Teaching About Marriage

Jim Clements and Gisèle Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · July 21, 2024 · Kingdom Citizens series

Jim and Gisèle Clements share their own marriage story and look at Genesis 1 and 2 and Matthew 5, showing that marriage is God's design and that purity and keeping our word begin in the heart. They encourage praying for family and writing a letter to yourself.

More from Jim Clements · More from Gisèle Clements · The Kingdom Citizens series

Topics: Prayer, Marriage & Family, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Well, it is a good morning and it is family service. And we thought that I would've let Gisèle preach this morning on family service. Thank you. So you can leave now. Yeah, I appreciate that affirmation. But you think I'm crazy? Leave her by herself? No way. Well, it's family service and a lot of times you don't get to get a glimpse into our lives. And so we thought that we would share, we're gonna share about three things. We've adjusted a little because we know who's in the house and, but we thought we'd start off by just sharing a little bit about us and, like, I remember our first date, like, oh man, it was so good. Yeah. I called him up one night, knowing he was alone, invited him over for a hockey game at my house, where with some friends. And, lo and behold, after the hockey game, we stayed up talking all night and he began to ask, We just didn't talk.

[0:52] I had 50 questions that I had designed. I was 26 years old. I was so done with dating. Like, if you weren't marrying material after these 50 questions, I'm moving on to the next first date. Lucky me. No, that should have been a red flag for me. But no, I just answered and I won the prize. She won the prize. And for me, I knew that I prayed even though I wasn't following Christ at the time. And I knew I wanted to. I just knew I needed that person to just be that right beside me, strong, that also wanted to seek faith at the same time. For me, it was those shorts. Oh yeah, those shorts right there. So after six months of dating, I decided she's, it, 50 questions, six months.

[1:40] I asked her to marry me, and two months later we got married. We Thank you. Yeah. Yes. It really has been survived. Attorney. She Survived. Survived. As my dad said at the time when he walked by us after the ceremonies, he said, "There's no refunds." Yeah. Believe me, I took a magnifying glass to that marriage paper. So We've been married how long this year? 33 years. See, guys, that's how you do it. Yeah. Guys, if you're ever in doubt, just look at your wife and go, "How long have we been married this year?" And see, she piped right up. I didn't even have to remember. But one of the things we, Hopefully they don't say 33 years. If it's not 33 years, that would be bad. So we've had lots of adventures, we've had lots of fun, we've had losses.

[2:25] We lost our first child. We went through, we survived a house fire. Complete house fire. Yeah. Everything we own. And when it happened on a Sunday morning, and I said, my last statement, I said after a three-week prayer series, was, as long as I've got church family praying for me and friends praying for me, I can survive anything, I said, so Satan, take your best shot. 90 minutes later We're lost outside in the front lawn watching firemen throw furniture out the window. Out the window. Fortunately, by the grace of God, our children and ourselves got out safely. And God has used that moment in our lives. And yeah, We went to church that night and I actually had to borrow a T-shirt. I think I invented body-fit T-shirts at that point in time.

[3:11] The only thing it was that after, you know, three months being misplaced in a, in different homes, in different living situations, we bought our new house and our first evening meal together as a family was at the kitchen table. And the kids going, "Well, I don't want that." So we go ahead. So then I said, "Hold up. I don't see a menu on this table. So you're going to eat what you got." She still says that today. And it's only me at home. I'm a consumer, not an eater. But one of the cool things is we've had an incredible marriage. We've had the ups and the downs. We've had exciting times. We even went out and would serve in our community elementary schools in a fashion that would snuck us in.

[3:59] So nobody knew we were the pastor and his wife. Take a look at this picture. We like to help Santa during the holidays to help. And then we've had lots of adventures. We got a chance to go to the UK when nobody was looking. We were in a castle. We got a chance to get this picture in Scotland. Can't sit in the king or queen's seat unless you get there. So today, one of the topics that we have of the three is marriage. And whether you're sitting here and you're not married yet, you're thinking of getting married, you're dating, you're engaged, you're already married, whatever it is, we just want to talk about marriage. But we don't think we can talk about marriage until we go to the beginning. To the beginning. So in Genesis, the origin, the origin, Genesis 2:7, the creation of man.

