Scott Brown's sermon, 'The Ten Commandments of Marriage,' emphasizes the importance of understanding God's role in marriage, as detailed in Ephesians 5:22-33. He outlines ten commandments to guide couples: 1) Take dominion, highlighting the collaborative creation and stewardship within marriage; 2) Walk in unity, based on the biblical oneness of marriage; 3) Face the reality of human fallenness, acknowledging the inherent flaws in both partners; 4) Walk in humility, focusing on mutual respect and honor; 5) Preserve purity, by avoiding covetousness and upholding the sanctity of the marriage bed; 6) Maintain sexual intimacy as a mutual obligation; 7) Keep the covenant, viewing marriage as a binding commitment beyond emotions; 8) Enjoy the gift of marriage, fostering joy and happiness; 9) Keep a soft heart, avoiding hardness and contempt; and 10) Be filled with the Holy Spirit, which reflects in mutual love and respect. Brown emphasizes the need for biblical guidance in marriage, pointing out that these principles are not supported by secular culture and must be learned from God.

Okay, the central text about marriage is Ephesians 5 22 to 33. It's a very powerful image, but I want to give you several other illustrations. The whole matter of importance is to get fixed on what God is doing in your marriage. And that's why I want to just call these the Ten Commandments of Marriage. And really what what what God says about marriage really teaches you how to care for one another's souls, how to live together in love, how to guard each other's lives, and just what it looks like to be married together.

And the main point really is making Jesus Christ the center of your marriage. You know, what does it look like that Jesus is the center of your marriage? It's the word of God that's guiding you. That's how you make Jesus Christ the center of your marriage. It's not some spiritual thing that just floats around.

It's tangible. It's tangible in the Scriptures. Okay, so 10 texts of Scripture that I think teach us the range of what God is looking for in marriage. And I just want you to ask, is that what I'm looking for in marriage? Because this is what God's looking for in marriage.

The first commandment is take dominion, take dominion. That's Genesis 1, 27 and 28. And there we find, you know, God creates man in his own image. And then he blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So your marriage is more than just You are a couple. Your marriage is more than personal fulfillment. It's about taking dominion. It is a labor together. And you have one another.

And you're creating a world together. You're taking dominion. That's the first commandment. Take dominion with distinction. And I have distinction in there just because you have the different roles of a husband and the wife.

The wife is the helper. Commandment number two, walk in unity. Walk in unity. That's Genesis 2, 21 through 25. Genesis 2, 21 through 25.

I'm going to go quickly in these because I really just want to sort of cast a general vision for the biblical picture of marriage. And this passage speaks of the fact that God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. And then he says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh." So this is unity. Jesus said, what God has joined together, let no man separate. That means that there are external things that will seek to divide you in your marriage and you always have to be on the lookout for that but the commandment is walk in unity.

The third the third commandment is face the reality of your fallenness. Face the reality of your fallenness. This is Genesis 3, 6 through 10. The first awareness of fallenness was in the area of sexuality. And in Genesis chapter 3 verse 7, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And the woman says something that's really very profound for what really caused the dislocation and the disunity in the marriage. She said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. That's where it all comes from. That sense of your fallenness needs to be really, really understood. The serpent deceived me.

That's the problem of marriage. And then fourth, the fourth commandment, walk in humility. Walk in humility. This is in 1 Peter 3, 1 through 7. 1 Peter 3, 1 through 7.

And here you have this language, wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. And then he says, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. And then he gives an illustration that Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord. So you have the humility of the wife, but then you have the instruction to the husbands, which goes the same way. He says husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife.

When you give honor to someone, you're putting yourself under them, in a sense. That doesn't destroy headship. But still, a husband puts himself in a relative place of dishonor compared to his wife. As giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. So he tells husbands likewise dwell with them.

You know literally make make a home with them and then giving and then living with your wife in an understanding way and honoring her. And the consequences are pretty significant. If a husband doesn't live that way, in humility with his wife, guess what? His prayers will be hindered. That's significant.

