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Sundays @ 9 AM & 11 AM - 120 Delaware Ave in Jamestown, NY
Good morning, everyone. How are you today? Good. My name is Cameron, one of the pastors here at Conduit. We are gonna jump into a new series this morning on marriage, and, we'll be here for the next four ish weeks or so.
Cameron:But before we do that, I just wanna take a little bit of an aside real quick. Just to recognize some people amongst us that are consistently serving the church and doing it probably behind the scenes for most of you where you just you probably recognize really clearly the work that they do, but maybe don't ever know the work that they do. So Wendy Norrod has, for years now, always taken care of all of our landscaping, making sure we have the mulch is all nice and everything is trimmed up real nice and all the edges are nice and crisp. Like, it's like not a thing that you notice until you notice it. And you're like, oh, wow.
Cameron:It looks really, really, really nice here. And and... But I I doubt that very many of you know that. And so wanted to just recognize her for all the effort that she's put in here really over the last several years to keep all of that looking really, really nice at the church. And the second is Vinny.
Cameron:And not many of you miss Vinny. I mean, like, we all miss Vinny when he's not here. That's what I'm... That what I mean. But Vinny's hard to miss because he's a hospitable, joyful, loving presence here at the church.
Cameron:But for most of last year and all of this year, Vinnie has been pretty much the only one that has mowed the lawn, done the weed eating, keep, like, the grass all looking really nice at least once a week. And, both of those things are really, really big jobs, and you don't really think about them until they go undone. And so I I just want you to know that there are are people like that who are serving the Lord by doing something that often goes overlooked and... But that has really a big impact on, on just the overall environment here. So I wanna say thank you to Wendy and Vinny.
Cameron:And if you guys see them after church or just, like, passing in the hallway, make sure you say thank you to them as well, and let them know how much we appreciate their, their work and their service here. So thank you guys so much for all that you do. I have recognized that unless I am mistaken unless I am mistaken, in twenty one ish years of being a pastor, this is the first real series on marriage that I've ever, like, preached. And so it's been an interesting experience to prepare for it, and to, be someone who has, in a lot of ways, a front row seat to marriage and seeing the best parts of marriage, seeing the worst parts of marriage, seeing the joyful parts of marriage, and the difficult parts of marriage. I would say that officiating weddings and doing premarital counseling, probably one of my most favorite things to do as a, as a pastor.
Cameron:And, and I feel like the Lord has I feel like the Lord has some words for us in the next month. And so we're gonna we're gonna plot through a few things and and see and see what... Just see where it takes us. There's a there's always a question about... Or there's kind of two two different kinds, I think, of series or, like, sermons or talks that someone can do on marriage.
Cameron:And sometimes they kind of, like, inter... Intertwine with one another, and sometimes they're kind of separate from one another. And I wanna give you a little bit of the lay of the land where I... Like, where my heart is now and where, like, I feel that the Lord wants us to go with this. You know, there is, like, what I would consider to be the practical, like, horizontally based relationship to relationship approach to talking about marriage.
Cameron:Meaning, like, oh, I really hope pastor Cameron talks about how to safely and in a healthy and clear way create a a way to... For me to communicate with my spouse. We have a hard time communicating. We have a hard time connecting on that level. I hope I hope I get, like, free tricks, tips, hacks, whatever it is to communicating with my spouse.
Cameron:I hope we really talk about what it means to build trust in a marriage, or how to how to deal with issues with my spouse's family or my family coming into the... You know, there's all these, like, kind of practical lived experience types of things, all super, super important. Right? All really, really necessary if you wanna have a vibrant, healthy marriage that is able to traverse the difficult things that we traverse in life. Then I would say there is another side or another kind of conversation to have about marriage, and that is kind of the the conversation that we're gonna have.
Cameron:And what we're gonna... What I what I wanna try and do over the over the next couple of weeks is not necessarily stand over here and give you, like, five trips... Tips and tricks for communication or dealing with your outlaws or in laws or anything like that. But but but what I wanna do is, like, I I I think that... Here...
