Upset the Vows - Part 3

Tim Ross | March 7, 2021

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Transcription

Good morning, everybody.

Y'all doing all right?

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.

The fact that that works instantaneously without any prep, any time blesses my life tremendously. So grateful that you all are here. I want to give a shoutout to all the people that are watching us there. If you're watching us online and you're a part of our Embassy City family I want to say, "Hi, we love you." Whether you're here with us presently or you are there, you are in the right place. If this is not your home church, this is your vitamin E church, that has stuck y'all.

I have actually seen people out when I'm doing errands or something and they'll be like, "Hey, hey what's up? Pastor Tim." I'm like, "Hey." They're like, "Yes, I don't go to your church. You're my vitamin E church. You are our other church." I'm like, "I'm so happy to be the other church." I just want to say, "Hi, I love you guys and thank you for your words of encouragement, your letters that you have written physically, the ones that you've typed in the chat. We are so grateful that something we're doing today is being a blessing to you."

We are in a series called upset the vows. In the first two weeks, I have laid some groundwork so that you would understand that our marriages are a reflection of Christ's love for His bride. We set the foundation in the first message and then in the second message we showed in the wedding ceremony where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are located in an actual wedding ceremony. God the Father is the officiant of the service and God the Son is the groom and God the Holy Spirit is the one that brings the bride who is the church down the aisle and it's a beautiful picture to see.

I now want to transition into some practical things for marriage and still using scripture, allow you to see some things that maybe you have not seen before. If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to the book of Genesis 2. I'm going to read a few verses in Genesis 2 and I just want you to see what they say and hopefully, as we go through this, you'll get the revelation of what we're doing. Genesis-- oh, hello little floaty thingy. Wow, that's just-- I don't know what that is but it's pretty cool. Everybody have Genesis 2?

If you can't find Genesis 2, it's okay. It's all right but it's the first book. It's the second chapter. Genesis 2 starting at-- what verse am I starting at? The 19th verse, here's what it says-- wait a minute. Is it? Verse number 18. Thank you. Verse number 18, thank you. "Then the Lord God said," it's not showing up here so I'll read it from here. "Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. The Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky." Can I just stop right there?

God notices something and then He seems to pivot and go do something else. He makes an observation, "It's not good for the man to be alone." The Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and the birds of the sky," it just seems like God had ADD in this moment. Like, "Hey, it's not good that man should be alone but you know what? Let me it a horse real quick. I think I want to see a vulture."

Just seems random that He goes from identifying this to actually doing something else. Now let's be clear, this is the very first time in God's creation that He actually says something is not good. All of chapter 1 he said, "It's good. It's good. It's good." Everything He made, it was good and He looked back and it was good. It was all good and this is the very first thing that God says, "This is not good."

He brought them to the man to see what he would call them and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals but there still was no helper just right for him. The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord got took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening, good job surgeon. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and he brought her to the man. At last-- Every time I see those two words I think Etta James. Anybody old enough to-- It says that at last but all I hear is at last.

This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Like this dude's happy. There's an exclamation mark. He is hyped. She will be called woman because she was taken from man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked but they felt no shame. It's just good.

If you're taking notes three words write this down, Tyler this message is let's get naked. Let's go.

Just let that permeate through the room real quick. I'm going to let that marinate in the house real quick. Let's get naked. Bow your heads, close your eyes and let's pray. Holy Spirit, help us to get naked, Amen. God has done a profound work according to Genesis chapter number one in establishing an environment for us to have a relationship with him and a relationship with the world around us.

As I fore mentioned he called everything good. Then he gets to this point in his relationship with Adam, the man that he had made and God says, this is not something that Adam brings up. God actually says it's not good for him to be alone. Now, this is a monumental moment as it relates to God establishing the way he wants humans to connect to one another.

