Notes for HOW SHREK CAN SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE 1
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Topic: Sermon Staging Area
How Shrek Can Save Your Marriage Part 1
MOTIF
--> Great marriages of Bible?: Abraham: Takes his wife's servant, lies/Isaac: Lies/Jacob: Two women/David: Adultery, uninvolved with children/Solomon: 1,000 women/These people need therapy, they need Dr. Phil, Ruth, Spock ... Seuss.
--> They had problems too! Great marriages ... began to look in movies for best example of marriage: Shakespeare: ... but they all die ... this is not healthy, people drinking poison and falling on swords is not going to help improve your marriage/Fairy tale, Beauty and Beast: Unrealistic, if your husband looks like a hairy beast at beginning ... only going to get hairier [lose on top]/Shrek!
--> Shrek/Fiona: Beautiful princess, when sun goes down ... ogre/Kiss make her beautiful/Shrek kisses ... stays an ogre: “You are beautiful.”
--> At end of Shrek 2, Fiona has choice [beautiful, perfect] ... “with the ogre I married.”
> Deep inside, we don't necessarily long for most gorgeous, most successful, perfect---but ... live happily ever after with ogre we married.
> But we can't seem to do that: Divorce statistics.
> Church does a great job of getting people married—but we stink at keeping them married. Match made in heaven, but it quickly goes to the other place ... if divorced, not trying to make you feel guilty.
> > Rodney Smith, Georgia: Premarital counseling with guarantee ... 10 years or refund three times the amount they paid.
> Why such problems? > Cause of divorce: Poor communication, finances, no commitment to relationship, change in priorities, infidelity.
> Deeper: SAME REASON CHURCHES SPLIT: [SBC, GenB, PartB, 7thDB, HardSB, FWB, DuckRiverKindredB, 2SeedSPB]: We've allowed the world around us to determine what we want from the relationship.
--> “Make me happy”/“Fulfill my needs”/“Fall in love”: Fall into holes, love is choice
--> Love is central/1Jn4:16/I don't get to define “love”/Who God is defines what love is./God showed in JC, Rm5:8/If God is love and God showed his love in Jesus: To love is to be like Jesus.
> Purpose of love you share: To become more like Jesus together than you ever could apart.
> Does this person help me to be more like Jesus?---if your goal is anything less than for both of you to become more like Jesus, your marriage will always fall short. [DIAGRAM]
DILEMMA
> What does God want your marriage to be like? If purpose is to be like JC, to understand what God wants marriage to be like ... what God is like. [Infinite, intimate fellowship of Father, Son, Spirit]
> Gn1:26-28: Not saying that God is male/female > Marriage relationship is earthly reflection of God's infinite relationship. Gn5:1-2; 9:6-7 [God is literally one ... closest image on earth]. >>> Don't have to be married, if single God provides other ways of living in his image.
> To find what God wants marriage, look at God's inner relationship: Mk1:11 [delight]; Jn17:5 [glory]; 1Co2:10 [communication/share dreams]; Jn5:19-20 [partnership].
> What I want to do in this series is to help you ... these in your marriage.
> Your spouse cannot fulfill the deepest needs of your heart---only God can do that. But you and your spouse can be a living reflection of the inner fellowship of God.
TEXT
> First place: Beginning of marriage: Gn2:18-25
> Repeated: “Good”: Gn1:3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25 > 2:18: “Not good.”
> God is not alone; therefore, man should not be alone.
--> “I'll make an ezer kenegdo”: “Baby, you're my ...”: Ezer: Strong helper [Ps121:1-2]: Ezer: One who takes stand beside me [Jacob/Rachel: Gn35:18] --> Kenegdo: “Against” ... “Separate from me, taking a stand beside me”
> God looks at his creation and sees every creature has ezer kenegdo ... looks within self.
> Playful, testing Adam: Parades all animals ... at first, creative names: Platypus, hippopotamus, crocodile, porcupine ... cow, large cat lying/lion, fly, mosquito = bzzz ... to name is to take responsibility for what you name.
> 2:20: “Adam, see anything you like?”: No ezer kenegdo. God keeps working until the man's deepest needs are satisfied.
> Reaches in the emptiness beneath his heart, Why the rib? Relationships between human beings always cost something. [COLD/HOT] (Augustine)
> [[[2:22, verb has to do with a potter twirling on wheel, painstaking care, vase]]].
--> Hebrew thought, moves from lowest, simplest to most beautiful, complex ... The woman is the crowning glory of God's creation.
--> Every woman has that longing in her heart: [If woman does not feel that she is the crowning glory of someone's heart—not something you say once, but let her know repeatedly by loving and listening—she will look for it somewhere else: Anything from fantasies of soap operas to an affair or job or simply being frustrated and dissatisfied ... If daughter ... ]:
--> God declares it, even if no one else does/Here, God declares you to be the crown of his creation: “I am the crown of God's creation.”
> God walks the bride down the aisle ... wedding.
> “Yes! This is what I've been looking for!”: Lost a rib, gained ezer kenegdo ... by becoming less, he becomes more ... this is God's way [Jesus].
> First human words recorded, first poem ... names her [takes responsibility].
> “She will be the one who takes her stand beside me” [2:24].
> “Naked and felt no shame”: Even before sin, physical intimacy comes after lives are joined in covenant relationship, after marriage.
> They became “one flesh,” a living reflection of God on earth.
> Glory [wonder, amazement at gift, person God's given you is a gift], delight [Adam's poem], communication [words built her up], partnership [stand together]
RESOLUTION
> All of this was God's dream when he created marriage ... marriages are bent, broken ... God's heart breaks [FREEDOM RINGS].
> Isaiah 53:4-5: The cross isn't only about saving your soul, it's about restoring your relationships.
> What's your goal/purpose in marriage? “Not to kill each other”/“Live happily ever after with the ogre I married”/How about this one: To be a living reflection of the joy of God, to be more like Jesus together than we could ever have been apart.
APPLICATION
> Think about how you treated your spouse this morning, past week: Were my words/actions living reflections of the joy of God? Or were they reflections of what I wanted, what I thought I needed? Did I treat my wife as crowning glory of God's creation? Did I treat my husband as the one I'm called to stand beside?
> Is the purpose of our relationship to be more like Jesus together ... .
> Radio knobs: Pull off knobs: This is the one God has chosen for me, this is our purpose.
*****
>> Marriage is when you agree to spend the rest of your life sleeping in a room that's too warm, beside someone who's sleeping in a room that's too cold.
>>"She is not made out of his head to be above him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him—beneath his arm to be protected and near his heart to be loved."
>>FREEDOM RINGS: Divorced couples in Albuquerque, New Mexico, can take advantage of a new business in town. The company is called Freedom Rings: Jewelry for the Divorced. Founded by jeweler and divorcee Lynn Peters, the company makes custom jewelry out of wedding rings. Each customer at Freedom Rings pays a fee, and the ring-smashing ceremony begins--complete with champagne and music. Just before the smashing the M.C. says, "We will now release any remaining ties to your past by transforming your ring--which represents the past--into a token of your new beginning. Now take the hammer. Stop for a moment to consider the transformation that is about to begin your new life. Ready? With this swing let freedom ring!" She then uses a four-pound sledgehammer to whack her emblem of love and fidelity into a shapeless piece of metal. And the ceremony ends. The fact that women are pounding their wedding rings into pendants and men are grinding theirs into golf ball markers doesn't surprise me.
Posted by timothypauljones
at 1:00 PM CDT