Cameron:Here's what I think. Scripture is not silent on marriage. Marriage is not our idea. It is not our thing. And the the more quickly we get on the same page with God and with the scripture about what marriage is and what it calls us from and to, the healthier that that horizontal relationship with our spouse, with our future husband, with our future wife will be.
Cameron:Okay? What what what are we actually doing when it comes... Or trying to do when it comes to marriage? I think that's really the question that I I wanna that I wanna answer. Because in some ways, there there can be a lot of different ways or reasons or the ways that we see and view marriage.
Cameron:Right? And most of us see marriage through the lens of our personal lives. How does it affect me? How is it gonna change my future? How is it gonna change my relationship with, obviously, my spouse or with this family or with our friends or with our church?
Cameron:Like, what what is it about? Like, how is this going to affect me? Sometimes it affects it really in positive ways and sometimes in really negative ways and sometimes it's neutral and sometimes it's all of those ways combined. But listen, marriage, the the purpose, the the foundation of marriage is really... I know it's gonna surprise you.
Cameron:It's not about you at all. It's not about you. If marriage was your idea, it would be about you, and we could define it however we wanted to, and we could change that definition whenever we wanted to, And we could make it suit us. But marriage... God bless you.
Cameron:But marriage is not about it's not about us. Marriage is designed to tell a bigger story, to point to a more significant reality that that is true, that is holy, and that is so much bigger than just you and your spouse. Marriages are designed and purposed to reflect the relationship between Jesus and the church. Biblically speaking, marriages are designed to be a real life incarnation of the way in which Jesus himself is in relationship to those who believe in him by faith, the church, the body of Christ. In probably one of the biggest and also sometimes the most controversial portions of scripture on marriage, Ephesians chapter five, Paul...
Cameron:The apostle Paul goes through all of these kind of like rules for husbands and rules for wives. Right? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Giving yourself up for her. Right?
Cameron:Presenting her to the father as holy and pure and unblemished. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Right? They they... They're each go like...
Cameron:Ephesians five each goes through all of these, like, really kind of practical, but maybe a little bit mysterious language about about being married. And like, oh, wow. That's really that's really good advice, Paul. Thank you very much. And then he gets to the end of that section.
Cameron:In Ephesians chapter, five verse 32, he ends with this. He's like, this mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So after Paul gives like his largest and most practical, advice or wisdom to the Ephesian church about what marriage is in the relationship and the roles between husband and wife, then he just ends with this. But but this is a profound mystery because what I'm actually talking about is Jesus and the church. And so there is something deeper there's something deeper about marriage than just how it affects us.
Cameron:It is meant to reflect and show and display something bigger, something more significant, something more loving, something more sacrificial, something more eternal than maybe you have ever imagined or conceived of. And in the midst of a human relationship where we're like, man, what it... Like, what am I even doing here? Right? If we don't...
Cameron:If we can't recenter ourselves and recenter our perspective, hey. That may... Hey. This this isn't about me. This isn't about him.
Cameron:This isn't about her. This is this is about the bigger this is about the bigger story that God is painting to display the sacrificial love that Jesus has and has displayed in his in his life and in his ministry for the church. So even the way in which we are married as Christ followers is a reflection on who God says Jesus is in relationship to his followers is way more than just a personal relationship you have with another individual that just needs some behavior modifications and tweaks, that just needs some some trips, some some tricks, some tips on how to be better and how to make that person get their stuff together because it's obviously not my fault. Right? It's more.
Cameron:It's bigger, and it's deeper. So what are we trying to do in marriage? Well, ultimately, we're trying to tell a a bigger story that is that that is lived out in our relationship with our spouse. But another thing that we're, another thing that we're trying to do is, to become more holy. Marriage is about becoming more holy.
Cameron:A lot of times you see a couple, they maybe start dating, they're getting engaged, and they will, say something like, Oh, they just they just make me so happy. Just make me so happy. And, and happiness is often a main motivator to why we remain in relationships, at least in the beginning. They've made me so happy. When I'm around them, I am just so happy.
Cameron:And listen, marriage should make you happy. Your spouse should make you happy. I'm not saying that you... It should be like drudgery to be around this person all the time. Right?
