Latest / High Level Wife Podcast with Chelsey Holm / Marriage Was Designed to Multiply

Transcript

Marriage Was Designed to Multiply · High Level Wife Podcast with Chelsey Holm

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the High Level Wife Podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am Chelsea Holm, your hostess, and here we do marriage God's Way.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday, we established something that completely changes how we look at marriage.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your marriage was never primarily about you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to take that a step further because when we go all the way back to the beginning, one of the very first things God says after creating male and female is be fruitful and multiply.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when we hear that, we we usually and immediately think, oh, babies, have children, fill the earth.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, that is absolutely part of the immediate meaning of Genesis 1.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that our culture today, I think the the newest generation, like they are not having children.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're just not having children.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is not a good place to be, right?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like we are in direct conflict and disobedience with God's command to be fruitful and multiply.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But but I want us to look at the larger biblical picture of fruitfulness because God's design doesn't stop at multiplication of people alone, right?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: God continually takes what we surrender to Him and produces fruit through it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your marriage was created with the potential to multiply far beyond the two people inside of it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So again, let's go back to Genesis.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1, 27 and 28.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: God creates humanity, male and female, in his image.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the very next thing scripture says is, and God bless them.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then it says, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the movement there?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: God blesses, and then he sends.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: The blessing isn't meant to terminate on them.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: The blessing actually produces the fruitfulness.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But we have shrunk blessing, and we've made blessing incredibly self-centered.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: God blessed my marriage.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we usually mean?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: We mean that we're happy, we're finally financially comfortable, or we have a beautiful house, our kids are doing well, we enjoy each other more or less most days, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God for every one of those gifts.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But biblical blessing so often carries purpose.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to go back to Abraham.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12, 2 through 3.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It says, God says, I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's the pattern again.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed to bless.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: God pours in so his people can pour out.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: This ties directly into our right order.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: We plug into the source to be filled by him so that we can overflow on everyone and everything around us.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed to be to bless.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens when we apply that to marriage?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like if we stop asking only how can God bless our marriage, and instead we started asking, God, who do you want to bless through our marriage?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is an entirely different posture, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly our home isn't just ours.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: The money, time, testimony, gifts, they aren't just ours.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even the hard things God has brought us through aren't just ours because God doesn't let anything go to waste.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're available to Him.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where two become one, and our capacity multiplies.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We see that in Genesis 2 that it says the two became one flesh.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not two identical people, it's two different people brought into covenant unity.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So think about what each person brings, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: What a husband brings, what a wife brings.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's each, they have their own gifts and strengths, experiences and resources, relationships, testimony, perspective, calling.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And God takes two and makes them one.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And now sends that oneness into the world.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 4:9.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We keep going back to these same ones, right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, not merely because two is more romantic.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's increased capacity, increased resilience, increased pulling power.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think the perfect example of this was when my husband and I ran a marathon together.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: There were different points where our bodies and our minds were breaking down, and we were able in real time to have a good reward on our toil because when one fell down, we were there to pick them up, each other at different points, and we crossed that finish line, and we were overwhelmed by the reward of that toil.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So think about kingdom multiplication for a second.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you have children and you're discipling the next generation, and then they disciple their children, and then their children disciple theirs.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is multiplication.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it goes beyond biological children here.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you open your home, when someone who's lonely finds family, or you mentor a younger couple, or heck, with all these storms we've had raging through Illinois, you lend your generator to a neighbor or to some someone in the community that you don't know, but you know that it's the right thing to do, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like these are the things.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things that we don't always know.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's multiplication attached to these acts of obedience.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus talks about fruitfulness in John 15, 5.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 8, it says, By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fruitfulness glorifies God.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was so interesting.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was just reading this morning in uh Mark, I think it was 10 or 11, I can't remember which one.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I honestly think Jesus is hangry because he he was hungry.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It says he was hungry, and then he went up to a fig tree and it didn't have any fruit, and so he cursed the tree and it withered and died.