Godly Marriage Pt 2

It's good to see everybody. I want to welcome you to Calvary Chapel and invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Father, we thank you for the day. God, we just thank you for an opportunity to be here, Lord, to worship you, to praise you, God, and spend some time in your Word. Lord God, let your Word do its mighty work in our heart this morning, Lord.

Help us to lift a joyful noise to you. And Lord, we want to take a moment and lift up Israel this morning. God, we pray for your hand of protection and blessing to be upon them, Lord. God, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem this morning. Lord, we love you and we praise you and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like. We'll continue on.

Lord, yes, we will praise you, God. I know sometimes, Lord, it's easy to praise you when things are going well. But God, help us to praise you then and even in the times that... Things don't seem to be going right, Lord. Everything seems to be falling apart, Lord. Nothing's going right, Lord. Just help us to praise you, God. Because you're still worthy of all of our praise.

Doesn't matter what time, the times that we're going through, the seasons that we're going through, Lord. You are still worthy of all of our praise. Amen. Nothing less than Jesus' blood. Righteousness, our trust. The sweetest friend. In Jesus' name. Sing that again. Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood. The sweetest friend.

Trust in Jesus' name. Lord, God, we just want to say thank you, Lord, for what you've done for us, Lord. For what you've done for us on the cross.

God, there's no way that we could ever repay what you've done, Lord. God, we thank you for the love that you have for us, Lord, that you would send your only son.

We thank you, Lord, God. God, we just thank you. We thank you for your son, Jesus, for what he's done for us on the cross, and the new life that we have in him. Lord, God, we thank you that you take care of us, Lord, God. The way that he works in our lives, Lord, and in our marriages, and in our communities, and in our homes.

Thank you for the love that you have for us.

How deep beyond only sun. Lord, God, we just thank you again for what you've done for us on the cross. Thank you for taking the price that we rightfully deserve upon yourself. And for giving us new life in you. We lift up Pastor Ryan this morning, God, and we ask that your Holy Spirit just overflow him with your gift of teaching. And give us ears to hear and hearts to receive the word that you've prepared for us.

And Lord, we also lift up the kids at the other end of the hall. Lord, we ask that you be with them. Bless them, Lord. And let your word go out with power. And do its mighty work. And we also want to lift up Israel this morning, God. And just continue to pray for them. And continue to ask for your hand of blessing and protection to be upon them, Lord. And pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

We love you, Lord, and we praise you, and we thank you. All God's people said, amen. Let's have some fellowship. If you could begin the process of locating your seats.

Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you're here this morning. If you would, take a look at your bulletin. A few things to go over. As always, on the left-hand side are the things going on throughout the week. Minus one, there will be no Wednesday night service this week. No youth, no kids, no service because it's Arkalala. So go out and enjoy. Have fun.

Be a light to the world at Arkalala. So have a good time with that. Over in the middle section. Have your bulletin. A few things to go over. Wednesday, November the 1st, which is in about a week and a half, we're going to be having a family worship night here. We did this a few months ago, and, man, everybody really liked it. So there will be no kids or youth that night either.

Instead, we'll all be in the sanctuary, and everybody's invited. Come on out. We'll probably have nursery for the really tiny people. But come join us for a night of worship and prayer together. It's just a great time. So the last time we did it, I think everybody was like, man, we should do this more often, and they should have. We should have sung more songs.

So it was a lot of fun. So join us November 1st for that. And then I need to have Judy. Would you come up and share with us? She's going to share with us about the live nativity.

Come on now. You're going to make me come up there? There we go. All right. Good morning. We've got some exciting things coming on, and we need you. The first thing is the Living Nativity. This is actually being sponsored. It's kind of a community thing. Several churches are involved in it. And if you're not aware of what a Living Nativity is, it's kind of a Bible village spread out

over a little area, and people drive through and stop at each scene and hear what's going on. And we have been asked to do the Wise Men. They know which ones to pick. So anyway, we need a Mary, a Joseph, and three Wise Men. This is December 8th and 9th, 630 to 830. That's two nights. So if we get two Marys and two Josephs and six Wise Men, you will only have to do one night.

I figured that out by myself. So there's a sign-up sheet out there that we would really like for you to help us out on this and be a light to our community, showing that we are helping reach out to our community. And again, there's no acting. There's no speaking. All you have to do really is stand there and portray the lines. Mary and Joseph can look kind of.

They're tired. You know, the Wise Men need to look wise. But other than that, you just stand there and represent the scene. Okay. Next is costumes will be provided. Yes. We are going to be building a stable, aren't we, Joe and Nick? And there's someone else signed up for that. We need a stable and a star and a manger. Anybody want to volunteer their baby? No, just kidding.

Just kidding. Just kidding, kind of. The next thing is we're going to have a children's choir special on a Sunday in December. One song. And we're going to be starting to practice on Sunday, November the 5th, and it'll be at the beginning of the children's church. So if you all could have your kiddos, I believe it's ages 4 through 5th grade. It's going to be fun, guys.

So bring your kids. I think they will really enjoy it. You never know what this might look like. It's going to lead to. And then third, we're going to have an adult choir. And you don't know what that's going to lead to. And I just want to say, first off, this is a four-part music. So we need all four parts. Guys, we really need you. Because we always get women, which I am thrilled.

What would we do without our ladies? But we need you guys to really come in and help us. And if you're not sure what part you sing, that's okay. We'll figure it out. It's real easy. It's real easy. And also, I want to encourage the junior and senior high to join us in this. There's some beautiful voices in that age range here. So I want to invite the junior and senior high to join us.

There is a sign-up sheet. And even if you think you're not sure, please sign up so I know how much music to put together. Okay? That's it. Thank you. If you have any questions, let me know.

