E255 | Marriage in God's Eyes

And so as your pastor, I want to commend you, I think that you should be nervous. You know, we watched our video of our, well it's been three years now, but we watched at our twenty fifth anniversary, we found a video that somebody made, we don't even know Of

And so, here's the thing is, we had no idea what we were doing, we had no idea what we were getting into, but I said this to my son, we in Japan together and things were difficult, and I could tell that he was rattled. I've been rattled lots of times, I've been on lots of trips, I've been in lots of countries, and one thing I've learned about adventures, they never go as planned. And here's what I want you to know, John. Marriage is an adventure, and it's not an adventure if everything goes as planned. So many people plan a trip, right?

And the reason we get upset is we want everything on a trip to go according to plan. What you want is not a trip, what you want is an adventure. And so marriage is an adventure, and just understand you don't know what you're doing, she doesn't know what you're doing, and if you can just stay humble in that and say, okay, let's learn. I don't know how to be a husband to Tammy, Tammy doesn't know how to be a wife to me. We don't know how to be parents to our children.

Here's the scary thing, we've never been parents up to this point right now, which is where we need to know what to do. Like, we don't need to know what to do when our kids were in high school or junior high or elementary school or preschool or in diapers. We we need to know what do they need to know as almost 30 year olds. Now my son's gonna protest, probably my middle daughter, but they they need us to know something today that we don't need to know, and that's the adventure of relationships. We don't know what we're doing, so we lean on God.

So you're feeling extremely nervous, how can I ensure that I'm spiritually, emotionally, and practically prepared to lead in my marriage? I would just say to admit that you are not spiritually, you are not emotionally, you are not practically prepared to lead in this marriage. Mhmm. A Christ like servant leader is a humble leader. Jesus knew what he was doing, you don't.

And so you just lead in that. Honey, I don't know what I'm doing, and you step out in faith together. And so he said, what biblical wisdom would you share for this season of preparation? I would say be active in your local church. Active active.

Serving, connecting. If you go to church you don't know your leadership and your leadership doesn't know you, there's a problem. That means you're watching church, you're not in church. Every single one of our campuses has leadership. If you are involved at a certain level, even at Hunter Park, I know who you are, I've met you.

I might not know everything about you, but I know some things about you. I know the people who serve backstage with me at Hunter Park, I know them. I get to talk with them about their marriage before I walk out on stage. Hey, how's it going? How's your mom? How's your how's your husband? How's your kids? The people that serve at Sandals Church, I get to know them. They get extra pastoral time because we're serving God together.

When my friendships weren't okay at sports, I had the church. Mhmm. When my friendships weren't okay on the block, I lived on a cul de sac, I had the church. I always had an outlet of people that saw me, that loved me, and cared for me. And those people are the fifth member of my family.

So I have a mom and dad, and I have my brother and me, so there's four of us. And then I have what was Emmanuel Baptist Church, and then what became known as the family church. And it was interesting, you know, when I was in Japan, I had a guy look me up and he said, hey, my name is so and so, do you remember me? Here's the thing, John. I said, of course I remember you.

We served at church together, You know? So he thinks because I'm in his words, this big famous pastor that somehow I've forgotten the people that I served God with, and it's like, no. Of course I remember you. And so what I would say is you want to be in a church where you know people and are known. Mhmm.

You are serving people and are being served by people, and you have a whole collective community Mhmm. And pastoral leadership that are investing into your life. And so, John, I'm trying to advise you, it's impossible to pastor on a podcast. Mhmm. I can't see your face, I can't know your heart, I can't know your future spouse's heart.

What I can say is in Christ I love you, but you need people that see you, that know you, and can walk with you. Mhmm. And that's why in person church, for everybody out there who can, is so important. You cannot you cannot get what you need out of a communal God from an isolated worship experience. You must be in community.

And so God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Right? He is a God of community who worships to community, and so or excuse me, allows community to worship with him, and so he's inviting us into that. So that's what I would say is we have a great premarital counseling thing here available.

Fantastic. We have marriage mentors on Saturday nights at Hunter Park, don't know what other campuses do, but on Saturday nights, once a month, they have marriage mentor meetings, and the Millers who I've had on this podcast a couple of times, they are, I would say, the best married leaders of any church anywhere. I would put them up against anybody. We're so Brad

But at at the end of the day, because Matt wanted to be right with God or I wanted to be right with God, we would come back and and do humble ourselves, try to do whatever we had to do, and it looked messy like like a baby giraffe learning how to walk. Like, there there has been some arguments we've had where there was no fixing it other than, like, can we have a time out and a reset? Yeah. Here's how I wish I would have said that. Can you can you just make space for me to resay it in a better way that I mean, not in anger?