Cameron:That there there is there is happiness involved in being married. But what I want you to hear is that happiness is not a direct goal of marriage. Happiness is a byproduct of the way in which God uses marriage to make you more holy. Okay? God is way more concerned about your holiness in your marriage than he is about your happiness in your marriage.
Cameron:And that's not to say that God's not concerned about your happiness. But what God is primarily concerned with is, can I use this relationship to leverage and transform this person into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ? And if there's anything that you know, if you if you... I mean, you've been married for more than two minutes, you know that the intimacy that is developed in a marriage relationship is really the... Whatever you wanna call it, the the the classroom, the laboratory, the crucible, whatever it is, it is the classroom of God's perfecting grace in your life.
Cameron:It is a way in which Jesus weeds out and tears out and burns up all of the, unhealthy, dark, unrighteous parts of ourselves if we let him. And we can hold we can hold the whole... The, like, the process of holiness being developed in our lives and in our marriage, we can hold that off at, like, arm's arm's length. And when we do hold off the transformation of our hearts in the midst of our marriage relationship, we usually end up not very happy. We usually end up suffering in marriage.
Cameron:We usually end up saying like, is not what I thought it was going be. This is not what it was all cracked up to be. This is not what I want. This is not the direction that I want to that I want to go, but I certainly don't want to change. I don't want to be more forgiving.
Cameron:I don't want to be more selfless. I don't want to be more intimate or vulnerable. I don't want to give myself fully to this person, but I also don't want to change. See, I have found that the more that we submit ourselves to the bending, molding, refining, transforming process of holiness in our marriages, the happier that we actually are in them. And so what I mean by all...
Cameron:By these two things that we... Marriages are meant to tell a bigger story and that our marriages are not meant primarily to make us happy, but to make us holy is this. Most of our most of our marriage problems... And I I will say this confidently. I'm gonna I'm gonna say, like, the vast majority of our...
Cameron:Of of marriage problems that come to my desk, so to speak, that I encounter, they are not fixed by five tricks to communicate. Almost every marriage issue that I have witnessed in twenty two years of personally being married, of twenty one years of walking people through the process of marriage, virtually every single one of them is not fixed by focusing only on the horizontal relationships. Marriages are almost always fixed vertically before they're fixed horizontally. They are almost always fixed between my heart and the heart of God before they are fixed between my heart and my spouse's heart. And if we are not willing to submit to the reality that marriage was God's design, God's idea, and that God has a way in which marriage is to be lived, we will perpetually fight against we will perpetually fight against health and wholeness in our marriage.
Cameron:It just won't happen. We'll struggle and we'll claw to just be a little bit better at communicating or developing more trust, and then what we find out is that our heart is still darkened because we have not submitted ourselves to the transforming and sanctifying work of Jesus for our lives, and so we can't possibly be for our spouses who God needs us to be and who they need us to be in order for our marriages to be healthy and whole. So... But why then just... Why does the conversation even...
Cameron:Why are we having this conversation? Well, in a in a big way, we're having this conversation because marriage is in in scripture. But, you know, we we could say things like, well, it's important to have this conversation right now because marriage is... It's maybe an overused term, but marriage is under attack. And, you can you you can, prescribe any number of places that you feel like it's under attack from.
Cameron:Personally, I think that the I think that the originating point of attack on marriage is from the enemy, is from Satan. However that comes out in the culture or in the world, you know, it ultimately marriages God's idea meant for our holiness, meant to display the love of Jesus to the church, and the enemy hates that. And so anything that he can do to redefine it, twist it, destroy it, stop it from happening, he will do. But marriage is under attack. You may have heard you may have heard stats like, well, divorce rates are climbing past fifty percent or divorce rates, are, as large or if not larger among Christians than they are non Christians.
Cameron:And there's some disagreement as to whether or not that's true in, like, the scientific community. What we do know is that, divorces are not necessarily increasing in percentage, but what is clear is that less and less and less people are getting married. And so divorce rates are actually dropping, but that's not because there are less divorces happening. It's because there's less marriages happening. Right?