[4:47] Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living being. Whoa, man. Whoa, man. See what I did there? No, see, this way can leave by the best part because in Genesis 2:18, 20-24, and the Lord said, "It is not good for the man should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him." Oh wait. Now some people might think that's a typo. It's not a typo. When you look at some of the old versions of the Scripture, it says, "help meet." And I've read it a number of times, a help meet is actually somebody to come alongside to share life with and to go on a journey in all the jobs and tasks to do. It moved from help meet, two words.

[5:35] Yep. To helpmeet, one word. To help mate. And then finally, help her. Okay, continue. Description Her. Hear that? Her, her. Yeah. Yeah. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he was on the sofa. He took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib. Woo! Let's say it, women. What did He make? Woman from the whoop, the rib. And He'd taken out of the man and brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

[6:26] And she shall be called." Yeah. For she was taken out of. Yeah. That is why man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife. And they become one flesh. So as a creation, we're watching a marriage happening right there in the Scripture. And when we think about marriage, it's so important to know that we've gotta hold that in the highest regard. It's nothing that just comes by simple. It's nothing of society, it is of God. And we see it right at the beginning. And we've gotta know that as God's creation for each of us, we must protect our future marriage, our current marriage, and the marriage that will grow as it continues. And that means keeping ourselves healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually in doing that.

[7:14] Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. Adam and Eve were created in chapter two, right? But chapter one says this in Genesis 1:27-28. So God created man in His own image and in the image of God, He created them, male and female, and He created them and God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish in the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And sometimes that could get confusing when you go back and you see that, oh wait, now God created in chapter one. But chapter two, well, chapter two is just giving you more detail in a recount of what happened in chapter one.

[8:05] There wasn't some other people created in chapter one. There wasn't like humankind created. And then Adam and Eve were identified. If chapter two is just giving you more detail of what happened in chapter one. And God wants it and tells us in that, that He wants a personal relationship. That is the creation of what He is doing. Because, and when it says we were created in God's image, like God's not human and we're not God, but God wanted us to be created in, He wanted to create us in His image, His image as good moral beings with good spirituality, with good intellect. God wants us to be like that in His characteristics. But back to the marriage, okay, back to the marriage. Now we've got creation of man and woman.

[8:52] We've got marriage going on. But the seventh commandment says, what? You shall not, who knows the seventh commandment, who does you shall not commit? Say it. You shall not commit adultery. And Matthew 5:27-28 says, you have heard that the commandment that says you must not commit adultery. But I say anyone who even looks at a woman or man in lust has already committed adultery in their heart. Well, that's like, that's the law. And back in the day, they had, we had law, we've been talking about this, all this serious law versus what Jesus says. Yeah. Remember, there's two phrases that Jesus uses in Sermon on the Mount. One is, you have heard it was said, but then He says, but I say this to you.

[9:41] See, the crazy thing is, back in the day, the Pharisees, they look for external actions. So when they defined adultery, they would look at a person and say, oh, this is what they're doing. Look, they're with somebody else. And they'd say that's against the law. When they would see it, it was outward, it was external actions that they did. But what they didn't do is they didn't think about inside. And that's what Jesus talks about. So the Pharisees, if they saw promiscuity or external actions that weren't appropriate, they knew that they were out. But see those things in our lives when they come up, whether it's adultery or any other sin, it started a long journey before it got to an outward action. You know where it started? It started in the heart.

[10:28] You know, lust is a sin. And it begins inside and works itself to the outside. And things we are reading and things we are watching, just, it feels so many evil issues in our present day with computers and, movies, that you're watching that you probably shouldn't be watching that are R-rated or have higher than certain level, PGE, whatever. So, and I'm showing my age, I guess, but things like rape and pornography, mental, marital abuse, divorce, physical abuse, then these are just to name a few. Jesus gets to it. It's no longer just the external action.

[11:14] It is the heart. What we have is a heart issue. Heart issue. And that's where people need to go back to the beginning of the journey of when their heart comes out. Adultery begins with the heart. Sin begins with the heart. It all begins with the eyes. It's said that our eyes are the windows to our hearts. And when our hearts and our eyes lust after someone, then we have already committed adultery with them in our hearts. Our eyes are what we need to be in control of. And Scripture warns us, all of us, all of our relationships. In Job 31:1, it says this, I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl, or vice versa.