Yeah. We've just had really challenging seasons. When we were initially married, I felt like our struggles meant we made a bad decision. And what I know now that I didn't know then was that we're actually the better version of our married selves having gotten on the other side of a lot of tension. So, like, spiritually, relationally, all of the things you're worried about, you can't be ready for that because you haven't gone through some really big things that you guys probably need to get on the other side of so that you can grow into wisdom.

You don't get wisdom out of nowhere. You get it from growing. And so give each other we also did not do this. I married you thinking that you already knew how to be married, but I was learning and vice versa. Like, I was like, you already know how to be the perfect husband, so be it.

And same for me. And it's like, we were both beginners, and we didn't have grace for each other and being Yeah. First time being married, first time living with someone, then parents. Like, so like, grace to be like, oh, we're learning how to do this. It's you always say this phrase, learning how to fly a plane on

I mean, that's that's the joy of of living, and it's why I think God allows suffering. You know, some suffering, you know, you you can't recover from, but but most you can. Mhmm. And I, you know, I think that if you just you said something I'm gonna use in my sermon this week, and I'm gonna say it like I like I came up with it. You guys didn't hear or say this, but you said when when you said when you trusted that I was right with God, that I would make it right with you.

And I'm gonna steal that and put that in this week's message, because I think that divorce happens in most cases, because I'm talking about the divorce passage this week, is which is the I looked and I'm like, oh, of course they gave me this one. Matthew five thirty one and thirty two, it's it's devastating to our culture. I think when you're married and you you want to be right with God, you will work it out with your spouse. Mhmm. When you care more about being personally right Mhmm.

With yourself, you're you're gonna tell God and your marriage to take a hike. Now, I don't mean for abuse. And Yeah. You know, there there Jesus does give

What I wish we would have done is I wish we would have celebrated every conflict we had when we got on the other side of it in a better way because it felt like a like something stacked against us instead of, like, something that we got through and got on the other side of. And because conflict is gonna happen, it doesn't it's difficult, but it doesn't mean it's bad. And

We are not the same. Mhmm. We are so different in the way that we view our life, God, our children, our finances. And and I don't just mean that we're different in personality, I mean gender is different. Our brains approach things and process things differently, and that is God's design.

Our biggest mistakes, John, came when we agreed, not when we disagreed. Because disagreement brought about the best, the best decision. You think this, I think this, and we've thought about it and worked it out, thought about it. And and I would just say this to everybody listening is the biggest mistake I made, and we should do it, we need to do a marriage, what do you call it, getaway again, where we talk about this. But I I used to think that why on earth does, and this sounds terrible, but does everybody at church think I'm great, and my wife thinks I'm terrible?

Well, the truth was, and Tammy said this one time in a fight, she said, well, I'm the only person that knows the real you. And I was like, You know? And done. So you know, dropped the mic moment, and that's the truth is I'm not who I am in the brief minutes that I have with people at church. I'm not who I am in my sermons.

Right? Those are the those are the mountaintop victory moments. It's who I am when I'm upset, I'm angry, I'm mad, I've sinned, I you know, so it's in those moments, and and and those are those are the parts of me that still need to be refined. And, you know, marriage is part of the process that brings that out. But now, you know, we're past, and some of you are in the midst of parenting, you know, we're in the midst of dealing with aging parents, and that's bringing up a whole another challenge, and a whole new season as, you know, my amazing parents, you know, because they're with us, you know, who are aging, it's a challenge to help them in their season, and I've blown it.

And then your mom, who's far away on her second marriage, that's a challenge. So and we're making mistakes. So, John, praying for you.

I find this hard to navigate because I wanna honor God. Wedding photography is so much more than taking photos that day for me. I am there to cheer the couples on in their union, serve, and love them, but I'm just struggling to figure out what is okay and what's not okay as a business owner following Jesus. Any advice, wisdom, or guidance on this topic would be so appreciated. Thank you so much for being willing to talk about such hard topics and for leading our church so well.

What a fantastic question that I know we've been asked privately a lot about diff all kinds of businesses, not just photography. But I that's a great question. Thank you for writing that in.