Have you heard of the type of people that say the only thing that matters to me is my relationship with God. Nobody else matters. I don't need anybody else, all I need is my relationship with God. You know what God says about a person who makes that type of declaration? That's not good for you. All I need is God is nobody else. Here's what God says. That's not going to be good for you.

No, a relationship with God is all you need. You don't need anybody else's it's all about the vertical. God says, "No that actually I'm not going to be able to be all you need until you get back up here with me. As long as you're on earth you're going to need something besides me to show you a greater picture of who I really am." He says, "It's not good for this man to be alone."

I want to lay the groundwork for what I believe this nakedness that I'm talking about is all about. When we hear the word naked we think nudity, we think no clothes on and that would be true but I think there's another part to nakedness that if you don't have in your marriage you are missing the most important connection that God strategically He wanted you to have in a union between a man and a woman.

I have some bullets before I have some points. Here's the first one I want you to write down. The first bullet is, nakedness isn't about the less you wear, it's about the more you share. If you want to understand what I'm talking about as it relates to nakedness today, it's not about the less you wear, it's about the more you share. Here's the second one I want you to write down. Nakedness is achieved with eyes closed not eyes opened. Nakedness, in your marriage, will be achieved with eyes closed not eyes open.

Well, Tim, what do you mean by that? So glad you thought it and I picked up on it and I asked out loud. Genesis 3:7 says this, this is after they bit the forbidden fruit, "At that moment, their eyes were opened--" Also, ooh. At that moment their eyes were opened, which means back in Genesis their eyes were closed. There was an innocence to them that made them see themselves differently prior to disobedience that wasn't there after the disobedience. "At that moment, their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness." A shame that was not present before.

They sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. Isn't it amazing that we do things externally to represent what's going on internally? That they literally went to find something to cover themselves outwardly to really try to cover up what they felt about themselves inwardly. When God came to the garden in the cool of the day to find Adam, Adam was actually hiding amongst the thing he was supposed to be managing.

He was hiding in the bushes instead of outside of the bushes managing the bushes. How many people do you know that when they have a lot going on internally they try to bury themselves in their work. They try to hide themselves amongst the things that they are supposed to be doing and because of what's going on on the inside, there's an outside manifestation that we clearly see on the outside.

You remember when you first started dating your spouse? Remember all those long hours you would talk on the phone? Now, you hang up. Now, you hang up. Now, you hang up. Remember the letters you used to write, the cards you used to buy, the words you used to say? Why? There was a connection that was being formed through transparency and vulnerability and it had nothing to do with the physical.

It had everything to do with the emotional. What God knew about Adam is that there were some things that he would never be able to get naked in if he didn't have a person that he was joined to, which leads me to my third bullet that I want you to write down. Nakedness brings you together emotionally, sex brings you together physically. Will say that again, nakedness brings you together emotionally, sex brings you together physically.

Now, week 7 I'm going to be talking all about sex, so I won't get into that right now. I will say sex is great, but nakedness brings you together emotionally, sex brings you together physically. Now, I know that there's a lot of theologians that have tried to study and tried to find out what Adam and Eve's sex life was like prior to the fall, but if we just go sequentially through scripture, here's what we find.

They are brought together by God in Genesis 2 and they're enjoying the experience that they have as a married union, but it is not until Genesis 4 that we find out that Adam knew his wife sexually. Now, we could try to assume that they had sex prior to that but it's not clear. It's very, very clear in Chapter number 4, it's not clear before. Then how were they connected? How were they joined? I believe they were joined because they were being vulnerable with each other emotionally before they connected physically.

I have four points of this message, and I want you to write these down. Hopefully, my prayer is that by the end of this message, you get some peace, some courage, and some boldness to be naked with your spouse in a way that you haven't before. Point number one, please write this down, I can't get naked alone. Here's the statement I want you to have for that. The statement I want you to have for that is that I cannot be myself by myself. I will never fully be myself by myself. Here's what it says. Then the Lord God said, "It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him."