All right. And then next, it's Operation Christmas Child. It's time to see. Hey, he's Phil this time. All right. Come on, Phil.

Just want you to know, Ryan, my name's Phillip. But I go by Phil. Okay. Good morning, everybody. Hey, you all know what I'm wearing, right? Phil. And you all know my name, right? Phil. Phil A. Box. Right? Phil A. Box. Hey, we got lots of stuff going on today. And I want to talk about a couple things. Does everybody know when the boxes are due? Three more weeks.

So you got this week. The following week and the last week after that. And then we got to have them here on the 12th. So you got three weeks. So please fill your boxes up. I want to talk about a couple things. We have a bunch more boxes in the hall. They got the little mailer in them where you can choose a boy or a girl in the appropriate age. And then we also have some other boxes.

So if you don't have one of these Samaritan's Purse box, any of these shoe boxes that are approximately this size are good. Don't put it in a cowboy box. They're too big. We got to have boxes that will will fit with these when they're packed in the big boxes as they go overseas or to whatever country they're going to. And so it's important, though, that we do a couple of things.

What's the most important thing you can put in your box? Prayer. Yeah. Pray over the box. Right. And pray that the child who gets it, what God will use the box to bless them. And you'll see in the video that we're going to show here in just a second about how this one little. Shoe box and the message that is used by God to reach a child goes to multiple people and saves entire families.

We've we've heard that testimony many times. This box, you need to put a donation in it. There are several ways to put your donation in. By the way, if you get one of these from last year, it's kind of a smaller one. It says nine dollars on here. We need ten dollars this year. But, hey, nine dollars will still work. But if you want to give more than nine dollars, you can.

And there's also you can. Pack your box. If you if you keep this little number right here that's on this label, you can see where your shoe box goes, what country it's going to go to. And then there's also another one that we have here that you'll get these in the mail. And this is the same thing. It's got the same sticker on it. You can put on your shoe box.

You can track it. And it also talks about how to pack a shoe box, what to put in it, what not to put in it and so on. Why the ten dollars? It's it's it goes to a lot. As you can imagine, these boxes go from Arc City up to Wichita, where they're collected. And in Wichita, they're they're they're aggregated up into a semi trailer. Then they go to the from Wichita.

They go to Dallas. There's they go. There's a processing center in Denver. And I think Janice said there's one in Charlotte. There's multiple processing centers. But that ten dollars covers the transportation costs for those semis, the drivers and so on to get this stuff down to the. Collection centers and then the collection centers. If you haven't been to the collection center, they are big.

It's like an Amazon warehouse. Right. And there's lots of people in there, forklifts and lights and electricity and, you know, all kinds of stuff it takes to run that. So that ten dollars goes to help to cover that. It also goes for the gospel materials that go into this. So there is a gospel message that every child gets and they can learn about Christ from that little book that they get.

And they can also sign. They can sign up for an extended course where they get to come for, say, ten days or I think it's ten lessons of extended like like a like a Sunday school type activity. And then it also trains the local pastors that distribute the boxes and things there. So still lots of shoeboxes. I think that covers everything except for this afternoon.

We're having a shoebox packing party. Joe's going to tell us about that. So we had an idea this year. We had an idea this year to try to go above and beyond and pack even some more boxes and also give parents an opportunity to disciple their kids in ministry. So what we're doing today at one thirty, it's actually going to be at our at our place at the Palmer residence.

We're going to have all of the supplies that you need, all the hygiene items, the boxes, the labels, the toys, all the stuff that you need that your family will need to pack some boxes. So if you just come on out and we'll have everything you need. We're just asking a twenty dollar donation per family to help just cover some of the shipping costs. You can pack more than two boxes.

That's fine. We've there's some other money set aside to cover the rest. But just to help out with the shipping costs, we're asking twenty dollars per family. Also, just so I can get you my address and know all who is coming. There's a sign up sheet in the entryway. So this is today at one thirty. So if you're going to sign up, sign up right after church and I'll make sure that you get our address.

And this is for parents and kids ages kindergarten through eighth grade. So if you fall outside of that range and you'd still like to be involved in help, there's going to be lots of organizing and other jobs available. You can just sign up and I'll get your phone number and reach out to you. We'll definitely have something for you to do. This afternoon. So thank you.

OK, just so you know, any of you who have children in children's church, we already set you up. We told you that we told the kids that they could come to Joe's house. So just in case they're asking when you get out of church, it's Phil's fault.

My name is Bryce Pablo. I'm from Philippines in a small town called Sanchez Mira.

And I was four years. I received a shoe box. When I opened my box, I was so happy because I saw toy cars, stuffed toys, toothbrush and some books. My dog's name is Poppy. My puppy follows me wherever I go. My mother encouraged me to go to church to learn more about God. When I was six, I was a little girl. When I was seven years old, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I'm so amazed with what God is doing. I saw the transformation of my son. Whenever he comes home, I see him reading the Bible. I shared the gospel to my parents and also to my brothers. And they accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, too. Because of that shoe box, God used me. And now I am discipling other children like me. We do not know God before.

Our life was just full of traditions. I'm so grateful for the one who packed the shoe box that changed our life as a whole family.

Okay, great way to get involved. And by the way, they did not ship that dog to him. I just want you to know that. So you can't put a dog in your box. Just stuffed, yes. Real, no. Okay, for our responsive reading, we're going to be in Psalm 142. For the responsive reading part that we do right now, we'll be looking at the New American Standard so that we all sound the same.

If you need a copy, there should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 142, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 142, the mascal of David, when he was in the cave, prayer. I cry aloud with my voice to the Lord. I make supplication with my voice to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before him. I declare my trouble before him. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my path.

In the way where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me. Look to the right and see, for there is no one who regards me. There is no escape for me. No one cares for my soul. I cried out to you, O Lord. I said, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me.