[12:04] Or vice versa. Jesus tells us, and this is for everyone, Matthew 6:22-23, He says this, your eyes are like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep is that darkness? Then get that again. If the light you think you have is darkness, then how deep is the darkness that you're truly in? Okay, that's pretty heavy. Let's talk about our families. And we have a diagram that we wanna walk through with you about what? But You know what? We should show 'em our family.

[12:51] Oh yeah. We actually have a family. We'd like to see our family. Yeah. Alright, here we go. This is our daughter, Dominique. She lives in the Minneapolis, Minnesota region. So she is grown and gone. And then our son, Dawson, he lives in Southern California. He's grown and gone. And they actually used to come to church when they were babies here on. So that was cool. Rateon one 60 is where you were, Mrs. B. Then there's a picture of us trying to storm Buckingham Palace. And then, even though we lived in the States for 25 years, when hockey came and it was World Junior Championship, this was us. Go Canada! You can take the Canadians outta Canada, but you can't take Canada out of the Canadians.

[13:38] Yeah. They still bleed red and white. So with the personal relationship, we had to realize that as a family it becomes very complicated. We're a family of four, and I just wanna walk through what a family of four, when you truly look at it the way that God wants you to be in family together, how complicated that could be. So we started off with Adam, then we added Eve. Let's add a couple of children in there. So we get to a family of four. Now watch this. The first relationship that happens through marriage is mom and Dad, back and forth. Relationship number one. Dad has two other relationships individually with each of the kids. Mom has two relationships individually with each of the kids.

[14:26] The kids have a relationship individually with each of themselves. Then we call that the family relationship. But surrounding all of it and encompassing it, we need to add God into this picture and all the individual personal relationships that everybody has with God. If you count it all up in a family of four, there are 12, I'm gonna go 12, that's not 12. There's 12 relationships in a family of four that need mentoring, guiding, spiritual guidance, love all on an individual basis, but also on a family basis. Yeah. Because God created the family and He meant when He said to Adam and Eve, go forth and multiply. We are responsible when we think about the future. You might be a teen in here now, or a young adult, you might be married.

[15:12] Whatever it is, this is the structure that we want to have for our families to grow strong spiritual families. It even says in Psalm 127 that children are our heritage. And we've gotta remember that as we train up giants for the kingdom. So remember to pray for them. Pray for their future spouses. Pray for your children and their children and your future generations because it matters. I am only here today because one woman prayed for a future spouse of this man. She didn't know me, she didn't know my walk, she didn't know who I was. She didn't know who he would end up marrying. But because of her prayer, I am here today in a relationship with Christ that is growing and continuously on a daily basis.

[16:02] And it's a personal relationship because one person prayed. You are the forefront of their spiritual journey. If you are not praying for them, nobody is praying for them. When it comes to your kids and to your spouse or your future spouse, you've gotta think about in future kids, you've gotta be the shield. Like, if you only pray like one hour in a year for your future family and spouse versus trying to spend daily time doing that, you gotta think about what the outcome might be in there and how you're emphasizing that. One of the things that, if you remember the story she just said about my mom praying for my mom and dad had lots of worries over me.

[16:50] I was running life pretty good and thought I was indestructible. And God got ahold of me. And if you, I'm not gonna share the whole story, but some of you know the Red Coat story with the meat stuck up inside when they met her the first time, I still have freezer-burned marks under my armpits from Ben. Well, we left. My mom said, that's the girl he's gonna marry. How does she know that? 'Cause she had been praying for her. And God revealed to my mom who she was when she met her. That's why you pray and you pray hard. You have to be the shield for your spouse. And if your personal relationship with Christ is not strong, like I work on my personal relationship with Christ, Gisèle works on hers. The amount of love that God pours into me then allows me to show her love.

[17:39] That's of God because that's what He wants. And if I'm not taking care of my personal relationship with God, then I'm ministering and loving her out of an emptiness. Yeah. And so what God pours in, in me lets me to represent that tangible And teach your children to pray for themselves and their future spouses. So let's move. We did marriage, we did families. What else can apply to everybody that's here in the room? I think we need to talk about oaths that we or like vows and promises. Yes. Alright, go ahead. Well, in Matthew 5:33-37, You have also heard that our ancestors were told, You must not break your vow. You must carry out the vow you make to the Lord. But say, Do not make any vows. Do not say by heaven, because by heaven is God's throne.