Cameron:There's a different perspective on what it means to be in intimate relationship with another human being, And so there is more, like, cohabitation. There's more, people remaining single their entire lives. Divorces are down because marriages are down. Marriage is is generally under attack in a non Christian, like in a non Christian culture, because it's often seen as, more contractual than it is, covenantal. And what do you what do you mean by contract?
Cameron:Right? Well, like, think of a contract, a work contract. Right? You do this. I will do this.
Cameron:You do this. I will do this. If you don't do this, I will not do this. Right? And it's based all on a on a give and take that limits my liability of personal involvement.
Cameron:Meaning, like, I only have to get so involved. I only have to do a certain amount of things. Right? I'll keep my end of this deal as long as you keep your end of the deal. I'll do what I said I was gonna do as long as you say what you're gonna do.
Cameron:That's what a contract is. Right? The language of covenant in scripture is not like a contract. The language of covenant in scripture binds me to faithfulness in the relationship no matter what the other person does. Now what we're gonna learn is that biblical marriage is based upon covenant faithfulness, not a contractual, obligation.
Cameron:Now I recognize that I've had this conversation with a few people over the last couple of weeks as we've been preparing to preach... As I've been preparing to preach these messages, that there are a lot of different experiences in the room. There are a lot of different people in the room. And even if you are not married, either by choice or by age or from divorce or whatever the case may be, even if you are not married, even if you are in a marriage right now that is not what you want it to be. Maybe you are widowed.
Cameron:Even if you're really cynical about marriage. Or maybe you're really positive about marriage. Maybe you're a believer in Jesus, but your spouse isn't, and so marriage is complicated or more difficult. And maybe you don't know even what to think about marriage, like what even box to put marriage in because of all the various ways and voices that speak about it. And a lot of voices speak really loudly about what marriage is and should be.
Cameron:If you find yourself in any of those situations or probably a dozen other situations, asking, well, like, what does what does this sermon series have to do with me then? Or where will it hit me? Or where will, like... What kind of conversation, will I be drawn into during this? I I want to say this, like, this this series is not a sermon series to married people.
Cameron:I'm not like saying, hey, like all the married people, let's talk about our marriages. And if you're not married, then this is not going to apply to you, but just hang with us for four weeks. That's not the case here. We're not talking... This is not a sermon series to married people.
Cameron:This is a sermon... This is a series about the gift of marriage, which belongs to God and represents God's heart. And no matter where you find yourself in relationship to marriage, there is something for all of us here no matter your relationship with it. Because the world is going to tell you... No matter what your relationship with marriage is right now, the world is gonna tell you, this is what marriage is, and this is how you should think about it, and this is how you should act in it.
Cameron:And and we we need our lives and our minds and our hearts formed and transformed by the word of God rather than on what we are seeing on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, the news. Right? Hollywood, the movies, your favorite TV show. Okay? We we we need a biblical grounding of what it means to be a husband, of what it means to be a wife, of what it means to be in covenant faithfulness with one another.
Cameron:And we need to we we need to begin to drown out the noise of culture that says, no. This is the way that we should think about marriage here. So no no matter where you find yourself in a relationship with marriage, this series is for you. I also understand that there, that marriage is very painful, can be very painful, and understand that some of you, may find yourselves in the midst of even, an abusive marriage or relationship, and maybe that's a known reality and maybe it's an unknown reality. We're gonna be talking a lot about covenant faithfulness.
Cameron:Right? And covenant love and loyal love and things like that, but I I don't wanna go any further just without making the... Wanting to make sure that I state it very, very clearly. Okay? Because sometimes Christians are accused of quieting the testimony or the voice of those who are in abusive marriages in light of just keeping the marriage together no matter what.
Cameron:K? And I want you to hear from me, right, that abuse in marriage is never okay, is never of the Lord, and is never a part of what it means to be in a covenant faithful relationship. Meaning that if you are experiencing abuse and you're staying because you think that that's what God wants you to do, I don't think that's right. If you are an abuser using and twisting the language of scripture to keep a spouse in the marriage, like... And just leveraging scripture for shame over them, you will reap what you sow.
Cameron:Okay? And it won't be tolerated here either. It will be confronted. I've said this before. I'm gonna say it again, as we move forward.