And read verse 7 with me. Bring my soul out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me. Father, I do praise you that you are our refuge. And Lord, we run to you in our deepest need. So, Father, as we spend time in your word this morning, we come to you and say, Lord, we need to hear from you.

And so, Lord, speak to our hearts, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Genesis, chapter 3. Genesis, chapter 3. In our typical Sunday mornings, we've been in Ephesians, chapter 5, working our way through the book of Ephesians, talking about what it looks like to, to walk as a child of God. But the last verse that we covered in Ephesians a couple of weeks ago said

that we are to be subject to one another in the fear of God. And one of the relationships in which there is that mutual subjection, or if you will, mutual submission, is the marriage relationship. And so, I felt it good to take a little bit of time out of our study in Ephesians to spend a couple of weeks just talking about marriage, the marriage relationship, and what God has intended for it. And so, I've entitled last week, this week, and then, of course, the study that we do next week, in Ephesians, Godly Marriage.

Last week, as we looked at Godly Marriage, part 1, we looked at God's plan for marriage. I won't reiterate all of that. We looked at the book of Genesis, chapter 2. We went all the way back to the beginning. If you missed last week, I would encourage you to go to one of the platforms that we have where you can go back and watch that. You can go to our website,

calvarychapelarccity.org. You can go to YouTube and search Calvary Chapel of Arc City, or you can go to Facebook and search Calvary Chapel of Arc City. But if you go to one of those, you can go back and listen to last week's message and see what God's plan for marriage is. Well, today, we deal with another subject in Godly Marriage, part 2. We deal with problems in marriage.

And in particular, in dealing with problems in marriage, we're going to look at two things. We're going to look at the root, and we're going to look at the redemption of those problems that oftentimes people have in marriage. So, marriage is one of those things that nobody has a perfect one, right? Everybody can, at some point in time, no matter how good your marriage is, say that there has been issues. Things have come up.

Because when you bring two people together, when you bring two different human beings with sin natures together, there's always going to occasionally be issues. So there's no perfect marriage. But we do have to understand something. Knowing that there are issues within marriage, it's a lot simpler than oftentimes we make it. Because ultimately, when it comes right down to it, all of the problems

in marriage have one singular root. And all of the redemption of marriage comes down to one singular redemption, and that's through Jesus Christ. So, in order to understand that, I would like to read Genesis chapter 3, which tells the story of the fall of man. So if you will, look at Genesis 3 as I read. You can follow along. It says this, Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the

field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 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 she ate. 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 sewed

fig leaves together, and they made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to them, saying, and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked,

so I hid myself. He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. The Lord God said to the woman, What's this you've done? The woman said, Well, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this,

cursed are you more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.

In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Then to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you. And you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground. Because from it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Then the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skin

for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them. Now, looking at that story, there's two things I would like for us to do this morning. Number one, I want to make some observations about the story of the fall of man. And then number two, I want to look at both the root and the redemption of the issues that we have in marriage. So first of all, let's make some observations about the story.

There's three main categories of observations from the story of the fall of man that I would like to make. Number one comes from the temptation. Within the temptation, there's some things that I would like to point out to you. The first thing that I would like to point out to you about the temptation is that we have a very crafty enemy. We have a very crafty

deceptive enemy who, and then we need to understand this, who hates us. And he particularly hates marriage. He hates humanity because we have been created in the image of God. And anyone created in the image of God, he hates. But he also hates marriage because marriage is the perfect picture of God and humanity. The great love that God has for humanity. And it's a perfect picture of the gospel.

Therefore, this enemy that we have that is deceptive, often times referred to as the father of lies in scripture, is very crafty and he hates us and is looking to destroy us. That's an important fact for us to know. The second thing that I would like to point out to you about the temptation is the very first thing that the serpent does for Eve. The very first temptation that he brings to Eve is this. He causes her

to question God's word. Did you notice the first thing he said? He said, Did God say? Did God really tell you you can't eat from any of the trees of the garden? And he causes her to question what God's word has to say. Why does he cause her to question God's word? Because if he can cause her to question God's word, then he will cause her to question God. And if he can cause her

to question God's word, then that will lead her into temptation. Because the thing that will keep us from sin is the word of God. But the thing that will lead us into sin is the setting aside of the word of God. And that's exactly what he does with Eve. He tells her, Did God really say? Not only does he cause her to question whether or not God really said, but within that question of God's word,

he also causes her to question whether or not God's word is really good. Because he caused her to think that God was withholding something from her that would have actually been really good for her. And so he causes her to question what God's word has to say. The third thing that he does within the temptation, or the second thing that he does within the temptation, is he causes her to diminish the consequences of sin.

God had told Adam, in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Say die. You will surely die. Right? Because that's the consequences of sin. But what does Satan tell Eve? He says, God knows in the day you eat of it, you will not die. You will become like God. And he causes her to diminish the consequences of sin. And brothers and sisters, that happens to us in our lives too, right?

Often times we look at sin and we think it's really not, we all know the phrase, that big of a deal, right? And we diminish those consequences and as we forget God's word and diminish the consequence, well we can be led into anything, right? That brings me to the fourth observation that I have, and that's that she was led astray by her desires. As a matter of fact, she said it was desirable to eat, desirable to see, and desirable to make one wise.

She was led astray by her desires. Why do I point that out? Because James in his epistle tells us, let no one say when he is tempted that he is tempted by God because God can neither sin nor tempt anyone with sin. No, one is deceived when they are led away by, or one is led into sin when they are led away by their desires. And when we are led away by our desires,

we give in to sin. The very last thing that I'll point out to you about the temptation is this. Eve had a desire to be her own God. Because did you notice that that was the last thing he told her? He said, you can be like God, knowing good from evil. And at the heart of so many sins that we deal with is the desire to be our own God. Because each of us wants to be able to say,

I can do what I want to do because it's right in my eyes. I am my own authority on what's right and what's wrong. And that's exactly what he does with Eve. He tempts her in this way. And so those are kind of some observations about the temptation. And later we'll talk about why those are important. The second thing that I would like to make some observations about is the sin.

