God’s Way Versus Man’s

Introduction

God give us Christian homes. Amen. If you will open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 5, and we’re going to look quickly at that passage, and then over in Romans chapter 1. As we think about the world today, you think about how it’s changed, you think about how God would want it to be. It all boils down, frankly, to one of the most important units that God created, that God planned for, and that is the home. God planned for marriage, and he had a specific plan with a specific purpose. God planned for the home to be run in a specific way for specific cause. You see the way God sees a marriage, though, for example, in Ephesians chapter 5. Look with me there, quickly, beginning in verse 22.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Now keep that picture of a beautiful marriage, of a beautiful relationship between Christ and his church, between a husband and wife in mind.

And turn to Romans chapter 1. In Romans chapter 1, you see Paul reasoning through the idea that Jew and Gentile alike needed the gospel message. And that’s true. Jew and Gentile alike need the blood of Christ. And as he’s going about proving this, in chapter 1, he is focused on the Gentile world. Now, as you think, as you’re thinking about what we just read in Ephesians chapter 5, that beautiful picture of a husband and wife loving each other, the wife submitting to the husband, the husband loving his wife as himself. Read now Romans chapter 1 and consider the way things were, beginning in verse 21. Romans 1, verse 21. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. And you see, frankly, two different pictures of the home. You see two different pictures of society. The first home in Ephesians chapter 5 is one of love, predicated not only of loving your spouse, loving your mate in a selfless way, but doing so as Christ has loved the church, submitting to Christ as the church is to do with Christ as its head. The idea of Ephesians 5 is loving as God has commanded us to, as Christ has shown us we are to. But in Romans chapter 1, you have a society that three times it’s written in Romans chapter 1 that God gave them up.

Because the society repeatedly chose to ignore what God had ordained. I think the sad part is we see that in our society at large today. There’s a lot of good homes. There’s a lot of good families. But there’s only one way from the Lord. There is only one way that God has designed. And if we acknowledge that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, that we are to submit to God in every way, and that God has a plan for both marriage and raising of children in the home. We will see what God has outlined, and we will seek to submit to that. The problem is that society doesn’t view it that way, and I think this is a bigger issue than just the home.

Man has their own way. Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 23, the prophet writes, I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in the way of man who walks to direct his own steps. This is not a new problem. It’s not peculiar to the home. But I want to use the home as a case study of showing what happens on two different planes. When God says one thing and society says another. We all have to make a choice each and every day. Will I submit to God? Or maybe perhaps the choice is how will I continue to choose what’s right? How will I be motivated to do that? And I think when you see what happens, when you choose your way, when you choose society’s way and ignore God’s, you see two failures.

The judgment of eternal life, spiritual sin. And you also see a physical destruction of your life all around you. At the 9 o’clock hour, I cited an example in a what would you do show. And the idea was a young man who was in what we would call open rebellion, and we’ll discuss that idea moving forward. But one woman looked over at him, and this is the troubling part beyond the circumstances of the setup, beyond the pastor involved, beyond the kid himself involved, one woman looked over to him and said, God loves you. God will not judge you. God does not judge. Brothers and sisters, that is patently false. That is unbiblical. That is a lie. God will judge. And so as we consider what God’s way is for the home, consider not only will we see the physical detriment of ignoring God, but we will also eventually reap the eternal, the eternal benefit of serving him if we do, or eternal corruption if that’s what how we choose to live our lives.

1. What God Says About Before Marriage

The first example, I think, of five that we’ll see, is what God says about before marriage. When it comes to the home, society has now attacked it at every angle possible. We’re going to see that beginning even before marriage. Look with me in Hebrews chapter 3, or excuse me, in chapter 13. In Hebrews chapter 13, turn there with me. I hope you’ll have your Bibles open and looking as we go through the Word of God this morning in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4. Note the specific language at the beginning that you will know, and even at the end for emphasis. In Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4, let marriage be held in honor among all. That’s God’s plan for marriage. And let the marriage bed be undefiled.