Now, what I'll say with that is, that's the world that Christianity grew up in. So the world that we currently live in is very close to the world that the church started in. Now, not Jewish culture. A lot of people, a lot of my gay friends, they'll say, well why didn't Jesus talk about homosexuality? Why is it not mentioned in the Gospels?

And what I would say, and I say over and over again, is Jesus says, you've heard it said, but I say unto you. What he's doing is he's correcting where the Jews are wrong, he's not speaking to where they're right. So the issue of homosexuality, and what I mean by that is same sex, so male on male, or female on female, not the identity of I'm attracted to, but the act of I'm having sex with. That's dealt with in the Law of Moses, so it didn't need to be corrected, so he's not dealing with it. When the church moves into the Gentile world, where Greeks have a different perception of homosexuality, and a lot of us just don't know that most Greek male men practiced gay sex.

It's just what they did. Now I know everybody who took Greek philosophy, and they love all, like most of your Greek gods characters, Achilles, Zeus, you know, I love that movie, Brad Pitt. What's it called? Is he Achilles? It's

So it's just a part of Greek culture, and Socrates talks about this, the burning of the flesh, and you know, so it was a part of Greek culture. Now what my gay friends who are Christian would say, well it was pedophilia. So it was men with boys, which is wrong, and I condemn that, but we have Roman novels that are written where it's two consensual males. So it was a part of culture. It was not all just men and boys.

Sometimes it was consensual males who loved each other and were devoted to each other, because they're humans. And Paul in Christianity speaks to this process. Here's what it doesn't do, it doesn't address photography, my friend, because there weren't cameras. It doesn't address specifically going into a union like that. What I think I would say back then is Jews would not go to any union that was non Jewish.

So for Christians, I don't know that that's how it works. We would have been asked to engage with our neighbors, with our friends, with our family members, and as much as possible engage with our community. So what does that mean? You have gay neighbors, you love them. You're a good neighbor, you care for them.

You know, as much as you can, you bless them. What makes a marriage ceremony different is, I think for us as Christians and for me, it's an act of worship. And so I would not go to or photograph a wedding I didn't approve of. Like if I thought they weren't right, or the guy was abusive, or whatever, You know, there's lots of reasons why I don't go to a wedding, I don't do these things. You know, have a friend of mine that's, you know, texted me and said, so you wouldn't go to a gay pride celebration with me?

And I said, no. That's a celebration of something that I believe, according to my understanding of Scripture, is a sin. You know, like so, and he was deeply offended and we've not spoken since, but I would never ask him to come to a celebration that violated his values and his ethic. So that's where our church, our culture has gotten out of balances. It used to be where I think Christianity kind of abused and put down, not kind of, did, the gay community, but now it's kind of gone the other way.

So what I would say, anonymous, is you need to follow your conviction on the Holy Spirit. Two things, I wouldn't assume that your Christian friends are Christian, and their advice is. So I don't know who's really a Christian or not. What I know is based upon their fruit. So I'm not told to listen to what people say.

The Bible says you need to look at their behavior and judge whether they're Christian or not. So some of you are Christians who have friends that don't have a problem. Here's what you said. Am, where did he say I'm convicted? I've been feeling, oh, okay, I'm a wedding photographer and I've been wrestling with the conviction.

So you've already answered your own question. The Holy Spirit is already telling you don't do So what you don't need is my advice, what you need is to listen to the Holy Spirit's advice. And what I would say is the Apostle Paul, and the only thing that I could correlate this to at all is in Corinthians, where he talks about eating food that is dedicated to idols. He says, like, you got to do what you got to do, right? You got to shop at a grocery store.

He says, but if you go to a house and they say this meat is dedicated to the God of whatever, he says, but you can't eat it, because you can't participate in something that's dedicated to a false God. He said, we know those things are demons.

I believe that you are accurate in your conviction that this is not for you, because you have a sincere desire to please the Lord with your profession and be blessed in it. And I would say, I think you're right on if you want to be blessed, if you have a sincere faith and you want to not offend God, right? So that's the tension. I offend? I offend my gay neighbors and potential clients, or do I offend God?

Okay, we don't want to do either, but when we have to choose, we choose not to offend the And I would say it this way, Tammy and I both experienced, you know, me praying over a dead kid, and he came back to life. I don't want to offend the God that I know that did that. I didn't raise the kid from the dead. I can tell you there's nothing in these fingers. That God I don't want to offend.