Because remember, after she is led away by her desires, her desire ultimately to be her own God, she takes of the fruit and she eats, and then she hands it to her husband, and he eats. She hands it to Adam and he eats of it too. So the first observation that I make about the sin is that Adam did not lead Eve. Adam was not a good leader at this point in time. The Hebrew construction

of the sentence where it says, she then gave also to her husband and he ate, indicates that he was right there with her. You know what that means? That means Adam was not a good leader. And I want you to think about something. If you were to go back and read Genesis chapter 2, you will notice God never once gives Eve the command directly. Who does he give the command

to? He gives the command to Adam. What was Adam's job now? It was to lead his wife. It was to pass the command on to his wife in its ultimate perfect way. Only, what do we notice that Eve had done with the command? She had added to it, right? Because she said, don't eat of it or touch it, that's the beginning of legalism, or touch it lest you'll die. She added to

God's word. So either Adam added to God's word or she added to God's word. Either way, Adam failed to be a leader. That's the first thing I notice about the sin. The second thing that I notice about the sin is that it brought shame. Do you know how I know that it brought shame? I know that it brought shame for two reasons. Number one, because they sought to cover their nakedness. Did you take

note of the very first thing it says that they noticed? It says in verse 7, Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. Do you remember what it said in the very last verse of Genesis chapter 2? You can look back over there if you want. It says they were both naked and not important word, ashamed. But you see, now they realized their nakedness. Why? Because they had been

clothed in the righteousness of God, but now that they have sinned, they have been stripped of the righteousness of God, and now they are both naked and ashamed. So they sought to cover themselves. They sought to cover that shame. How did they seek to cover the shame? Well, first of all, they did it in their own way. They made themselves fig leaves to cover themselves.

Now, as a sidebar, to lighten things up for just a moment, I've done some reading about fig leaves. Fig leaves are the itchiest leaf known to man. And what did they cover their parts with? They covered their loin parts with the itchiest leaves known to man, right? Good call, Adam. Man was never allowed to pick out clothes again, right? That's why when you got up for

church this morning, you didn't get to pick out your clothes, did you guys? No, you said. Does this look okay? And she said, no, that's a terrible idea. Here, wear this. Why? Because it all started with Adam. So they sought to cover their shame. That's the first reason I know that sin brings shame. But the second reason I know that sin brings shame is because they hid themselves from God.

See, God showed up in the garden, just like He did every other day, in the cool of the day, to walk with Adam and Eve, right? To hang out with Adam and Eve. The whole reason why they were created. And instead, what did they do? They hid themselves. Matter of fact, it says, then the Lord God called to the man, verse 9, He said, where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden.

I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. He said, who told you? You were naked. Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? You see, there was shame. He hid himself because of the shame. And may I say, not to get ahead of myself, but the only way that we can see God's redemption in our life is if we'll stop hiding. Because the only way to disarm the shame

is to admit the truth and be clothed once again in the righteousness of Christ. Getting ahead of myself. The third thing that I notice about sin is this. Sin causes us to blame other people. Causes us to shift the blame onto other people. Notice what it says. God said, have you eaten from the tree, verse 11, which I commanded you not to eat? Notice what the man says. Yes, I did. I was

wrong. No, that's not what he said. He said, the woman! The woman you gave to be with me, she gave Oh, there's so many jokes I want to make right now. But I won't. I won't. I'm learning my lesson, slowly but surely. She gave me from the tree and I ate it. He said, it's her fault. Right? It's the woman. Right? And so he looks at the woman and what does he say?

The Lord God said to the woman, verse 13, what is this you have done? The woman said, the devil made me do it. Right? It was the serpent. He gave me the tree. He deceived me and I ate. Meanwhile, the serpent's just like, right? He doesn't need to blame anybody. Of course he's like, not that. So it causes them to blame shift. And you know what? That's what happens to us when we

sin too, isn't it? We want to blame everybody else. Matter of fact, that's one of the big problems we're having in our culture right now. Is we want to blame everybody else in the world for our sin except where it belongs. So they blame shift it. The third thing that I want to point out to you that I want to make some comments on is the consequences that come from sin.

There's three people that receive consequences. Well, there's three entities that receive consequences. Number one is the serpent. Notice what it says. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every other beast of the field. The first thing about them is that they are cursed. The second is that they will always crawl on

their belly. Now, here's the thing about Genesis chapter 3. I can make about 13 sermons out of Genesis chapter 3 and I've had to remain disciplined and only stick with this one. So I'm not going to go into too much about the serpent at this point in time. Although just know there's a lot to be said. You can go back and check out our Genesis chapter 3 study again in those same places. Because I make all

of the comments there. But so the serpent is caused to be not only cursed but has to crawl on his belly. I don't know how he crawled before that. But now he has to crawl on his belly. And he's cursed. Which brings me to my next point kids. Snakes are evil. Right? I have snake-a-phobia. That's a real thing. Don't think I made that up. I have snake-a-phobia and my philosophy is this. If God

curses snakes, I curse snakes. Who am I to go against God? Anyway, and if you own snakes I just need you to know. Dangerous territory. Dangerous territory you're teetering in right now. I'm just kidding. But notice what he says next. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman. And between your seed and her seed. He gets a little deeper at this point in time. Now there's

a spiritual enmity that will always be there. And the last curse of the serpent is ultimate defeat. Because notice what it says. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. We'll talk about that more when we get into the redemption portion of the message. The second set of consequences go to the woman. And essentially there's three

things that will happen to the woman. Number one, she will have the New American Standard says pain in childbirth. I prefer the New King James translation on this because it says sorrow in childbirth. Because it indicates the depth of which the pain that women will experience in childbirth. Which is why the day after you give birth you're not like hey let's do this again tomorrow. Right ladies?