And then Peter gives general instructions to the husband and the wife. He says, finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, be tenderhearted and courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling so he he centers down on both the husband or wife and really says be tender-hearted toward one another that's that's the humility And then the fifth commandment, preserve purity, preserve purity. This is Hebrews 13, 4 through 6. Hebrews 13, 4 through 6. Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have for he himself has said I will never leave you or forsake you. The preservation of purity is secured by repentance from covetousness from wanting something that's not yours. Preserving purity. There are many things that we can say about preserving purity in marriage because there are so many inlets of impurity in our culture.

But those things just need to be spurned and expunged from the marriage relationship. And then the sixth commandment, Don't let sexual intimacy die. Don't let sexual intimacy die. This is 1 Corinthians 7, 3 through 5. 1 Corinthians 7, 3 through 5.

And in that passage, the apostle says, Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does. And then he says do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. And what the Apostle is saying is that marriage actually creates a mutual obligation for sexual intimacy. He's using the language, he uses the word owe.

You owe it, there are things owed through marriage. They're not earned, they're owed. This language is used for owing a sum of money. And he says, you owe affection that is due her and she to you. So this is the fulfillment of an obligation in marriage and it's interesting that he gives us language about mutual authority.

The wife doesn't have authority over her own body and the husband doesn't have authority over his own body. How are you going to work that out? Okay? I think it's actually a brilliant, it's a brilliant principle because it assumes that a husband and wife have to work together about how this works in their life. There has to be mutual sensitivity and love and also a sense of obligation.

How are you going to work that out? You have to work it out in love. And then keep the covenant, the seventh commandment. Keep the covenant. Malachi 2 verse 14.

Marriage is a covenant, Malachi 2, 14, he says, she is your companion and your wife by covenant. And then he makes it plain that this covenant is the union. He makes them one through a covenant. And that's because Emotions are not capable of sustaining a marriage. They're not capable of keeping a couple together.

Because emotions go up and down. Everybody's emotions go up and down. And so, the problem with the philosophy of love in our society is that it's just so dependent on emotions. It's so corrupting. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter from prison actually to his niece who was getting married.

And the book Letters from Prison includes this letter. And He says this, marriage sustains love. Love does not sustain marriage. So a covenant keeps you through the ups and the downs of marriage. A covenant is a little bit like shock absorbers.

In a car, you know, you go through different kinds of roads and different kinds of bumps, but a covenant keeps you going through the different ups and downs. He said this, Bonhoeffer, marriage is more than your love for each other. It's a higher dignity and power, for it is God's holy ordinance through which He wills to perpetuate the human race Till the end of time. Beautiful words for a niece to read about being married. Commandment number eight, enjoy.

Enjoy the gift of marriage. There are many passages that I could cite about this. I'll just cite one, Isaiah 62 verse 5. Enjoy the gift of marriage, Isaiah 62, 5. I'll read it.

For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. Now, a few years ago, I tried to go through the Bible and I wanted to document every mention of a wedding or a bride or a bridegroom in the Bible. And what stunned me is almost every time a bride, a bridegroom, or a wedding ceremony is mentioned, the word joy or enjoyment shows up in the text. That's why God created marriage, by the way.

He created that wedding ceremony to be a pinnacle of joy and then to continue on. And while we don't build our marriages on our emotions, We still ought to test our marriages on joy. We are to build our homes really as replicas of everlasting joy. I'll quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer again, Earthly society is only the beginning of the heavenly society. The earthly home is an image of the heavenly home.

And the earthly family is a symbol of the fatherhood of God for all men, for they are his children. All of this for all eternity. Jesus said, enter into the joy of your master. Well that's what heaven is like and it's our job actually is to create a replica of everlasting joy in our homes. And we do it in so many ways.

We do it when we look into one another's eyes. We do it when when we're not ruminating all the time over all of our problems in our marriage. You know, one of the problems that couples often have is they're always talking about the problems in their marriage. And that shouldn't be the focus of a marriage. And then the 10th commandment.

And that really takes us to the central marriage text in the Bible. And that's Ephesians 5, 22 to 23. And the commandment is be filled with the Holy Spirit. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is what Ephesians 5 22 to 33 is all about.