That God cares about sex and how we have it. So that's what I would say, and know people aren't going to agree with that, and maybe I missed some stuff, but I'm doing the best I can, but you answered your question, and I agree with your conviction.

Like during times of slavery, African Americans would jump the broom to marry. Never heard that term. Yeah. What makes a couple married in the eyes of God?

And so covenantal love, and that's what God wants with us, is a binding love that's not just casual, and it's not just legal, it's both. And so why does Jesus die on the cross? Why can't God just say, oh I love you, you're forgiven? Because there are legal requirements, and so he dies on the cross so that he can be married to the church. So there is there is a romantic love that God has for us, and there is a legal accounting for that love to be covenantal.

And so we we we worship a covenantal God who says, I love you, and I want to be in a relationship with you, but there are legal requirements for me to be with you. And that is because God is holy. And so, you know, Tammy, because I love her in our culture, is entitled to half of all that I have. If we are just dating and we jump into bed with each other, she has no legal rights to what I have. I can walk away with all that is mine.

And what that means is I didn't really jump the broom. I wasn't really all in. Now they have some rules and laws if you live together for, you know, over seven years, I think it's called common law marriage or whatever that. So I understand that, but what the reason that marriage is so important to me is I stood in front of my mom and dad, your mom and dad, and I still remember that. In those moments, when you and I, I've thought, okay, I don't know if we're going to make it, I remember your dad.

So Tammy's dad had a pair of glasses

We did it in a church, and we signed a piece of paper in law. So the government, God, and our families all agreed that something had changed. It was legal, it was religious, and it was love. And what I would say is, if you're all in, be all in. And I hear people say all the time, well, we just don't need the piece of paper. And I would just say, why not? Like, it

It's about the entanglement of us, the access Mhmm. That it gives. So it's you know, there's so many reasons, but I would just say, statistically, the paper doesn't matter till it does. Yeah. And there there were lots of days, especially early on to this person wanting to get engaged early in the show where you and I were like Yeah. We don't want to do this anymore. But if you have to untangle something, when you don't have to untangle something, so easy just like

That we don't share with our parents, we don't share with their kids, we don't share with their friends, we don't share with anyone else. There is a unique relationship there that Michelle, every culture in history has recognized in a unique way. It's not just Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist. I mean, there's no such thing as an atheist ancient culture, that's a new thing. We had to get smart enough to figure that out at school.

But but all cultures have some kind of ceremony where the local tribesmen, the families, whatever system of law they recognized Mhmm. There was a change that occurred that you just didn't get out of on your own. Mhmm. And so like when when you're in Israel, you know, and I don't know if this is still the case, but in Israel, you don't go you don't go to a judge to get divorced in Israel, because you don't get married in the court in Israel. You get married in Israel, you get married in three places.

In your synagogue, in your mosque, or your church. That's it. And it's what, you know, I wish they would have done in America when they were arguing, you know, what is marriage, right? You know, I think what the government should have said is that that is a religious decision, but in Israel they've rightly said, look, that is a religious decision that we are not going to touch, because in Israel, those are three very different faiths that have a hard time getting along. So you know, you go back to your rabbi, you go back to your Catholic church or Orthodox church, or you go to your mosque, and they have their own religious understanding of that.

And what I love about the decision that Israel made is they said, look, this is a spiritual thing, but still there's a ceremony. And then what's interesting is the government of Israel recognizes the ruling of the church.

And so that was the Jewish understanding of first century Jews. So we have to remember, just because the Bible is descriptive, it does not mean it is prescriptive. So just because David had sex with Bathsheba, does not mean that I should because I'm the king of this church or whatever, that I get to have a side chick, right? Absolutely Right, know, because you would kill me. I married Nathan the prophet.

So just because it describes it and the thing is, polygamy never works out in the Bible. It's never good. There's always jealousy, there's always pain, there's always you love this kid more than that kid, and God still intervenes and tries to bless that, but he never prescribes And you know, it's it's never a good thing. Now it doesn't mean that God can't work through it, but God also works through to bring about Jesus, Rahab the prostitute. I'm trying to think of the other woman in in Genesis who prostitutes herself.

I'm losing her name. It's like your name, Ta.

That that's my goal in life. Mhmm. I think it's what God's called me to, and it's actually clearly defined for anybody who wants to be an elder in a church. It actually says he must be a one woman man. That's the Greek. And so that's where with the Mormon church, I just think they've gotten

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