I remember when my sister had my niece. I was like you know they say that once the baby comes the joy is there and you're like oh I can have another baby. Is that true? And she goes not yet. Right? Because there's pain in childbirth. Right? And so that makes that a difficult thing to do. But the second aspect is that her desire will be for her husband. Now I want to point out something

to you about what it means by your desire will be for your husband because it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you will have this longing, craving for your husband. Instead this is where the power struggle comes from. Because the word desire there is an interesting word. Because that same Hebrew word for desire is used later on in the book of Genesis. You see Adam and Eve will go on

and have some sons. Two of their sons are named Cain and Abel. Cain will find that he hates Abel and wants to kill him. And God shows up before that happens and says what are you doing? And he has a conversation with him. He says you need to understand something. Sin's desire is for you. Same Hebrew word. But you should rule over it. The idea of that word desire is the

desire to rule over. Because notice the third thing. Your desire will be for your husband but he will rule over you. You see part of the fall is that there is now a power struggle between men and women. I know we don't see that very often in our culture or marriages today but there really is. Just believe me there is a power struggle between men and women. It exists.

And then comes the man. The curses for the man are these. First of all cursed is the ground. Cursed is the ground. And can I just tell you from everything that we see right now is the ground cursed or what? Right? This is why you have to spray for weeds because now it's going to produce thorns and thistles. Growing grain will not be the easiest thing in the world to do. There will always be work

that's involved in it. But not only that he tells them that work will be great toil. Now I want to point something out. Work is not the curse. Work is a blessing from God. It's a gift from God. The fact that work is hard is a part of the curse. The fact that work is now toil. The fact that work overtakes our lives now is a part of the curse. Because you see

I see this in the lives of men. And usually it goes one of two extremes. This idea of work being hard and then becoming a curse to men. Either one they become workaholics. Right? All you want to do is work. And it absorbs every aspect of your life. And you spend all of your time talking about it. All of your time thinking about it. And you become absorbed with it.

Sometimes I'll do a funeral for a dad that passes away. And it's always sad to me when I say so tell me a little bit about him. Tell me some stories. And they're like well he really didn't have any hobbies. Work was his only hobby. And I always think man that's just so sad. Right? So that's one end of the spectrum where the toil can become a real curse to us. But the other end is that some men

just don't want to work at all. And if they do work they complain every moment of every day about the work that they have to do. Because work is now toil to us. And then of course the third aspect of the curse for man is this. Death. Notice what it says at the end of verse 19. Till you return to the ground. Because from it you are taken. For you are dust. And to dust

you shall return. And so as we see the fall of man. We see his temptation. We see his sin. And we see that there's consequences. And those consequences of sin are why we have problems not only in our world but what we're talking about now in our marriages today. Because that brings me to the second thing that we want to talk about. We want to talk about the root of the problems

of marriage. And we want to talk about the redemption of the problems of marriage. So let's first of all talk about the root. Now I'm going to give you one small little word that is the root of every problem in every marriage in America and in the entire world today. And that problem is sin. You say no, no, no. That's not what the book that I read says. The book that I read said he's not supportive enough.

No, the problem is sin. That's the problem. It can come by a bunch of different names and we're going to talk about a few of those in just a minute. But at the root of every problem in every marriage is sin. Because at the root of every problem in every life is sin. And the fact that we will not admit that it's sin is why we can't solve the problem. The fact that we

can't admit that it's sin is why you'll never get help. The fact that we can't admit that it's sin is why you'll never come to Jesus. Because we always want to put a bunch of different names on it. Because if we put different names on it it doesn't sound as bad. Because I'm not going to lie. The moment that you say I have a problem with sin, it sounds awful coming out of your mouth.

But I will be honest with you, the only way that you can be set free from the problems is if you will eventually say I have a problem with sin because then you've just disarmed its power in your life. The fact that you won't confess it, the fact that you won't admit it means that it still has so much power over you. Because the root problem in every marriage of every person I've ever worked with is the same root problem that I ever have in my marriage. And that's sin.

But as we look at that root, I think that there's about five different ways that we see that really play out. We see that sin play out in the lives of marriages today. So I want to tell you, based not only on Genesis chapter 3 but from my own experiences, how the root of sin plays itself out in our marriages. Number one, a failure to trust and obey God's word.

A failure to trust and obey God's word. I want to challenge you to do something. If you're having problems in your marriage today, I want you to start asking yourself, where am I not obeying God? God's word. Where has God's word stopped taking center place in my life? Because I promise, if you're having problems in your marriage, somewhere within the relationship, God's word has stopped taking center

place in your life. It has stopped being the main focal point in your marriage. And because of that, you like Eve, have found yourself led astray because you got away from the word of God. You got away from what this has to say by following its commands, by listening to its precepts, by knowing it's God. Because this is the place where you will find freedom from sin.