And the apostle Paul, he's building a case for family life. Ephesians 5 and 6 are called the family life codes. And there are several sections like that, 1st Peter 3 is another one, but the family life codes in Ephesians, they actually rest on a proposition. The Apostle Paul begins the family life codes by saying, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. He starts with that.

And then the apostle illustrates what the filling of the Holy Spirit looks like. And what it looks like in the church is that people submit to one another. What it looks like in wives is that they submit to their husbands and they respect their husbands. What it looks like in a husband is he loves his wife like Christ loves the church and gives himself for her and he nourishes her and he cherishes her and he washes her with the water of the word. That's what it looks like when a man is filled with the Holy Spirit and you can tell a spirit-filled woman by her submission and you can tell a spirit-filled man by his love.

So that's what the apostle is saying. And so the 10th commandment is be filled with the Holy Spirit. So there they are, 10 commandments. Number one, take dominion. Number two, walk in unity.

Number three, face the reality of your fallenness. And I'll just stop there for a second. Many years ago, Elizabeth Elliott wrote a book, actually it was a letter to her daughter who was gonna get married called Let Me Be a Woman. It's a great book. Every woman should read this book.

Your little girl should read this book, too. Let Me Be a Woman. But in the book, she says that the problem with marriage is that you marry a man and you marry a sinner and you also marry a human being. And you just have to recognize what you've done. That's who you married.

And that's why this idea of facing the reality of your fallenness is really critical. You are fallen and your spouse is fallen. And that's the way God planned it. He planned that you would be married to a fallen human being. And he did it for his own glory.

So you shouldn't be so worried about it. And then number four, walk in humility. Number five, preserve purity. Number six, don't let sexual intimacy die. Number seven, keep the covenant.

Number eight, enjoy the gift. Number nine, keep... Oh, I skipped one. I did skip one. Keep a soft heart.

Let's go back to that. Keep a soft heart. That is number nine. Thank you, Brett. You knew that already.

Everybody knew this. Every wise pastor knows you should not number your points. Because you're gonna skip one. And then some eight year old is gonna come up to you after the sermon saying, Mr. Brown, you missed number.

Okay. So, keep a soft heart. This is derived from Matthew 19, seven and eight. And the companion passage, Mark 10, four through five. And he's speaking, the Lord Jesus is speaking about divorce.

Why divorce? And the crowd says to him, Why did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce to put her away? And he said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. And so I say this commandment is keep a soft heart because hardness of heart is often the beginning of the end in a marriage. You develop hardness of heart, you just need to recognize where that is going.

There were some researchers a few years ago who spent 40 years studying divorce. They were asking people for 40 years what was the heart of their divorce, why did they get a divorce and they came down to one word, contempt. Contempt. When contempt begins to grow, you've got something to repent of. You have one of the most devastating viruses working in your marriage, contempt.

And that's why this idea of hardness of heart is so critical. Keep a soft heart toward one another. So there you have it. Nine, keep a soft heart, and then 10, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, These are passages that deal directly head on with marriage.

But everything you need for your marriage isn't just in these passages. Because The Bible is full of commands, relational commands, that are also, they're not just for your friends and your people in your church. They're for your marriage as well. You look at the fruit of the Spirit. You look at the laws of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

You can look at the relational commands in the Bible, all of them, and you can apply them to your marriage. So just because these passages speak directly of marriage, that doesn't mean this is the only thing the Bible says about marriage. Because the Bible says a lot else about marriage all over the Bible. So, Paint this kind of picture. It really is a beautiful picture.

And it's such a counter-cultural picture. You're not gonna learn how to do it anywhere else except from God. So let's pray. Father, thank you for teaching us the ways in which we should go. Thank you, Lord, that you've given us a way forward, that we have something to live for, something to work for, something to focus on as a husband and wife.

And I pray that all of us here, oh Lord, would understand what you desire from a marriage since you did create it. And that we would rid ourselves of desires for our marriage that are not part of your plan, but to embrace your plan with all of our hearts. And Lord help us to paint beautifully in the days to come. Amen.