[18:27] And do not say by earth because the earth is His footstool. And do not say by Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is the city of a great king. Do not even say by my head for you can't turn one white hair, black or white. Just say a simple, Yes, I will, or No, I won't. Anything beyond this is from the evil one. There's even scriptures that are mentioned throughout. Why don't you tell 'em that throughout the Old Testament of oaths? Yeah. In Exodus 20:7, you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. Leviticus 19:12, you shall not swear falsely or so profane the name of your God. Numbers 30:2, when a man vows to God, he shall not break his word.

[19:16] Deuteronomy 23:21, when you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not slack to pay it. And all these were indicative to swearing falsely like making a vow. But the Pharisees twisted it in such a way that the oaths taken in God's name were solemn and cannot be broken. Right? So they were taken so that if you swore earthly or heavenly or in God's name or upon your head, then you could be held to the law. But Jesus comes and tells us that the oath taken in heaven, Jerusalem, earth, or on your own head is not broke. They'd say it's not broken if you didn't do any of those. But the Pharisees would say, but Jesus then comes along and says, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter in the name of God explicitly or whether you swore because everything belongs to God.

[20:08] Yes, the heavens, the earth, you, everything belongs to God. Mm-hmm. So if you swear by heaven, it is on God's throne. If you swear by earth, it is the earth of the Lord's earth. If you swear by Jerusalem, it is the city of the Lord. And for that matter, if you swear by your head, it is still part of God's creation. You don't have the power to change the color of your hair. I know, but a lot of you have been because Covid showed us that you have been changing the color of your hair. But it came back to its natural color because you can't change it permanently. You cannot pay for these type of highlights. I'm telling you right now, the wording, oath, whether God's involved or not is irrelevant.

[20:55] When we make a promise, we make a promise. A vow is bound regardless. Your honesty and truthfulness is what really matters. The reality of the law is that people just need to keep their word and integrity in life. It doesn't matter what age you are. I can remember our kids when they were smaller would say, Don't say, "I promise." Just say, "I'll try as hard as I can in order to keep that vow with them." And we used to have a lot of fun with them when we were doing things and we tried for our yes to be yes and our no to be no. Oh, our favorite family time was Friday, Fourth Friday, Four Family Fun Friday.

[21:40] Yeah. F4. Yeah. And that meant that we had to have family time on that Friday night no matter what. And we had to play a game. We would have dinner together. And that was just what we did. One of the games we used to play is we get in our vehicle. You're looking for a cheap thing. Maybe not cheap anymore, the price of gas, but It was such a fun game. It was a fun game. It was trouble. We'd come to the end of our driveway. We only had two choices 'cause there's neighbors across the street and I would go left or right. No, that's the driving game we played. Yeah. Trouble is the game that we used to play Friday nights. Yeah. Yeah. But we, oh, we used to go driving. Dr. Sorry. It's all squirrel. Welcome back. Clear. There you go. Get our back.

[22:25] Alright. And we go do the driving game and then we'd come to a stop sign and it'd be left, right or straight. And we would just do this for an hour while we were having conversation, building relationship with our kids and we couldn't afford data on our phone back then. So thank goodness we had a GPS. And then we go, "Where do you want to go eat?" And then we find our way back. Well, before GPS we used to have the Walmart map. We had the Walmart map. Did you any? No. Okay, sorry again, Sean, my age. But if you are a child, I I'm gonna let Gisèle walk you through this. There's an incredible thing that I've done in ministry with people and it has paid fruit for them. And I'll share that with you in a second after she shares this. If you're a kid, if you're a kid in here, are you a kid? Let's hear it for the kids. Woo. Alright. Woo. They're fizzling. If you cannot write, ask Mom or Dad to help you with this.

[23:14] But I want you to write a letter or you can even draw a picture as a letter of who you want to be when you grow up and who you see. God sees you because you are a new creation in Christ. And I want you to put that in an envelope and give it to someone you trust, like Mom or Dad. So what about a teenager? Absolutely. As a teen, who do you want to see yourself as an adult? And who do you, how do you wanna be exemplified in Christ through His eyes as a young adult when you get older and young adults? What about you? Future? What does that look like for you? Who do you want to live life with? What does your future spouse look like? Or if you don't wanna get married, write these letters, these love letters to yourself.