Remember, it's God that said, "This is not good." It was not Adam that said, "This isn't good for me." He loves his relationship. He was fully connected to the creator of the universe. He had this wonderful relationship, and God says, "This is not enough for you while you're on Earth. I'm going to do something to ensure that you have what you need because you can't get naked by yourself. Have you noticed that it took your marriage to bring something out of you that you did not know was there?

Didn't you think you were the best thing on Earth by yourself? Well, why aren't you convinced that your single self didn't need no help doing that? You was whole." That's what everybody taught you the last 20 years. A whole man needs a whole woman to become a whole couple. You basically got to be the best version you could be by yourself, but you were never going to understand yourself fully until you can step outside of yourself and see yourself.

Which brings me to point number two. Please write this down. I can't get naked without help. When I was talking to Juliet about this, I was thinking about the many times that she has put on a very, very sexy dress. Then when we have a great evening, we come back home, she's like, "Can you help me out of this? Because what it took to get in here is going to take me some help to get out of." That's a-

I didn't even think about that, baby.

"What it took to get in here is going to take me some help to get out of." What it took me to get into this relationship, I'm going to need some help to get out of some of the stuff that I picked up, that I put on along the way. Here's what it says in Genesis 2:18, "Then the Lord God said, "It's not good for a man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him." He said, "This guy needs help." [chuckles] "He has a great relationship with me, but this dude is going to need some help."

I know there's a lot of people, a lot of women who feel like the word "helper" is not a good word and it's condescending. This is not that type of word. When you see this word "helper", this is the same word that describes God with Israel, that he is Israel's help. When you think help, don't think this guy, he's so strong and I just need you to lift up a little bag.

Remember, the woman came from God as well. Male and female, he created them. When he talks about her being a helper, he actually equates her with him. Not Adam, him. He says, in order for this dude to be all right, he came from me, he's in my image. He's going to need somebody else. That's in my image. You need some help so please write this down. I need someone to see the parts of me that I cannot see, how many people can admit individually. You have some blind spots, every hand better go up.

Because if your hand doesn't go up, what I'm going to ask you is can you see the back of your neck right now?

You got hair on your back. You don't know about.

I had 2 seconds to think if I was going to really say that before I said it, and it just flew out my mouth, there it is. Isn't it amazing that you can't see everything about you, without help? When you come into a marriage, God takes you and pulls you outside of you and gives you back to you so that you can see you fully. Your spouse is a full-length mirror showing you you every day. What's wrong. Nothing. Why are you acting like that? I'm not acting like anything. You never saw it by yourself. You can see yourself as this until you pointed it out to you. Outside of you, looking back at you couldn't see your ego until you pointed it out. Outside of you looking back at you, you can see your fear. You can see your passive-aggressiveness.

Some of y'all seen y'all self right now.

You couldn't see any of that until God brought you you outside you to look back at you. Here's where the enemy starts to try to do. You start to try to blame you for what you found out.

Oh, this is good.

This's good.

All she do is talk about what I'm doing wrong. All he does is point out my flaws. Can he see anything else? Oh, my life.

What is it? What is your spouse really doing? He is pointing at himself. She is pointing at herself. Why? Because I can't see myself clearly without my spouse. The reason why the first 24 to 48 months of marriage are so hard because you've never been introduced to the bad part of yourself. You've never seen yourself fully. The first 24 to 48 months, if a marriage is nothing but questions, why do you do that?

I don't. Did you not see the clothes when you Walked right by. You took them off right there. On Saturday, you took them off right there. It is Tuesday. You did this your whole life and no one said anything to you?

You saw all those dishes, you rinsed out your cup.

Put it back in the ca- You have been doing this your who- Have you ever in your li- Do you hear yourself? You talk like that? Why are you so loud? I'm right here, why are you yelling? I'm not yelling. Yes, you are yelling.

A debate that is old as toilet paper. Why do you put the ro- It's supposed to go on the inside so you can use the little bars to help. No, it's supposed to be in the outside. You gently tear the two squares.