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, Jesus is hangry.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is so relatable.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, there was so much more to it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: But like that tree was not glorifying God, the fruitfulness glorifies God.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to notice where the fruit comes from.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's abiding, it's not hustling or building your own kingdom or trying to manufacture impact, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's Christ, it's always Christ first, always then fruit.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you're exhausted trying to bear fruit.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you're exhausted trying to have self-control and trying to be patient and trying all the like, no, it's not from you, it's the the Holy Spirit inside of you enabling you through you, abiding in the Father that produces fruit.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is right order again.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: God first, then marriage, then family, then mission flowing outward.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because when mission becomes first, this shifts.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when marriage is first, we turn inward, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: We start protecting our happiness or our comfort or our own plans.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when God is first, everything becomes available.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, this marriage belongs to you.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: This house, these resources, these gifts, these finances, this time, these children all belong to you.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Use all of it.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I have always, and I haven't gone through this yet, so I'm gonna take this with a grain of salt, but I have always looked at my children as arrows to be shot out into this word world for God's purpose specifically, his calling on their life to build his kingdom.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have not struggled with the sadness of each new chapter of my kids' lives, right?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like when they when when Bo went to kindergarten, you know, it was a little bit of an adjustment because I was used to having kids home all the time with me, you know.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but it wasn't this overall sadness that I was losing them because they were never mine to have.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are in my care that I get to love, that God chose for me to disciple, but they are for his glory and his kingdom purpose, and they are arrows that I will launch out into this world, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: This shifts, this shifts to a mentality of use all of it.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the enemy would love to keep you consuming, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is another reason self-centered marriage is so costly, because if all of our energy goes toward consuming and comfort, entertainment, comparison, keeping up appearances, constantly trying to make ourselves happier, then there's very little left to multiply.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's all of these things, all of these things that become idols are terrible masters because they always ask for more.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: If beauty is the idol that you're after, there is always more.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: If if the perfect family is what you're after, there is always more.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's always gonna be, I tell my kids this all, I'm like, there's always gonna be someone that's more beautiful than you, smarter than you, more successful than you, has more than you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as you live in a life of comparison, you will never be content.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It matters where you focus your eyes.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the enemy doesn't necessarily need to destroy your marriage.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Rarely.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Usually, distraction is enough.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: If he keeps you comfortable and inward and consumed with yourselves, right, he's got to.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, God has given you two lives that could be pulling together for his kingdom.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Also understand, fruitfulness doesn't mean famous.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make this really clear that kingdom multiplication doesn't mean starting a ministry or building a platform or writing a book or becoming missionaries overseas.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe God calls you to those things, and and and oftentimes he does, but maybe he also doesn't because fruitfulness can look incredibly ordinary, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's around the dinner table, an open front door, praying with your children, giving quietly, encouraging another couple, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Making yourselves available to disciple other couples, serving your church, taking a meal, telling someone about Jesus, forgiving when the world walks away, or loving your spouse sacrificially when someone else is watching, and especially when no one else is watching, because ordinary obedience in God's hands can produce extraordinary multiplication, so the question begins to change.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We stop asking only, is my marriage making me happy?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, we start asking, is our marriage bearing fruit?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who is stronger because we're together?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Who is being discipled and loved and served?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Who is hearing about Jesus?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are our children learning?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where are our resources going?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: What has God entrusted to the two of us that He intends to multiply?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So go study this for yourself.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Read Genesis 1, 26 and 28, 12, 1 and 3.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then finish with John 15, 1 through 11 and look for the pattern.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The pattern of blessing, abiding, fruitfulness, multiplication, and God's glory.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then ask, Lord, where have I wanted your blessing to stop with me?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: What have you entrusted to our marriage that you want to multiply?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Who could experience your goodness because we said yes?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Christian wife, do not settle for merely having a good marriage.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't even settle for having a restored marriage.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let God use it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let him take the forgiveness that you've learned, the testimony you've lived, the home he's given, the resources he has entrusted, the children that you're raising, the gifts he's placed in both of you, and multiply them for his kingdom.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because God's pattern has always been, he blesses his people so his blessing can move through his people.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe one of the greatest questions you can begin asking about your marriage is no longer God, what can you do for us?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, God, what do you want to do through us?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you on the next episode.