And escaping from it is the place where you will find sin controlling you. Because you will be led by one of two things in life. You will either be led by God or you will be led by sin. And the only way that you can be led by God is if you are following the word. And so, where do we find the root of sin in our lives? Well, it starts with a failure to trust and obey God's

word. You know what the great thing is? All you have to do is get back into God's word. All you have to do is get back to what it says. And you'll find that there's freedom from sin. Number two. And this one's going to be a little bit harder to talk about. Number two. A lack of spiritual leadership. Now fellas, I'm going to talk to you for just a minute. And I'm going to be a little bit

hard on you for just a minute, okay? Because being a spiritual leader is one of the hardest things that God has given for us to do. It's not your job. It's not whatever any other task that you've been called to do. It's being a spiritual leader in your home. You know why? Because part of the fall is that work is hard. And part of the work that we've been called to do is to be spiritual

leaders in our homes. You know what that means? It means it's hard. And being a spiritual leader is one of the hardest jobs you'll ever have to do. You know why? Because it means you're going to have to die to yourself, but it also means you're going to have to say no. And we live in a culture right now that doesn't like to be told no. And often times we as men are told

that the best thing that you can do is make your wife happy at whatever cost. Just say yes to everything. And that's not the key to happiness. The key to happiness is to say yes to God's word. And to lead our families. And sometimes it will make you not only the most unpopular person in your house, but the most unpopular person in all of the people around you.

I know I've had to do it. And I have become an incredibly unpopular human being at points in time. Because I've had to stand up and say, this is what God's word says. This is what we need to do. And this is what we are going to do. And I've had to convince myself over and over again, no you're doing the right thing. Because in the moment it's the hardest thing that you'll ever do. Because often

times people will question you. Are you making too big of a deal out of this? Are you being a little bit too hard on this? And I have to say no. Because this is what God's word says. And I'm going to follow it to the best of my ability. And if that means I become unpopular, it means I become unpopular. But men, you've got to quit worrying about whether or not everybody likes you.

And you've got to start worrying about whether or not you're obeying God. Because we need spiritual leaders that will step up. We need spiritual leaders that are willing to become unpopular. We need spiritual leaders that will make hard decisions. We need spiritual leaders who will sometimes say, I was wrong and I'm willing to be right. But the root of sin in marriages

often times finds that men won't lead. We're told in the book of 1 Timothy that Eve was deceived. Adam sinned willfully. And one of the biggest aspects of willful sin in his life is that he didn't lead. And men, God's calling us to lead. And he's given us everything that we need to do it. He's given us his word. And he's given us his Holy Spirit. He's given us other brothers.

He's given us everything that we need. So not only does sin find its root in a failure to trust and obey God's word, but sin finds its root in a lack of spiritual leadership. Number three, the power struggle. Sin finds its root in marriages and a power struggle. Alright ladies, I'm going to talk to you for just a minute. I'm going to hit this again next week, so just deal with it.

You've got to let your husbands lead. You've got to let your husbands be the leaders. It's already hard for them. Speaking as a husband, I've just got to tell you, it's already hard for them. But you need to allow your husband to lead. And sometimes it's hard, because sometimes you go, man, I don't know, that guy's not that smart sometimes. You know? Look at the clothes he picked out.

Right? I mean, just sometimes he doesn't know what he's doing. But you've got to lead. You've got to follow him. Because that power struggle is always where a root of sin comes from in the life of a marriage. Because there can't be two people in charge. There can only be one leader. I know this from jobs that I've had. Listen, I've never been a wife. Well, there was one time. But other than that,

I've never been a wife before. That's a joke. Thank you for laughing. See, I haven't learned my lesson just yet, have I? What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I remember. But I've been in jobs before where I've been the one that has to subject himself, submit to the guy that's in charge. And I look at the guy that's in charge and I'm like, but I've still got to follow him.

And I may not agree, but he's the guy in charge. That makes him the responsible party. And you know what my responsibility is? To follow him. Right? Ladies, that power struggle is a serious, real issue in marriages. And you need to let your husbands lead. I lost track of my numbers. What number am I on now? Number four. Putting our own desires first. We talked about this last week too. It's almost like

it's an important thing to talk about. Because sometimes that root of sin finds itself saying, but I want what I want. And I want it now. Right? I want it all. And I want it now. Right? And that's what we find ourselves saying. And listen, in a marriage you can't have everybody saying, but I want what I want. Right? I remember there was this show on at one point in time. Super obnoxious show.

On the TLC it was called John and Kate Plus Eight. Y'all remember John and Kate Plus Eight? Anybody remember that? They had like eight kids and they had to parent these kids and there was a power struggle. And you know what the power struggle was? They both wanted what they wanted. She wanted to be famous. He didn't want to be on a TV show anymore. So then they got divorced.

Why? Because they both wanted what they wanted. They both wanted to pursue their own dreams. They both wanted to pursue their own things. And when that takes place in a marriage it's a major root of sin because part of marriage is learning to die to self. Right? Putting myself aside. So, one of the major issues is putting our own desires first. And then number five.

Failure to take responsibility for actions. Failure to take responsibility for actions. The root of sin finds itself in most marriages blaming everybody else. You don't understand. He's not the husband I thought he was going to be. You don't understand. He's not meeting my expectations. Therefore, it's his fault. He's the reason this marriage isn't working. You don't understand.

She nags me all the time. She won't let me be the leader. You don't understand. She has all of these issues in her life. And that's the problem. She's the reason why this marriage isn't working. You don't understand. All of these other people, they're the problem. Everything else, it's the problem. Society, social media, we blame everything else in the world except sometimes where the

blame needs to go. And we shift the blame onto everybody else. And listen, the root of sin in marriages finds itself blaming everybody else around us. And that root plays itself out in those five ways over and over and over again. And we have to do something to deal with the root of the problem. Now, I've just painted a little bit of a bleak picture for you, am I right?

I want you to know something. I don't care how bad your marriage is. I don't care how far you feel like you've fallen. There is redemption. Because the place of redemption for your marriage is the same place of redemption that you'll find for your life. And that's in Jesus. Because you see, here's the thing about the gospel message. The gospel is not just for the individual.