You never had a conversation with yourself before?

You had never asked yourself why you was doing nothing until you got married, then you outside of you was looking back at you going, we've got some work to do. We are crazy.

We are absolutely crazy. We do dumb stuff, and until I had me outside of me looking back at me I couldn't see how dumb I was. I could not see how selfish I was. I could not see how arrogant I was. I could not see how petty I was. I could not see how fearful I was. God brings you someone not to be your adversary, to be your ally. Your spouse was given to you to make you look like him and you can't do it without him. Thank you, Holy Spirit. You won't do it switching them out. I'm tired of seeing myself through you. I'm going to go find somebody else. I have a whole weekend on divorce so I won't go there yet either. I'm like, "Oh, I can't wait."

Point number three, please write this down. I can't get naked with anyone else. Oh, my goodness, the exclusivity, God help me out. I can't get naked with nobody else. This the only one. Thank you, Holy Spirit. You do notice that God did not bring Adam options. He did not bring him five different women and say, "Hey, would you pick one?" "Hey, Eve, she has some great qualities, fun, loving, outgoing."

Adam swipes left. There's Rebecca, loves the outdoors, really energetic, kind of a fitness freak. Swipes left. There's Mary, real gentle, sweet, open to what the Holy Spirit wants to do. No, He brought her Eve. He gave him one selection, actually, he didn't even get to select. He just told him, "Here's your wife, deal with it."

Deal with it. You have the rest of your life to figure her out. This is why you made your vows. I commit to what I do now. I commit to what I do not know and now we have the rest of our lives to Figure each other out. Turn your clock off. Away with this impatience that if I don't have it figured out in 18 months, I must have not heard God right. Maybe the Lord didn't, maybe he just didn't want me to be married. All that prayer you went into, all of them signs you got. They passed the whole family test.

You got premarital counseling and now you can't figure out which way the toilet paper goes and you're reconsidering your vows. You are lazy. You like spring and summer, but you can't handle fall and winter. Instead of putting on a coat and enduring the winter, knowing Spring is coming again, you want to go to try to find summer. Let me go find somebody hot because my marriage is cold right now. I'm enjoying this.

I didn't know this is going be my little attitude today but I'm feeling it.

Here's what Genesis 2:24 says, "This explains why man leaves his father and mother and is joint to his wife, and the two are united into one." This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one please write this down. You're the only person who can handle my nakedness. Juliet is the only person that can handle my nakedness. She's the only person that can handle me emotionally. She's the only person that can handle my vulnerabilities. She's the exclusive to her. I can't go to anybody else. In the last 10 years, there have been more divorces filed with the word Facebook in them.

You dig into what was the breach in the marriage and the breakdown and you start talking to them? You're like, "Did you have sex with this person?" They didn't even have sex with the person. Some new language was formed that we call emotional affairs. What has happened is, that person decided to get naked with someone other than their spouse. While they never breached the marriage physically, you actually gave more of yourself to that other person when you gave them your emotions than you ever would have given them with your body. I have only one person I can go to. In May 1st, we'll be married 22 years.

The biggest fight at the beginning of our marriage and really throughout our marriage was the enemy convincing me I could not go to her. She can't handle it. She's going to judge you. Now here's the truth. I was afraid of facing myself. I was afraid of hearing the truth about me. This is the biggest factor to why we don't disclose to our spouses what we really are going through because I really don't want to face me. You might be saying, "I'm married to somebody that they not on their knees everyday pastor praying and all that stuff. I tried to open up and they got crazy." Well, you're crazy too.

This is why I'm going to keep saying it. This is why we keep saying it every weekend. Please go to these resources. Please use them because it takes work to get naked. It takes works to stay naked. It's work. I know you watch your favorite television show with your favorite married family but somebody wrote that script for them. It looks good because it's written out for them. Nobody's sent you into your marriage with a handbook on like, "When they say this, say this." It may show you laugh it off and makeup within 22 minutes outside of commercials. Oh, this is something that takes work to do, and it takes work to maintain.