For God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. I think we see three strong phrases even within just verse 4. First of all, what is the marriage to be held as? It’s to be held in high honor. How is that to be done? The second part of the verse, let the marriage bed be undefiled. Why? What’s so important about that? God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. You see, God’s plan is for man and woman to be together in marriage and in that marriage bond alone. Society says, just enjoy life. Don’t worry about it. You do you. The problem with that, beyond ignoring Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4, beyond ignoring the fact that, by the way, here’s an example where it says clearly God will judge.

Think about the impact even physically. Cohabitating couples, that is, couples who live together before they are married, have a 50 to 80% higher likelihood of divorce versus non-cohabitating couples. By the way, there are numerous statistics I could cite on the idea of being pure in marriage when both husband and wife come into the marriage with the marriage bed undefiled, and how significantly that imp that lowers the rate of divorce, how much that impact staying together forever. But even just taking this side of it, ignoring the religious impact, factually, our society has decided that cohabitating is okay, and yet God and statistics of our own finding alike say this is not right. This is not how to build a successful marriage. Well, why might that be? Well, consider 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

What is it that God has to say about this sexual immorality? What is it about being together outside of the marriage bed that causes such a problem? Well, from the sin perspective, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 18, note what Paul writes, flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Verse 19 continues, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body. I think on both a spiritual and physical level, if we would really burn verse 20 into our mind, our entire life would be different.

Not just on the question of sexual immorality, not just on the question of within the home, but every aspect of our life would change if we realized I was bought with a price. It’s very clear that there are a lot of temptations we can run towards. 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 22, flee also youthful lust. God says, flee from youthful lust. Society says, bring them on, enjoy them. But the truth is, when we think about our lives, how can we live that way? When every Sunday morning, for those of us who worship here at the church at South Bumby, we partake of the body and blood of Christ. Symbolically, partaking of the body which was broken on the cross for our sins. Symbolically partaking of the blood which was shed for the forgiveness of our sins, the blood of the new covenant.

In Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 18, the writer makes it clear, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. Jesus died for us. We were bought with the price. And our reaction to that is to go out and say, live how you want. Just enjoy this passing life. That’s why Jesus died, right? Of course not. Jesus died to buy us back from death. We are stuck in our sins without the blood of Christ. But He is our redeemer. He has redeemed us, so we should live different. Amen. We need to live very differently. We need to be changed, understanding that we were bought with a price. We were bought with the high price of the body and blood of Jesus the Christ. Consider, secondly, even when that impacts before marriage, within the marriage, of course, we have changed that definition as well.

2. Marriage Is for One Man and One Woman

If you look at Matthew chapter 19, and you may want to drop a marker there, we’ll be there in a couple different passages for a couple points. In Matthew chapter 19, God says marriage is for one man and one woman. In Matthew chapter 19, beginning in verse 3, and Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause? He answered, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

How much more clear? How much more beautiful can the picture of God’s expectation for marriage be than one man and one woman? Society has shifted in a way that we’ve even moved past the idea of what you might call serial polygamy, that’s marrying and divorcing, marrying and divorcing over and over.

And all these phrases. We’ve even destroyed, before marriage, we’ve destroyed the definition of marriage as a society. And consider what that does to us. In Romans chapter 1 again, as we read there previously, what was it that was happening? Well, it all goes back to that verse 20 that we read, really.

What happened as a result? What happened instead? But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. This passage in Romans chapter 1 is not just about marriage, but it’s about a degradation of society that says, God says this, but we don’t care. And God’s response is to give them up. You see, in verse 24, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. In verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Verse 28, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. This was not God pushing us towards sin. This was man hurtling toward it and God just permissively allowing it to happen.

And the sad part is we are doing it to ourself. Is it not our society that we can say, claiming to be wise, they became fools? That we did not see fit to acknowledge God or to give thanks to Him. And in so doing, or instead of, we became futile in our thinking and our hearts were darkened. God has made it clear marriage is for one man and one woman. That is not one man and two women, one man and three women at different times or in a different place or in a different country. It is not one man and one man or one woman and one woman. It means what it says that is one man and one woman. And for the record, this is a clear case where Jesus did speak about homosexuality.