Cameron:Marriage is God's idea. It it is God's idea. It is not, the the the very first human relationship in creation was a marriage relationship. And because marriage is God's idea, that ultimately means that you and I do not get to define what marriage is. The only thing that we can do is receive what marriage is from the one that did design it.
Cameron:From the one that from the one that that did create it. Okay? And so even if we can do some intentional work of clearing the slate of our mind and our heart and our soul about what we believe marriage is over the next few weeks, in order to say, alright Lord, I am ready to receive from you what it means to be married in covenant faithfulness to my husband or to my wife, and I will surrender any definition or any idea of what I have in order, Lord, to more faithfully live according to your word in my marriage. The Bible places the marriage relationship in the context of covenant. That is the word that is used.
Cameron:Covenant. Now there aren't many covenants in the Bible, and, you may know, a lot of these. There's the covenant that God makes with Noah. I I will not flood the earth. I will not destroy the earth by flood ever again.
Cameron:Right? You will you will be my people, and I will be your God. And then God and then God gave Noah a sign of the covenant. Right? The rainbow.
Cameron:Here's the rainbow. There's the there's the covenant with Abraham. I will make your name great. I will make you into a nation. Through through you, all nations will be blessed.
Cameron:And the sign of the covenant is what? Circumcision. Right? That's my least favorite. Yeah.
Cameron:Yeah. And I actually get to talk about it today. Pastor Luke's gonna teach a sermon on circumcision next week. Right? Yeah.
Cameron:Right. Then there is, there's the Davidic covenant, a covenant made with David. There's the Mosaic covenant. And then there's the new covenant, one which we will celebrate today, a covenant that is that is the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. K?
Cameron:There is the covenant... But but but covenant is a major narrative of scripture, and it really deeply informs God's relationship to his people. Meaning that the the way in which God relates to his people is almost all... Almost always in the context of some covenant. That there are promises, that there are signs, that there are oaths to this covenant.
Cameron:Now really, really simply defined, don't run this through like your best seminary professor's definition. K? But a really simple definition of covenant that we can use and understand that kind of encapsulates the whole idea is that a covenant is a binding relationship sealed by a sworn promise under God's eye that creates the kind of loyalty that we normally owe only to family. Keep that up there for a minute. Okay?
Cameron:A covenant is a binding relationship that is sealed by a sworn promise under God's eye or witnessed by God that creates the kind of loyalty that we normally owe only to families. Now now individuals can make covenants with one another. Jacob made a covenant with Laban, for instance, and God can create covenants with us, with his people as demonstrated with Abraham, Moses, David, Noah. Right? Covenants, they they contain a number of things, but but chiefly, they contain these these elements.
Cameron:They they contain a a spoken oath or vow. Meaning, like, as an example from the Abraham Abrahamic covenant in Genesis chapter 12, or I'm sorry, the... I guess the Noah's covenant here is our, example. God makes a spoken oath or a vow. Never again will I destroy the earth by a whole flood.
Cameron:That's like a vow that God makes in the midst of the covenant. Here's my promise to you, Noah. Here is my vow. All covenants have some sort of spoken oath or vow. All covenants stand with God as a witness.
Cameron:And this is a this is a a way in which to, like, make the covenant, beyond just a human relationship and bring a significant amount of, like, weight and authority to them. Now in Malachi chapter two verse 14, way into the prophetic, in the in the into the prophetic books, we see that marriage has, has... Is already considered to be a special type of covenant that is witnessed by God. Malachi two fourteen says, but you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
Cameron:That God that God sees the covenant relationship between husband and wife, that it is not something that is separated from him or apart from him. Covenants almost always have some sort of sign associated with them. Right? If we are using again Noah as an example, the spoken oath or vow, never again will I destroy the whole earth by a flood, and I give you this sign to remind you of the oath that I have made. And that sign is what?
Cameron:The rainbow. Right? And every time we see a rainbow, we're like, oh, God is once again promising. That is the sign of the covenant that God made with the people. The sign of the covenant that you make between with your husband or your wife is sexual intercourse.
