got to have this mindset in our all of our relationships, Because the great commandment says this: "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And the second is, like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. The reason we struggle in divorce in our country, the reason we struggle relationally. The reason you would prefer to go watch Netflix at home rather than spend any time with people at a public venue like today- you should totally stop and get biblical community afterwards right. The reason we would prefer to be isolated is because it is difficult to take ownership of our own social skills and self-awareness to the point where we can actually enjoy being around one another.

This is a marriage.

A marriage is you coming, becoming one with somebody else, And we all were like we believed that lie, that it was going to be easy, or we knew it was going to be hard, but we didn't really realize how hard it was going to be. And then we got together with that person and we fought with them more than we did our siblings and, our parents, and then we're like this isn't the way it's supposed to be And I'm like you are literally becoming one with another person. It's going to be hard. I think about the, the blaming that might have happened on the way out of the garden with Adam and Eve.

Y'all ever pictured that before?

I was thinking about it this week I was like I wonder what the conversation was after they got kind of banished from the garden and they got this dude with a flaming sword protecting the garden. Like I'm picturing Adam and Eve coming out of the garden, just kind of looking back and Adam's like, "Darn it, Eve, You had to put it in the pantry, didn't you? And then I ate. You knew I wasn't disciplined.

Why'd you go grab it?

That's what I do, Hannah. I'm sorry, Forgive me, This is what you do too. You have this list of expectations and you, you want them to fulfill those expectations. That's why you keep going to them and you're like, "Hey, I really think we need to work on a couple of things and- and since you know this about me, you really need to be the one to work on it".

Or when we're arguing, all we're fuming about is how they didn't understand the thing that you never said, but you expected them to understand already: These unmet expectations that you never voiced to anybody.

I think about it. It's like I didn't tell you half the stuff I walk in, and I had a hard day, Didn't tell you I had a hard day. And then you ask me a bunch of questions and I'm like: why are you asking me all these questions for you Like yo, why are you so harsh? And then I'm like expecting you to know that I had a bad day just because of the neutral look on my face.

That's not your fault.

But then I'm blaming you because you didn't perceive something that you were never meant to perceive, And I'm thinking about how you're treating me versus how I should be treating you. That's, that's blaming versus ownership. And we all struggle with taking that level of ownership. Your marriage would be radically different if you took ownership.

You might take three days- I would tell you 30, but you wouldn't do it.

I three days, Three days. I, I want to encourage or challenge you, Whatever level it is for you, take three days. When there's a conflict, when there's a problem, when there's a frustration. Take ownership, responsibility, Recognize that you're called to love that person, not to expect them to love you.

Three days.

Don't call them out, Don't blame them, Don't do that. You do you the right thing, what God's called you to do, and you love them and see if it makes an impact on you. You might say some more encouraging things. You might.

You might do something that they've been asking you to do, because you're thinking: how can I love them, not how can they love me better?

Don't you realize half your convers, I, I want you to know- same with me, I'm, I struggle with these same things. So I'm partial hypocrite, but also I'm on, I'm on the journey, I'm figuring stuff out. But if you stop asking the question, how can they bless me, How can they love me better, How can they make me? How can they-, meet me where I'm at?

How can they do this for me?

And start asking the question that Jesus ultimately asked before he came down out of heaven and hung himself on that cross: How can I be there for them? Ownership is so crucial for you in your relationships, And you might be single and thinking, "Ah, this isn't relevant to me". I want you to know: while you're out there looking for the one, seek Jesus, And as you seek Jesus, he's going to give you a servant's heart, And the more that servant's heart develops, you're going to find your calling in the church and outside the church, in your home prayer time, all of these things that Jesus calls you to do. You're going to develop a selflessness that you learn as you walk alongside Jesus And then, when God blesses you with that person, whoever that might be, you're going to be ready to love them, Because God didn't call us into this covenant to simply receive love.

He called us to love the other.

That's what's so sad about the fall of man in the Garden of Eden right here. What's so sad is that God said it's not good for man to be alone, So he gave him a helper. Yet what does Adam allow? He allows a culture in his metaphorical household that produced something sinful that disconnected them from God.

So what do we do?