[24:02] What if you're old like us? You can write your will. It's a letter. It's a lot of letters. You know it, you can still write that letter to the ends of your days. Write a love letter to yourself. It's the best gift you can give yourself because God constantly wants you to grow in Him. He loves you so much, but He wants you to see yourself in His eyes. So sometimes when you're raw, honest, and writing out who you truly wanna be deep in your heart, put that in an envelope, put it away. Give it to someone you trust and then get it back from them. At some point in life when you think you're at a point in life where you're at a crossroads, so it can remind you who you desire to be in Christ.

[24:52] Or if you're at a point in life where you're kind of wayward and someone sees you going the wrong path, they can knock on your door. I sound like a slow leak over here going. So one of the things that I've done this a number of times through ministry and in two cases it really helped the individual. One had written a letter about what she was looking for in her future spouse when she was a young adult, teenager, kind of in that in between. And she gave it to one of her parents and another person wrote about what they wanted to be in Christ as they grew up. And they gave that to a best friend. And in the situations that Gisèle just described, in each of those situations, the young lady when she was about to say that she was really interested in this young man, he was not the right person for her.

[25:41] And her parent gave her back the letter that she wrote to herself of what she was committing to for her spouse. And when she read it, she realized that she was not on the right path or journey for the right person and stopped that relationship. The other individual, when the letter was given back to them, they had wandered away from Christ and could see that because they wrote the letter to themselves and the person just sees them and just said, "There was a time you gave this to me and you asked me to give it back." And there's no stronger words other than God's Word into your life that's inspired that when you write it down to yourself, who are you gonna argue with when the time comes? See, 'cause as families in a church, they're following after God.

[26:28] We're not trying to build a dynasty. We are not building a dictatorship. We're not even trying to build silos. We are building giants for the kingdom. We're building strong followers of Jesus Christ in our families. We are building a legacy. We're building a kingdom legacy, legacy for all of us. It is for those that will come behind us to build on the gospel of Jesus Christ because that is what we believe is a family that God wants each and every day. I want you to do something and it's very simple, but it's a start before you write the letter or make the commitment.

[27:16] There's connection cards all in the back and chair backs in front of you. I want you to take one out per individual, per couple, per family, whatever is the makeup that has you in here today. And I want you to do a few things. You're gonna hand it in to the ushers with their green bags. You're just gonna drop it in there. As you leave, I want you to write your last name on the top of the card. That's it. I just want you to write your last name on the top of the card. If you wanna have a heart that is pure for what God wants in your life, in your marriage and your relationships, I just want you to draw a heart on the card, knowing and realizing that everything that externally comes from us starts at the heart through the eyes of what we see and experience, that you're gonna commit to keeping your heart pure.

[28:06] The other thing I want you to do is if you really are going to write a letter, and I would encourage you to do that, a letter to yourself. Just put an L somewhere in the corner of that card. And the staff, we're gonna take those and pray over them. And we want you to be encouraged. We want you to be encouraged that God has a plan and a purpose for your life. And He wants to see it fulfilled to the most that He can have it to be. Whether that is you now as a child, whether that is you as a teen, whether you as a young adult in a married life, in a family, God wants to honor every stage of your life. So take a letter, take the time to write a letter to yourself and give it to someone you love, to keep you in check just in case you go off stray and you're not listening to God.

[29:00] It may be the letter of listening to your own voice that brings you back to being able to hear God again. Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much for everyone that's in here. I thank You for the families. I thank You for the teens, the kids, the young adults. Father, I thank You for the marriages that may have just happened, the marriages that are being planned. Father, I thank You for the marriages that are young, the marriages that are long. Father, I thank You that You are in the midst of all these relationships, for, Father, You are King. May each one of us give our lives, give our homes, give ourselves completely over to You, that what enters through the eyes, what enters through the senses we have, may be met with the purity and strength and the shield of Jesus Christ, so our outward actions are known and celebrated by all.

[29:54] And it's in the mighty name of Jesus we ask and pray this. And everybody said, amen.