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Good morning, First Orlando. We're in the Connected Family series, and today is all about marriage. The goal of this series is that every family at First Orlando would take one step—at least one more step—towards becoming a whole and healthy family.
Now, even if you're not married, maybe you're engaged to be married, maybe you're dating—and of course, to married couples—I pray you open your heart to what God would teach today. Because as you read through the Bible, marriage is of incredible importance to God. Outside of Jesus, who we marry is the most important relationship decision that we will make in this life.
Marriage was created early in creation for God's glory and for our good as a gift for us to enjoy. I know that for some of us marriage is a sensitive topic. Maybe you're a single adult and you don't want to be single. Or maybe you're embracing singleness as part of God's calling. Or maybe you've been divorced, lost your spouse, or have an unbelieving spouse. Or perhaps you're just unhappy in your marriage. I pray today that the truth from God's word would encourage all of us. If you've experienced divorce, I want you to hear the love of God over your life. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin. Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin, even the sin of divorce. You can be freed from the shame, forgiven, and move forward to have a whole and joy-filled life.
The main idea from God's word comes from Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 through 25. Here's the truth that we will build on for the entirety of this teaching:
Marriage is the strongest possible human relationship as the covenant connection between husband and wife.
I've been married for 14 years this December. My wife is my best friend, and marriage is truly the gift that God could give us. But I know that when you got married, you had visions of laughter and love, date nights and romance, inside jokes and adventures. You pictured true love. And then life hits.
Two different people with different likes and dislikes, personalities and convictions, cleaning habits and thermostat needs, money use—all of that colliding in the most intimate relationship possible. Marriage can be difficult. But God wants to strengthen marriages today, perhaps even save marriages today. So whether you've been married for six days or sixty years, let's lean into God's word together.
Listen to what Genesis 2:18 says:
"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him.'"
Something important is happening here. This is the only "not good" before there was sin. Everything God created was good, good, good—and then God says, "Man, something's not good." What wasn't good? The man was alone. What was God's answer? God's answer is family. God's answer is relationship. In this case, it was a wife for Adam.
Husbands, see the beauty of what God did here. Your wife is an unmatched blessing. God brings wives into even our loneliness today.
Then we read:
"The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up in its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man."
Then Adam says:
"This at last. She's bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man."
I love that. It's almost—it's very romantic. "This at last, she's here."
What we're seeing here is the introduction of the marriage covenant. A covenant is a binding, sacred, unconditional commitment that establishes a lifelong relationship. It represents an unconditional togetherness, meaning there's nothing stronger than the covenant between two married people. Outside of a covenant that God has made with us, the strongest covenant is the marriage covenant.
It's important for us to make a distinction here: the distinction between a covenant and a contract. We live in a contractual world. We're always signing contracts in business, in purchases, in housing, in partnerships, in employment. But what are contracts meant to do? A contract is meant to ensure that I am protected if you don't keep up your end of the deal. A contract binds a relationship based on performance.
A covenant is much different. A covenant is an unconditional binding between people signifying that even if you don't keep up your end of the deal, I'm still in. A covenant is based on something deeper than performance and self-protection. It is based on a love that extends beyond failure.
The marriage covenant is built on this truth. There will be days when one spouse has to carry both ends of the deal.
In Genesis 2:24, we read:
"Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."
The phrase "hold fast" literally means to cling. In other places in the Old Testament, the same word has the idea of being glued together. Marriage is a hold-fast relationship. It's the type of holding fast that keeps us close even when life tries to take us out.
When the arguments are overwhelming. When finances are scary. When you sin against one another. When the kids dominate your time and you miss going on dates. When the romance has worn thin and you want that spark back—hold fast. Even on the hardest days, hold on to one another no matter what and no matter how you feel, because marriage is a relationship sealed by a love that doesn't let go.
Genesis 2:24 also says, "A man shall leave his father and mother for his wife." It didn't take long for the in-laws to get brought into this conversation!
Men, she is your priority. Above everything else outside of Jesus, your wife is to get your best. Men, that means there is no job, ambition, amount of money, hobbies, or personal dreams that are worthy of taking first place from your wife. And ladies, same to you. There is no pursuit in life greater than clinging to your husband.
When anything is in competition for our affections against our spouse, our spouse should win every time. The marriage relationship takes precedent above all other relationships.
Now, of course, we should still have good relationships with our parents, our in-laws, and our friends. But when our spouse is up against anyone else, our spouse gets first place.
What will this require of us? It will require a lot of getting over ourselves. From how we serve each other to how we speak to one another, from how we plan date nights to choosing time for heart-to-heart talks, from picking what's for dinner—all of it requires humility.