We allow Christ in each of us to reverse that trend And, rather than blaming the other person because of the culture that we kind of allowed by not loving effectively that person, we just love them deeply. And, and I'm talking to people in this room who you're thinking, "Well, yet, Matt, your wife's cool, Like she's chill, Like she seems to love Jesus. You don't know my spouse". And I'm telling you: 15, 17 years in ministry, I've seen tons of stuff And I want you to know that- that, even when they don't know Jesus, even when they're an unbelieving spouse, even when there's someone that you're just like, oh deeply frustrated with because they got habits that they're unwilling to work on, remember this: God called you to follow him, Serve him as the one and then to love the other that you're married to.

He called you to love them, And I hope this will help you when you feel less loved than you probably deserve.

But just remember, when you feel less loved than you deserve, that you're more loved by God than you deserved, That he, he loved you so much that he offered himself up for you. So then, rather, rather than blaming and looking at their faults, look at his faith. Let me say this: his faithfulness to the cross. That needs to be the emblem that we remember when our spouse didn't flush the toilet.

That needs to be what we remember when our spouse did something they really shouldn't have done.

It's Christ who we remember when, when they're just being dumb. It's Christ that we remember when they were unfaithful. He, He's called us to love, not to be loved. In fact, being loved by them doesn't bring you eternity.

Being loved by them doesn't bring you abundance.

It's being loved by God And feeling the love of God that brings you where you want to be. And when you take the pressure off of your spouse to do that, when you take the ownership to lean in, regardless of what they're doing, it will change everything. And who knows, maybe your loving, kindness and patience with them will lead them to repentance. And then, a couple years from now- guys, this isn't unheard of.

I've seen it, I've we, we've been at church for just over a year, and I've seen it multiple times with families where the spouse wasn't into church or they weren't into a relationship with God or they were struggling in various areas- God gets a hold of this person and a radical trajectory shift happens for the entire family.

I need you to know: with God, the one, miraculous things can occur. So when you feel unloved, remember be loved by him, who can perform miraculous things in your relationships. I hope that answers the question. I know it's kind of vague, but at the same time it's crucial for us to remember, because if there's one piece of advice I could give anyone- I mean, there have been people who've got better advice to give- but if there's one piece of advice I can give you- because I'm pretty decent at being authentic and honest in front of you all- it's that when the bad stuff happens, you can't make them do what deep in your heart you want them to do, But God can shape their heart.

So love God, love them and just just just do your best in that weird in between spot, knowing that one day you will revel in the glory of God with your marriage.

I'm believing it. I know things go terribly sometimes. Appreciate that, But I- I'll say this because this is the main action step, This, our last point, our main point: God has a difficult time healing what, what you don't own, And I think the reason that our marriages and our relationships are sometimes in turmoil or not optimal is because we refuse to own our own responsibility. And so that's my encouragement to you, To reiterate my challenge to those of you who maybe you're already believers and you need a next step: Take three days, Resolve to not be blaming other people and to take ownership of the areas.

It's going to be hard if you're not used to this.

I'm going to be honest with you. Every day I'm doing some sort of blame. At some point I'll get home and I look and, like the other day, the dog peed. That dog should know better, the serpent.

The dog peed and I'm like I think I texted my wife and I.

I said "Hey, that's kind of rude, Just leave the pee there" And she said: "I didn't see it, I'm blaming her". Rather than just going and cleaning it. I did go clean it, I repented and I apologized. I think I hope so.

If I didn't, I'm so sorry.

I shouldn't have done that, But. But I know it's difficult, But resolve to not blame, to own, resolve to not make them love you but to love them regardless, And that will that be game changer in your relationships. I know Maggie's going to come up here, I think she might. There were some questions that I saw come through that had a little bit to do with relationships, But I wanted to give you that challenge And for the rest of you in here, like I said, he's the one, God's the one.

If, if, if you're relying on your kids or your spouse, or your job or your future or your hobbies to fulfill you, they will not at the level that you desire.

Only God, Knowing that, I also recognize there may be people in the room who have no relationship with God, And so I want to give you an opportunity right now to do what the Bible says as a prescription for eternal life with God. It says: "Confess your with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead", And you'll get to actually receive his love and let it overflow into your life. So we do that by praying together out loud, for the benefit of those praying it for the first time. So let's bow our heads, Let's close our eyes.

Repeat after me, please Say: "God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, Make me new, Help me grow and I will follow you for the rest of my life". It's in Jesus's name that we pray, And God's people said "Amen". Let's celebrate those who just prayed that for the first time.