He disqualified it by saying marriage is for one man and one woman. That’s the law from the words of Christ Himself. For those of you who have a Bible with the words of Christ in red, you’ll notice in Matthew 19 that those words are in red. Jesus said that. Not Paul, not the other apostles, as if that disqualified it anyhow. Jesus said, marriage is for one woman and one man, because why? That’s the way God intended it from the beginning. And the two were to become one flesh. When you consider 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9 through 11, you see a list of things that were separating the Corinthians from being with God forever. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9, beginning, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. But verse 11 is the uplifting point. You don’t have to choose just one of society or God. If you have left the plan of God, you can come back. Do you see it in verse 11? Even though verse 9 and 10 have addressed the sexually immoral, the adulterers, the homosexual, in verse 11, and such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. It’s not about changing, it’s not about just giving in to our own desires and passions.

3. God Says Marriage Is for Life

It’s about serving God. It’s not just about homosexuality, it’s just as much about sexual immorality. We do a disservice to go after one issue. And brothers and sisters, can I make a point? That homosexuality is not what’s corroding the church. It’s not helping, but all matters of sexual immorality are destroying God’s plan, because God’s plan is for one man and one woman. That’s to the homosexual, to the adulterer, to us all. Be as God wants you to be. Don’t give in. Don’t compromise. Stick with God’s plan. We see, furthermore, God says marriage is for life. I hope you dropped the marker in Matthew 19. You’ll see as we turn back there that it was not just about one man and one woman. It was one man and one woman for life.

And verse 6, so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. So Matthew 19 is clear. All divorce is not sinful. Divorce for the cause of sexual immorality is within God’s plan. God says, by rule, though, marriage is for life. Well, God’s joined together, let man not separate. But society says you deserve happiness. You divorce if you need to.

Maybe you didn’t pick the right one. Maybe you didn’t find the one. Go out and get him. He’s right there. I know you’re married, but your husband doesn’t treat you right. You just listen to that man who’s giving you attention. You just listen to that woman who’s listening to you, who’s letting you talk. You go for the new, go for the better. Life’s about you, right? That’s what society teaches. But the law of Christ is clear. It’s repeated in a different way, or you could say Matthew 19 is a repetition in a different way of Matthew chapter 5. If you look at Matthew chapter 5 and look at verse 32, you see, Jesus says, but I say to you, that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.

And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Why does God care so much about divorce? Why is it said in the Old Testament scriptures that God hates divorce? God has a plan for the marriage. God has a plan for the home. Do you remember in Ephesians chapter 5? What was the picture of marriage likened to? What was the real intent of Ephesians chapter 5? We look at it as a great chapter to study marriage, but really the point is bigger than that. Really, the point of Ephesians 5 is what? Christ and the church. We are to be forever together and joined to your spouse. Because God created it that way. If you want to be married, great. Do so as God has planned. If you don’t want to be, great.

Serve God anyway. But if you’re going to do what God says, submit to his life in every avenue. Realize that God has a plan. How many kids? We’re going to get to some statistics at the end of the lesson this morning. But how many children have suffered because their parents just run away? Because their parents don’t want a child to be born. How many kids’ lives have been taken because of that very same idea? God has a plan for a marriage, and it goes beyond even the two individuals. Marriage benefits the society, and it even starts in the home with the kids that God intended to come. If God has that plan, who am I to say, I don’t care? Or that’s not for me, or it’s about my happiness.

4. Love Your Spouse Selflessly

I am nobody. I need to remember that on a spiritual plane I will be judged for my corruption and sin if I violate God’s law. And secondly, my family and those around me will suffer in the meantime. You see, fourthly, God says, love yourself, your spouse selflessly. If you look back at Ephesians chapter 5, I think there’s three scriptures that really stand out. The first one is verse 24 in Ephesians chapter 5. Now, as the church submits to Christ, obviously we need to submit to Christ in everything. Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth. We got that part. But the end of verse 24 is a little bit scary. So also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. That’s a tall order. You see in verse 28, in the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself. Again, that is a tall order. But look at the last verse of the chapter in verse 33. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. I think this one is perhaps most at the core of what we might struggle with at this point in time. Because society says marriage is for your fulfillment. I mentioned a moment ago. Go ahead and go ahead and society says, listen to those who are giving you attention. Pay attention to those who make you feel the way that you think that you deserve. The truth is, God’s plan for marriage is for one person to love the other selflessly. That’s a big commitment.