You got some grace for a little bit more? Point number four, please write this down. I like being naked. I love it. I love being naked. I love the relationship I have with my wife. When I'm showing up naked, talking to her about anything and everything that's going on with me. Even if it's stuff that makes me uncomfortable, even if it's stuff that makes me feel awkward, I know I can share it with her because I'm really sharing it with the part of me that's outside of me looking back at me because she can give me feedback on what I'm feeling. When I bring her fears, she can encourage me and go, "Oh baby, that's not even like that."

Let me remind you of who you are. Let me remind you of who God made you and what you've been called to do, and then I'm encouraged or there's some things I bring to her and she's like, "Yes, don't do that." Don't you do that. I realized if I don't have me outside of me, looking back at me telling me about me, I'm not naked. Here's what it says in Genesis 2:25. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

Write this down. No shame is our aim. That should be somebody's mantra for the rest of this series. No shame is our aim. I want to be in a shame-less marriage that Julia can come to me about anything and everything, and I can go to her about anything and everything. No shame is our aim. Say it with me. No shame is our aim. Again, louder. No shame is our aim. One more time. Real loud. No shame is our aim.

That's what we're going for. You might need some practice at first. You may need some coaching at first. You may need a counselor, a therapist. A life coach kind of sits you down and say, "Hey, this is how you handle and navigate these situations. Hey, don't raise your voice." Know you need to pick a neutral time to talk about this. Don't talk when your emotions are super flaring up, and this is how you need to control your breathing.

You might need some help, but I'm telling you, when you start living shame-less with your spouse, has nothing to do with I'm ashamed of my body and listen, the more you're connected emotionally, the less you're thinking about the physical side. When I'm connected emotionally to my wife, I'm not thinking about my body. I'm shameless. When I'm not connected to her emotionally, that's when I start thinking about my body, my image. I'm self-conscious, I'm not self-aware anymore. I am self-conscious. What happens to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, after they bite their fruit? They become self-conscious and shame enters in because they hadn't been talking to each other.

You do know that the reason why the sin came into the world because they stopped talking to each other. Satan started to have a conversation with Eve, even not to say, "Let me tell you what that demo's snake said to me." They should have talked it over. Honey, hey, the serpent said we can eat all the fruit. It does look good. Adam, hopefully, it would have been like, "You know what girl?" It does look good, but you know what God said?" We can't do that." Can I just be vulnerable with you, Adam? I'm struggling. I'm tired of oranges.

Peaches are slamming, but that one. It's not an apple, it' not-- It ain't a pomegranate. Just looks delicious. I really appreciate that you were vulnerable enough with me, Eve. To tell me how you're struggling, being attracted to this thing, but I'm glad you came to me. Now, let's go to him. Let's find the strength to maintain what we have because we don't want to mess this up.

This whole garden thing, me with you, butt naked, talking about everything. I don't want to mess this up for a bite.

I don't want to ruin what we have over a DM. A bite. I don't want to ruin what we have over an affair. Flirting inappropriately, a bite. Girl, we need to-- Maybe we just need to say on the other side of the garden. You know what I mean? The whole garden is our, if this is too much of a struggle, let's move over by the Tigris River side of the garden.

Some of you, Bible people. "That is, that's one of the-- Yes, it is." I didn't make that up. I read it. Here's something I want to share with you that blessed me tremendously. I know I won't make it through the whole thing without crying, but I'm a cry baby anyway, so just let me do me, okay? You all just sit there and let me work this out. I asked my parents' permission to share this story with you because it came up two or three times as I was preparing for this message.

Mom, Dad, I love you. I know you're watching, and I thank you for giving me permission to share such a beautiful story of the love that you have for each other and the nakedness that you have for each other. When my mom was three years old, she was being held by her older sister in a rocking chair, and they were in the kitchen, and there was a huge pot of water that was on the stove.