Cameron:The sign of the covenant in marriage is sex. It is a it is a covenantal intimacy meant for that special and binding relationship. We are gonna talk about that, I think, the fourth week, the last week of October. So just, like... I don't know.
Cameron:Buckle up. Yeah. Look forward to it. Take your kids to Conduit Kids. Bring their kids in here.
Cameron:Yes. Listen. We we need healthy and biblical views of sexuality. We need healthy and biblical views of sex within marriage and intimacy in general. Okay?
Cameron:And so, I'm not embarrassed to talk about it, and I think you're gonna be embarrassed to how not embarrassed I am to talk about it because it is a it is a... Sherry's sick that day already. But it... Because it is it is a it is a gift from God, and it is the defining sign of what it means to be a husband or a wife. K?
Cameron:It is the thing above every other thing. Okay? Above every other dynamic of relationship between you and your spouse, the thing that separates that relationship from any other relationship that you have that you have is intimate... Intimacy and sex. And so it is...
Cameron:It's beyond just like this sense of like, oh, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about. Like, no. It is critical to talk about because you cannot understand the biblical design of marriage if you do not understand the biblical design for sex. You can't. Okay?
Cameron:So there is a, it has a spoken oath or a vow covenants do. It has God as a witness. It has a sign that the covenant exists, and it has a new relationship that is created in the midst of the covenant. The covenant... Covenants always establish a new relationship.
Cameron:I will be yours, and you will be mine from the Abraham covenant. The covenant in marriage that we see established in Genesis chapter two, Adam says, This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall she shall be called woman because she has come from man. And finally, there is, what is called loyal love within all, covenants or the the Hebrew word here is hesed, which means a steadfast love that is reliable in its commitment. It is the substance that keeps the covenant glued together, a steadfast love that will not be moved, that stays in a position of absolute loyalty to the covenant that has been made.
Cameron:Now in Genesis chapter two, we see the reality of the... Or we see the the first covenant or the... Of what was established, or marriage... The first marriage, I should say. If we go to Genesis chapter two, you'll see some of these dynamics that we just talked about.
Cameron:Relationship Does between Adam and Eve bear the mark of covenant? Then the Lord God said, it's not good that a man should be alone. I will make for him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of heaven and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
Cameron:The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of heaven and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not a suitable helper found 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 it up in its 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 the man said, this is the...
Cameron:This is at last bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now this is just replete with language, covenantal language.
Cameron:The the same the same factors that exist in all covenants in scripture exist here in this newly formed relationship between Adam and Eve. Strangers. Right? Becoming family now. Adam says, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh is the language of family and kinship.
Cameron:A new bond that outranks the old. Right? A a man shall leave his father and mother. In in a world that was organized around bloodlines and and legacy, this is really startling in... To their modern language.
Cameron:Marriage was the one or is the one human covenant that makes a nonrelative closer than your own parents. It is held together here. The the relationship between Adam and Eve held together by loyal, chesed type of love. When the scripture says that that Adam was to hold fast to his wife, that's not just a way of saying stay close to him. That's covenantal language from the Old Testament.
Cameron:Israel was said to hold flat... Hold fast to the Lord and his faithfulness in Deuteronomy chapter 10. A new identity was then path... Or was paved forward for them. They shall become one flesh, and then a sign was established in that marriage relationship.
Cameron:They were naked, and they knew no shame. So for a moment, I want to go back to where we started. Ephesians chapter five, verse 24, right? That this is a profound mystery where Paul tells us that all of this language about relationship between husband and wife is a profound mystery. And then he tells us what the mystery is.
Cameron:I am really talking here about Christ and the church. Sin, your marriage was never meant to be the main story. Your marriage was always meant to point to the main story, and and here's ultimately what the main story looks like. In in Genesis chapter 15, God makes a covenant with Abram, and Abram does what is done in those days in the midst of covenant. It was called cutting a covenant or making a covenant.
Cameron:He took an animal, and he cut it... Cut the animal down the middle, and he split it literally in half. And, they would lay two halves across from each other, and normally both parties of a covenant relationship would walk between the pieces of the split animal, to proclaim as a proclamation to all around them, the unmistakable message. If I break the promise that I make right now, let what happened to these animals happen to me. This is the nature of covenant in, the Old Testament.