Look back at verse 24. You saw it. As the church submits to Christ, wives submit to your husband. That is a tall order. In verse 28, husbands are to love their wives as they love themselves. That is a tall order. When you think about God’s plan for marriage, why would it be that way? Why would he make a woman submit? Why would he make a man love his wife selflessly? God’s plan is for the marriage to work. When two people go into something selfishly, it doesn’t matter if you call it marriage or a corporate corporation or a job site. When people don’t work together, what gets accomplished? Nothing. Destruction happens, delays happen, cost is wasted. When people act selfishly, the whole setup breaks down. God intended for his setup to work, and if it is, we will submit to his will and we will reap the benefits of that cohesion.

Because a wife will want to submit to a husband who lovingly puts her first. And a husband will feel loved by a wife who submits to him. See, but someone has to make the first move. And that’s where society doesn’t like it because if your husband doesn’t act the way you want him to, or if your wife doesn’t behave the way you want her to, society says, get another one. Find that person who really fulfills you. Find the person who doesn’t have those irritating quirks that so annoy you. Here’s the little secret on that. Everyone’s going to have those. It’s just a matter of when you find them. Kashka found them right away and married me anyway. Think about marriage being for your fulfillment. God says marriage is to be for one man and for one woman.

And it’s a moment at which God joins them together. Do we realize the magnitude of God joining them together? I think this is interesting because when you look at these two passages that I just put up on the screen, starting first with me, please, in 1 Peter chapter 3. Turn there. In 1 Peter chapter 3, you see that God has a reason for setting it up this way. There is a cause, there is a purpose for loving the Lord and submitting to his will, and likewise loving your spouse selflessly, despite what society may say. In 1 Peter chapter 3, note the wife who’s even yoked to an unbelieving husband. In 1 Peter chapter 3, beginning in verse 1, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. But look at verse 7. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Isn’t that a strong warning once again in verse 7? How are husbands to love their wives? Living with them in an understanding way. What purpose? Look at the end of verse 7. So that your prayers may not be hindered.

God has a purpose. God has a plan. We are to submit to his plan. He is the creator. He is our everything. And if we’re going to obey God, that includes at the core of understanding that I need to selflessly love my spouse. But you see in Titus chapter 2, a passage that has always caught my attention. You see in Titus chapter 2 an example of how the church is to work together, how the people in the kingdom of Christ are to look out for one another. And you see, beginning in verse 1 of Titus chapter 2, Titus writes as follows. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, and love and in steadfastness.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good. And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. You see that? Do you see that part in verse 4? That the older women from verse 3 are to train the younger women to do what? It’s curious, isn’t it? To love their husbands and children. See, that those writer must have known Koshka was going to marry someone like me. So you’d have to have some extra patience in teaching to truly love.

Hugh Berry’s nodding his head. When you think about this passage, you think about what verse 4 tells me. Is it tells me that God’s design for marriage is not some sort of romantic love affair where we coast on our lovely feelings, and that’s how we get through life. God’s plan is for one man and one woman forever, but how are they going to do it? The man loving his wife as himself, putting her first, putting her desires, her wants, her needs first. How is the marriage going to last? The woman is to submit to the husband lovingly, loving her husband, and doing as the older women are to teach. Being self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive. Why? Do you see that at the end of verse 5?

Why are all those characteristics? Why learn that? That the word of God may not be reviled. Do you see that there? God has a real strong plan for marriage. There’s a reason that these expectations are there. And by the way, this lesson extends beyond the home, as I’ve said, from the beginning. God’s ways work. And God’s ways work because He planned them that way. It was not a coincidence, for example, that God planned for this church to come together each Lord’s day and to remember the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. That’s not a coincidence. It’s not some sort of vain God just looking for praise once a week. He knows, yes, it’s pleasing to him, but also that we need it. We need the fellowship of brothers and sisters.