The gospel is for the family. Because the gospel does more work than we can ever imagine. It restores people. It restores marriages. It restores relationships. Because that's what the gospel is in the business of doing. The gospel is in the business of restoration. Let's look as we look at this root of redemption that's found in Jesus Christ. Let's look at a couple of things. First of all, let's look

at the promise of redemption. I want you to look back at Genesis chapter 3 and I want you to look at verse 15 again. It says, And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. This is what we call the proto-evangelicum. The first promise of the gospel that's given

to us in scripture. Now there's an interesting play on words here because it says that there will always be enmity between the serpent, Satan, and the woman. And between his seed and her seed. Now if you've taken that really special class that you take in your freshman year of high school, you know that the woman doesn't produce the seed, right? So what does he mean by the seed

of the woman? Brothers and sisters, that is the very first prediction, that is the very first prophecy of the virgin birth. You see, sin would now pass down through humanity, through Adam. As a matter of fact, Adam is who passed sin to all of us. We're told that in Romans chapter 5. And so in order for there to be a savior, he had to be sinless. How can a savior be born

sinless if he is born of a man? Well he can't be because sin would be passed on to him through the seed of the man. Therefore he must come through the seed of the woman. How can that happen? It's a mystery, isn't it? He would have to be born of a virgin, meaning it would have to be the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only is this the promise of the virgin birth, but it's the

promise of the ultimate destruction of Satan because he says, you shall bruise his heel, speaking of a non-mortal wound, he shall bruise your head, speaking of a mortal wound. Now, one of the best ways that I can think to picture this is given to us in the very beginning of the Passion of the Christ. You guys seen that movie? If you haven't, I would recommend you watch it.

In the very beginning of the Passion of the Christ, Jesus is in the garden and he's praying. It's artistic rendering. I want you to know that this didn't really happen, but it's a really good picture. The snake starts slithering its way through the garden, right? It comes all the way up to Jesus and it strikes him on the heel. As soon as it strikes him on the heel, he lifts up his

foot and it crushes its head. It's exactly what's pictured here because in the cross, when Jesus is crucified on the cross, that's the bruising of his heel. Satan thought, I finally won! I destroyed the seed of the woman! I destroyed the only one who can destroy me! Then three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, ultimately defeating Satan. And while he is defeated in theory

now, he will ultimately be defeated in practicality when the God of peace will crush Satan underneath of his feet. You see, Satan, who is the tempter of the brother and the crafty one who wants to deceive us, he's already been defeated by Jesus. But not only do we see this promise to destroy the enemy and to disarm sin, but we're also given a beautiful picture. Look over at verse 21.

It says, The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. The Lord God made garments of skin. What was the first thing that they realized when they had sinned? They realized that they were naked. What did they try to do? They tried to cover it with their own efforts, didn't they? They tried to cover it in the way that they knew how to.

They made fig leaves for themselves, and they did a really bad job of covering themselves. Well, brothers and sisters, that's what we not only do with our sins, but sometimes that's what we do with our marriages, right? We do it with our sin and try to say, nobody will see me. I'm covering myself up now with these terrible fig leaves. Only our righteousness doesn't do a very good

job of covering us, because it comes out in every other way possible. But we also do it with our marriages. We say, I'll just read the next self-help book. I'll just read, look at the next whatever psychology says about it. I'll just figure out what the next new thing out is, and I'll do it that way. I'll just try a little bit harder. Meanwhile, our marriages continue

to fall apart. Why? Because we're trying to cover it with fig leaves when God wants to cover it with His sacrifice. Because how did He get the skins of animals to cover them with? He had to kill an animal. The first substitutionary death was given to us in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. I want to point something out to you, and I thought it to be interesting. I've never noticed it until I studied it this time.

And I've taught Genesis chapter 3 a bunch of times before, and I've never noticed this before. And that's the active role of God in what He did here. I want you to notice what it says. It says, the Lord made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and the Lord clothed him. I added the word Lord there. It just says, and clothed, but it carries the same idea of the subject. And the Lord

clothed him. Now I looked that up in two or three different ways to see what it means by clothed them. And literally what it says there is what it means. He clothed them. He put the skins on them. It doesn't say He gave them skins and they put them on. It says He clothed them. What does that mean? It means the work of redemption is always the work of God. What did Adam and Eve had to do?

They had to accept it. They had to submit to it. God did the work of redemption. God did the work of covering. All they did was receive it by faith. The redemption is found in Jesus. Ryan, what does this mean for me in my marriage? Let's get practical with this. So I've called this last little part marital redemption. How can we have redemption in our marriages? Well, marital

redemption first of all begins, number one, with individual redemption. And this is going to speak to everybody here whether you're married or not. It always begins with individual redemption. What does that mean? That means that you need to own up to the sin in your life. Because until you are right with God, you will never be able to be right with anyone else.

Until you are right with God, you can't be right in your marriage. Until you are right with God, you can't be right in any other relationship. Until you're right with God, nothing else can move forward. So there has to be individual redemption. What does that look like? Well, number one, you need to confess your sin. As God reveals to you the sin that's in your life, you've got to confess it

to the Lord. You've got to be clean of it because the sin has power over you because you will not confess it to the Lord. And so you've got to confess that sin to the Lord. Then you've got to repent of that sin. You've got to walk the other direction from it and receive the forgiveness that only Jesus Christ can give. If you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus

as your Lord and Savior, I promise you, you will always have issues in relationships. And the reason why you'll have issues in relationships is because you're not right with God. And that individual redemption has to take place first. If you're here this morning and you're saved and you're still going, Ryan, I'm still having issues in relationships. That means you've got sin you need to deal with

in your life. And stop calling it other names. Stop dancing around it and say, I have a problem with sin. Confess it to the Lord, repent of it, and allow Him to forgive you and restore you. Because until you do that, you can't fix your marriage. And until you're willing to own up to it, your marriage will always be the same. Number two, you need couple's redemption. That sounds

dumb, Ryan. I know it's the only word I can come up with. What does that mean? It means that you need to do what I think is one of the most powerful things that you can do. As a married couple, you need to go to God together, and you need to confess your sin before the Lord. You need to confess to the Lord what's been going on in your life. You need to confess to the Lord the areas where you

have had a failure to trust and obey His word, where you haven't been a spiritual leader, where you haven't allowed your husband to lead, where you've been putting your desires first, where you haven't been taking responsibility for your actions. Go to God together. And say, Lord, we have sinned. Lord, we have failed. And we need to see that repentance. We need to see that redemption in our lives.