Let me speak to that one for a minute. Men, if she acts like she doesn't know what she wants for dinner, she knows what she wants for dinner. She's just testing you to see if you know what she wants for dinner. So, pick the thing that you think she would want because she wants to know that you love her by picking what she wants for dinner. That's a free one, men.
God takes us on a journey. He says, "You're going to have to get over yourself from silly things like what's for dinner all the way to absorbing offenses." Marriage is one giant decision to get over yourself, and it is a million tiny decisions to get over yourself every day since.
It's rooted in humility. It's rooted in knowing that we aren't always right. Shocker. You're not always right. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. But so often marriages suffer because we want the other one to go first when there is a break in the relationship. They should apologize. They should change. I blame him. I blame her.
Now, let me just say that might be true—they should change, they should apologize—but that approach rarely helps the marriage. Humility starts with yourself before putting the blame on your spouse.
Some of the greatest marriage advice I've ever heard goes something like this: Wake up every day and draw an imaginary circle around yourself and realize that the only person you can control that day is the person inside of that circle. You cannot control your spouse. But you can always work on yourself. You can always ask God to radically work on you first because you are not perfect. There is something in your life that you could work on.
Even if in that one argument, your spouse carries 99% of the blame and you only carry 1%—which by the way, that's not true—but even let's just say it is. Could you communicate better? Have more patience. Serve more, forgive quicker, take the first step, be romantic. Pray more for your spouse.
Genesis 2:24 tells us:
"They shall become one flesh."
Meaning in marriage, the covenant is so deep that to some degree, what was two is now one. When we marry, though we certainly maintain a sense of our unique identity and personality, in many ways, we give up individual rights for shared rights. Marriage makes one what was separate. God's math is 1 + 1 = one.
The depth of marriage is not realized until oneness is embraced. Often husbands and wives spend much of their time protecting their own preferences. Your career versus my career, my money versus your money, my dreams versus your dreams. But in marriage, "mine" and "yours" are no longer appropriate labels. It's ours.
Marriage is a unique togetherness, which is why Jesus affirms in Mark 10:9:
"What God has joined together, let no one separate."
In a culture characterized by abandonment, easy divorce, and broken homes, God offers a supernatural oneness.
I've officiated over 100 weddings in my life, and I've seen again and again that at the marriage altar, unity and oneness is what people want. But let me give you a quick check on unity in your marriage.
Are there any secrets?
You want to check the unity of your marriage, ask yourself: Are there any secrets? There is no room for secrets in marriage. No hiding.
Here's an honesty test. Picture your phone is sitting out on the counter or the table at home and your spouse picks it up. If there is even the slightest fear that they might see something that you don't want them to see, something is wrong. If there is even the slightest check in your gut that there's something on there that might offend them—money used, communication with another person, images or videos that might break your marriage vows, anything that might wound their heart—that is a potential secret that could destroy your marriage.
So, what do you do? Simply this: start with confession. Confess to Jesus, the one who forgives. Bring it to him. Confess to your spouse and repent. That's one step you could take today.
Now, how is this oneness experienced inside of the marriage relationship? Genesis describes Adam and Eve as:
"Naked and not ashamed."
The phrase "not ashamed" is powerful. It refers to a state of innocent delight. Unashamed means there's no fear. There's no need to cover up or to hide.
Marriage is meant to be the safest place on Earth.
What do I mean by safe? Safe means you can bring your whole self, even those ugly parts, your very worst moments, and your spouse would still say, "I'm in." Safe is not having to be perfect and yet not fearing the loss of love. What a gift that marriage can be—the safest place on Earth. It's spiritual, relational, emotional, and even physical safety.
This is where I need to get a little bit PG-13. But this is too important for our marriages for me not to teach it. This is a spiritual conversation and a physical one.
The scripture calls it "one flesh." One flesh is physical oneness representing spiritual oneness. When you're spiritually one with someone in marriage, it represents itself in physical ways. This is the foundational principle for sex.
Sex is a gift exclusively reserved for one husband and one wife bound by the lifelong marriage covenant. One husband, one wife, one man, one woman bound together in a lifelong loving marriage covenant. Therefore, sex is holy and intimate. It is an overflow of love expressed in a physical way.
Notice what I said: It is not only physical. God has created it with a spiritual foundation. Therefore, sex outside of marriage is a violation of God's design and a violation of the other person.
Think about it like this. If you think about sex as a fire—a fire in the home, in the fireplace, is warm and wonderful. It has its place. But a fire outside of the fireplace burns the house down. Sex inside of God's context, inside of the covenant, is beautiful and wonderful. It is a gift from God. Outside of God's context, outside of the marriage covenant, sex burns things down.