Cameron:But the reality is is that when God makes the covenant with Abram in Genesis chapter 15, Abram never walks between the two halves of the animal. He never goes... It says that God puts him into a deep sleep. And then in the dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, the the very presence of God himself passes between the pieces of the animals alone by himself. And what God is ultimately saying there in that moment is, I and I alone will keep this covenant.
Cameron:And if it is broken, even if Abram is the one to break it, I will bear the cost. I will bear the penalty. And then what happens in the life of Israel, the nation that God made that covenant with? They broke it, and then they broke it again. And they broke it again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
Cameron:And over and over and over, what was promised was broken. The prophets described it as adultery, as a bride running after other lovers. And what did God... What does God do? God keeps pursuing his bride.
Cameron:Even the whole book of Hosea goes and and and goes and buys back his unfaithful wife because that's what God does for his people. Then one night in an upper room, Jesus takes a cup like we are about to take. And he says, this is... This cup is the new covenant in my blood. It is the it is the new promise.
Cameron:It is the new relationship. It is the new loyalty and steadfast love. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. And then the very next day after Jesus does that, God walks between the pieces of the slain animals once again, this time in flesh. The the one the the one man who never broke covenant takes the curse for the people who did.
Cameron:That that is the covenant at the heart of the universe, the sacrificial love of Jesus for us. That's the love that your marriage was meant to echo. That's what marriage is about, echoing the sacrificial love of Jesus for those who sinned but for whom he redeemed. Now some of you may be sitting here and, you know, like, maybe this is hard to hear. Maybe your marriage feels more contractual than it does covenantal right now.
Cameron:Perhaps you're tired or lonely, still living though in the same house as, your spouse. Maybe you're carrying a marriage that ended, and the words like covenant and faithfulness feel like stabbing or assault even in a wound. Maybe, like we said, you're the only one in your home who's walking with Jesus. Maybe you have had to bury the person that you made your vows to. I want to hear...
Cameron:I want you to hear me really, really clearly the hope of this series and this... And and marriage, really, the covenant of marriage, is not how strong your covenant keeping is. It's how strong and faithful and powerful and good and willing God's covenant keeping is. Your marriage doesn't rest ultimately on your ability to hold it all together. Thank you, Jesus.
Cameron:Right? It rests on a God who walked between the two pieces for Abraham's covenant. It... The the same steadfast love that held on to Israel when they consistently walked away from the Lord is available to you this morning. Now for some of you, the next step really maybe isn't...
Cameron:Not maybe isn't... The next step is not fixing your spouse. It's coming to him first, remembering that most marriage are fixed vertically before they're fixed horizontally. And and for all of us, whether you're married or not, the deepest covenant we will ever know, even know, is the one that we make at the altar with Jesus. It's the one that he made at the cross with us.
Cameron:And so as we come to the table this morning, we're not coming as a people who have kept our end of the deal. We're coming as people whose covenant God has kept for us. So whatever we're carrying this morning about your marriage, about your past, about your heart, bring it to the altar because this is where covenant love is remembered, received, and renewed. I was talking to my small group this past week, and we're just... We happen to be doing a...
Cameron:Leading a small group on marriage right now. And in the midst of all that we were talking about with marriage, we we kind of settled on this reality that all of us have, different experiences and expectations about what we can or will experience in marriage. And sometimes those expectations can be blown away in a really good way, and sometimes they can be blown away in a really negative way. And sometimes we have a little bit of both. But the covenant of marriage, again, is not primarily about us.
Cameron:It is rooted in God's faithfulness to us. And I want you to hear this about the reality of marriage. God... Marriage is God's idea. And God is powerful, God is faithful, and God is willing to unleash all of his power and all of his faithfulness and all of his goodness onto and into your life and your marriage, no matter where it finds itself now, no matter what you've experienced in the past, no matter if you ever plan to be married, ever have been married, that God's faithfulness is available to you.
Cameron:God's goodness is available to you. God's power is available to you. He wants to give it to you.