And so we repent of these areas, Lord, because we want to see healing. We want to see the healing that can take place only through you. And you know what's amazing? God is so good at healing marriages. I've seen it over and over again. Where I've seen marriages that I'm like, dude, I don't know if that one's coming out of this. I don't know if that one's going to survive.

And not only has it survived, but it's now stronger than I've ever seen before. One of my favorite songs is She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy. Really turns her on. Right? You know why? Because I like the story behind that song. You know the story behind that song? The story behind that song is this. The guy that wrote the song, his marriage was falling apart. And so he did exactly what I just said to do.

He repented of his sin. He and his wife repented of sin together. And God healed their relationship. And the healing that took place in their relationship was so deep that he was on his way to town and his wife was with him and he was on his way to buy a new tractor. And God had brought so much healing in their marriage that she thought it was the cutest thing

that she'd ever seen to see him so excited to go buy a new tractor. That song is about redemption in marriage. Because that's what God's able to do. God is able to heal and He's able to redeem. And brothers and sisters, we need to understand that. Because remember what we said last week. Marriage is the ultimate curriculum of love and holiness. That means we

need to learn about redemption. Right? And then number three, you have to forgive each other. You have to forgive each other. When that confession starts taking place, you gotta forgive. Too many people running around that won't forgive each other. They are just holding sins against each other. They've decided they're never gonna change and they will not forgive. And brothers and sisters, we need to

understand something about forgiveness. The Bible says, if you do not forgive, I will not forgive you. God takes forgiveness pretty seriously. Now listen, I understand that there are points in time in marriages where because of either abuse or affairs or things like that, the marriage relationship can never be restored. I think that there are few and far between. I think it's a rarity,

but I know it happens. But you know what? Even then, you still have to forgive. Yep, still got to. That's what the Bible says. You say, how can I forgive them for what they've done? Well, how can Jesus forgive you for what you've done? You always gotta remember that. Gotta forgive each other. Now as we sit here this morning, I don't know where anybody in this room is in your marriage.

I don't know where you are in your life. I don't know where you are in your relationship with the Lord, or your relationship with other people for that matter. But I want you to know something. God is calling you to a place of redemption. God is calling you to a place of repentance and forgiveness. And if there are relationships that need healed in here this morning,

then I want to see God do that. If your life needs healing from sin this morning, then I want to see God do that. Amen? So let's all stand. I'll invite the worship team to come on up. They're gonna come up and share one last song with us. But I want you to do something for me. I just want everybody to bow your heads and close your eyes. I'm not gonna make anybody come forward.

I could have an altar call. But I do want you to do something for me. If you're here this morning, and you need some aspect of healing, some aspect of redemption in your life. Maybe it's in your marriage. Maybe it's in your relationship with the Lord. Maybe it's a relationship with somebody else. And you need to see the redemption that only Jesus Christ can bring through the blood.

Through that righteousness that comes through Christ. If you need that this morning, I just want you to do something for me. I just want you to put your hand up because I want to pray for you. Praise the Lord. Lord, you're so good. And your word is so good to us. And Lord, I just lift up every hand that's raised right now in the life that those represent. Father, they need healing.

They need restoration. They need the redemption that can only come through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, I just want to pray that you would move in their hearts and in their lives this morning. Father, that they would first come to a place where they're right with you. If they don't know you, may today be the day that they go home and they say, Lord, I know that

I'm a sinner. And Lord, I know that I need to receive you as my Savior, so come into my life and make me brand new. Lord, may they go home and do that today. May today be their day of salvation. And Lord, for those who know you but have found themselves walking in sin, may today be the day that they say, Lord, not again. I confess these sins. I don't want to walk in them anymore.

And Lord, for those damaged marriages, those damaged marriages where it's time to take responsibility, where it's time to own up to what we've done wrong and see the blood of Jesus Christ bring a healing that only the blood of Jesus Christ can bring, I just pray for those people, Lord. Lord, I pray for those hands that are up. I pray for the ones who aren't willing to put their hand up because they're too ashamed. Lord, we know that there is no shame too deep for you not to cover it.

Lord, there is no shame too deep that the body of Christ can't come around and love. There's no shame too deep that should keep us from saying, Lord, I am a sinner in need of a savior. And Lord, I need the strength of you and I need brothers and sisters around me that will love me. So Lord, for those that feel like they can't do this, they feel like they're too far gone, they feel like they're too far away from you, may they know and understand the deep love that you have for them this morning.

And Lord, in their hearts, may they begin to receive that redemption that can only come from you. Father, heal marriages. Heal relationships. And move as you see fit. Father, we thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed. Lord God, we just give you thanks for the word that you gave us today, Lord. Thank you for the work that you do in our

lives, Lord God. And in our marriages, Lord. And in our families. And in our communities. We thank you, Lord.

And I thank thee so as I often do every song must end. Lord God, again, we just thank you. We lift praise to you, Lord. For what you're doing in our lives and for what you've done for us, Lord. We throw up our hands to you. And we praise you again and again. God, just for what you've done for us and for the works that you're doing in our lives, in our marriages,

In our families, Lord God, we give you praise. For what you're doing in our communities, we give you praise. For what you're doing in our schools, we give you praise, Lord. And in our churches, we give you praise. We love you, Lord. We praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.