Don't think like a big round pot, but those real, like big, almost like big industrial pans. They would fill up with water, and that water was at a boiling temperature. My aunt was rocking my mom and knocked up against the kitchen stove where the pot was and that water flew out scalding hot water and landed in my mom's lap. It was just the grace of God that it didn't fly into her face or something like that, but it landed in my mom's lap, and immediately it melted the skin at the upper part of her thighs.

My grandmother had to take her skin and put it on ice because it was off of her body. The water had melted the skin down to almost the bone. There were severe third-degree burns. She was rushed to the hospital, and she was in the hospital for three months, while the doctors repaired what they could of her thighs, and they had to use skin grafts and all of that. She grew up with that.

It wasn't in a place where she was going to be teased at school. It wasn't in a place where a lot of people were going to notice. Then she met my father and they fell in love. The only thing that was going through her mind was I wonder how he's going to look at me when he sees my thighs, I need to keep the lights dim. I need to make sure that he doesn't see me. Then one day, as she was thinking about it, she just thought I don't want to live like that. She said, so I'm just going to tell them she sat him down. She told him the story that I just told you, my dad looked himself in the eye and he said, I love you.

I don't love you because you're perfect everywhere, I love you because God connected us. We've been naked with each other already. There's nothing that's going to show up on your body that I see that's going to change the way I feel about you. Then my daddy, because he's a G, got on his knees and kissed every scar. He kissed every scar on my mom's thighs. Nakedness is not about nudity, nakedness is about being connected in a place that makes everything else secondary.

The only image I kept having as my father kissed my mom's thighs, looking at every scar she had and not being ashamed is the same way I feel about my savior who got completely naked on a cross. The loincloth is there for our Western sensibilities, but trust me, the Romans were not trying to make sure he was decent. He was completely naked on that cross and those scars that were in His hands and in His feet in His head on his back, if I see them, when I see them, I will kiss every scar on that man for the way that He showed up for me.

I encourage you to go home today, get naked with your spouse in a way that you've never had before. I promise you, it'll be the best decision you've ever made. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message? What may God be showing you in this moment that could be the breakthrough in your marriage? I truly believe that God wants to have a more intimate relationship with us based off the revelation we've had today.

Remember, if our marriages are the secret mystery that God chose to reveal Christ and His bride that means that everyone in this room, married or single, has an opportunity to get naked. If you're married, it's with your spouse, if you're single it's with the community of faith. You can open up your heart, your mind, your soul and make connections that go beyond the physical.

I'm going to pray in just a moment but whether you're watching us online or whether you're here, if you haven't given your life to Christ, you might be here, you might be watching. You're not a believer but your spouse is. You've heard something today that is starting to kind of click. I want to give you an opportunity to give your life to Jesus now. Let me say that in receiving Him as Lord and Savior, there's going to be some things in your life that have to change. My question is would you be unwilling to do so? Would you be against giving your life to Jesus? Would you be opposed to Him being Lord of your life?

If your answer is, "No, I'm not opposed to that," then what would it take for you to give your life to him today? What would you need to do to confess Him as Lord and Savior right now? With every head bowed and every eye closed in the sanctuary, if you're watching us online, if you're open to giving your life to Jesus today. If you're online I just want you to type 'Amen'. If you're in the room I just want you to raise your hand, "I'll give my life to Jesus today."

I see that hand, thank you. I'm giving my life to Jesus today. Holy Spirit, I am so grateful for every person that has responded to being in a relationship with Jesus Christ. All of heaven is rejoicing. All of Embassy joins them in rejoicing and we say thank you, Lord, for souls coming into the kingdom not for our credit but all for your glory.

Come on, can we give God a praise for those that have made that decision for Jesus.

Thank you, Lord. Hey, listen, I love you, guys. I will see you all next week for part four. That's all I got to say. Bye.