5. Children Are to Honor Their Father and Mother

When God makes a plan, there is a reason. The question is, will we submit? Finally, let me submit to you that God says in Ephesians chapter 6, and I hope you’ll turn there with me, that children are to honor their father and mother. In Ephesians chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, Paul writes, Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise. That it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. God says, children are to honor their parents. And by the way, verse 4 continues, that God has expectations for the parent of the child. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Society says to children, do whatever makes you happy. And if I might add, society teaches to parents, and we’ll get into some statistics shortly, don’t worry about it. If you don’t want to have the child, run away. And they may not encourage it, but our society is rampant with that. If you’re not ready for the child, don’t worry about it. Take care of it one way or the other, whether it means leaving, or ignoring it, or taking its life. But is that the way God decreed? Why does the home matter? In Deuteronomy chapter six, I think you see that the bow on the idea of why God set up the home, and why it is so critical that we understand that society’s attack on the home, society’s idea of the home is so flagrantly wrong that we must not give in.

We must not compromise an inch of God’s perfect plan. In Deuteronomy chapter six, note with me this the text beginning in verse one. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules, that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your might, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Why did God set it up this way? Look back at verses one through three. You recognize the idea towards parenting, you recognize the idea of binding the word of God between the eyes, of putting it on the doorpost.

But go back to verse 2. That you may fear the Lord your God, who? You and your son and your son’s son. Or as we might say, you, your son, and your grandson. Well, how is that? The Bible is clear. Ezekiel chapter 18 makes it poignantly available to us to know that I don’t answer for my father, I don’t answer for my son, I answer for me. So what is the expectation of God here? Well, the end of that, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Why did God make it that way? Because in the home we can teach God. Because even when the government tries to take God out of the schools, take him out of the halls of Congress and then in our court system, the family can teach God.

When society turns their back on God, the church is there to carry the torch. We must work together to raise Christians. We need to work together to be Christians. Because we will not make it on our own. I will not make it on my own. Kids will not make it on their own. God has a plan for how he is to be praised and how his word is to carry forth. How is it? It’s not just about evangelism plans. It’s not about hiring an evangelist. It starts at the core, which is when a woman and a man, one each, come together as God has decreed. They are not separated by man because God will not allow it. God joined them together. And they will raise up children who will turn to God.

Conclusion

They will teach them what God has to offer. They will teach them that God’s ways are best. And that is how we will praise the Lord. That is how God is to be praised, by his plan being implemented by his servants, by his children. When we look to the Father for guidance, is it any, is it any bit of irony that God expects children to look at their father and their mother for guidance on how to please their eternal Heavenly Father. If we abandon our post and any role that God has given us, we have failed, and God’s plan will break down in that element, not because God has failed, but because we have rejected him. We come to the decision. Whose way works? It will always be God’s way that works.

God’s plan for the home is to love your spouse as yourself. And I promise you, if you trust in God and do what the scriptures say, you will see the difference even now. God’s plan for the home is to love your children. I promise you, if you submit to God’s plan, you will see the difference. Society’s plan for the home has resulted in countless kids raised in single parent homes. In the single parent home in America, one third of children in this country have no father. 15 million children have no father in their home. Five million have no mother. Children without fathers have higher rates of juvenile delinquency, more behavioral problems versus those with active parents. And children without fathers are more likely to grow up in poverty, although that’s self evident.

Forty six percent of U.S. children under 18 live in a home with two heterosexual parents in their first marriage.

I understand that God’s will makes a way of divorce available. I understand that we will make mistakes, that I have not and will not always love my spouse the way God plans. But I do know that if I will submit to God, if I will put what society thinks and what I find to be convenient or pleasing to me aside and choose only to love God, then I will see a change. This church will see a change. And the world will too, because it starts with us. If we’re not going to serve God in the way He wants us to, if we’re not going to serve God in the most base unit that He has created, how can I ever expect the world to follow suit?

Kids are growing up without parents because society has decided it’s better. What are we going to choose? Be the difference that you want to see. Follow God today. If we trust and obey God, He will bless us. If not now, if our life doesn’t become all sunshines and rainbows, we will be with God forever. Understand that following God’s plan has two important reasons. Yes, the physical will be better, and it will amongst our relationships. But most importantly, we will be with God forever. God has promised us that. Do you want to be with your eternal Father forever in heaven today? You can make your calling and election, sure. If we can help you in any way, come forward now as we stand and sing the invitation song.