Culture is currently burning down, relationships are burning down, marriage is burning down because we treat the spiritual like it's only physical. People have been deceived by playing with fire. Sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman creates destruction.
Part of what's broken in romantic culture today, and often times even inside of the church, is that people want the benefit of marriage without the commitment of marriage. Marriage benefits without God's covering. People want to receive God's blessing without being under God's covenant. It doesn't work that way.
Even inside of marriage, we are to hold the marriage bed in honor. How? By protecting our eyes from what we see, guarding our hearts against lust in our hearts towards anyone other than our spouse, and by pursuing romance and intimacy with our spouse only.
But please hear this also: No matter your sexual history, no matter what has happened in the past, there is love and grace. Grace that makes us clean. God's mercy is new every morning. Lamentations 3 says that. Which means this: today is August 16th, 2026. God gave you August 16th mercy. You don't have to worry about trying to find August 15th mercy because God brought you new ones today.
If Satan is the snake, Jesus is the snake crusher. You are not your regrets. You are not your past relationships. You can choose purity today. If you have wandered with your eyes or with your body outside of marriage, God still restores and renews.
Some of you might be thinking, "You don't know my spouse. You don't know my marriage." You may be thinking, "I want my marriage to work, but I don't know where to start."
Here's the first step. First, you have to realize: it's not about them. Your first step today is to go back to how much God has loved you. Because we can't love our spouses well until we experience the love of God in our own hearts.
Ultimately, a healthy marriage is not something that we could do in our own strength and our own willpower. We need Jesus. I need Jesus to transform my heart. I need Jesus to give me new thoughts. I need Jesus to renew his love for me in my heart so that I will have a well that doesn't run dry to love my wife.
If you hear anything today, married couples, I pray you hear this:
As your relationship with Jesus goes, so goes your marriage.
You've got to connect with Jesus. You've got to have something deeper than how we feel, and that comes from the love of God. I don't love Sarah best when Sarah is most lovable, though she is. I love Sarah best when I have been filled with God's love and I embrace God's love for her. The best marriages don't start with the conditional way that we feel, but the unconditional way that God has loved us both.
In Ephesians chapter 5, verses 22 through 23, the Apostle Paul clearly teaches on marriage. In fact, he gives us the most important marriage truth of all in verse 32. He says this:
"The mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it, marriage, refers to Christ and the church."
God's love fills us up, but then if you want a strong marriage, hold on to this mission:
Marriage is a picture of God's love for people.
This is why marriage is the most important relationship and should be the strongest—because marriage reflects the gospel. Marriage, the marriage covenant, makes Jesus' love visible to the world.
Here's how. Jesus carried both ends of the deal. When he loved us, when he died on the cross for us, we sinned and broke his heart, yet he loved us when we were unlovable and violated the terms of the agreement. He stayed in the relationship when he could have dismissed us.
But when we stand at the altar as followers of Jesus, when we say yes to each other, the hope is that the world would get a clear glimpse of Jesus because we decided to get married.
So when we love our spouse on those hard days, when we choose to serve rather than to be served, when we give up our preferences in order to give to the preferences of our spouse, when we unconditionally sacrifice and pray and love and forgive and celebrate each other—we show the world who Jesus is and what he has done for us. That is the nature, that's the heart of marriage.
These truths can strengthen your marriage. They might even save your marriage. The power of God can invade your home and bring the best days you could possibly imagine.
Here's a prayer principle that applies everywhere, but it especially applies to marriage:
Where there is no prayer, there is no power.
Are you praying for your spouse? Are you praying for your marriage?
I want to invite all the married couples to reach over to your spouse right now and grab their hand. For some of you, you grab your spouse's hand and it's a sweet moment. You guys are in a good season of life and you grab your spouse's hand and you're like, "Oh, yes. This feels normal. This feels right."
But I know there are some of you in the room today, whether it's been a season of distance or even just an argument this morning. Grabbing your spouse's hand in a moment of love is actually a really big deal. Push through anything that feels awkward. Grab your spouse's hand.
This is a prayer that we wrote. I'm going to read it, and my hope is that you would pray with me and pray for your marriage. Because where there is prayer, there is power.
Heavenly Father, may the fire in our hearts never go cold. May our love be an anchor in the shifting sea. May our table always have room for grace and our home be a safe place for tired feet. When the world is loud, may our relationship be a sanctuary.
May God write his patience into our soul, his forgiveness into our memory, and his joy into our bones. May we look across the room in thirty years and still see the dawn in each other's eyes. When the path is steep, may laughter be our staff. When the night is long, may his song be our blanket.
May we bend toward each other like trees in one wind, rooted deep in the soil of his great mercy. May God bless our sleeping and our waking, filling and sustaining a covenant that may never be broken. In Jesus' name. Amen.
