Session 3 (Seasons)

So I want to kind of set the the stage here for what I'm talking about, which is like the seasons of marriage. And with this, a few years ago, my friend texted me, and he's like, "Hey, bro, I found your wedding video. So we we used to use mini DV, right? Like the little tapes and the little camcorder kind of things, and I had a camcorder. I had like I would take it everywhere. It was like I was like Macaulay Culkin and Home Alone Two with the talk about talk a lot thing, but it was a camcorder, and so I had it with me at our wedding. I carried it with me on our honeymoon. We went to Greece. It was amazing. It was like so much fun. He was like, "I converted your honeymoon video, and I converted it digitally. Here's a link. And just so you know, it's not like it was not. It was a normal honeymoon video. It wasn't like anything weird on there that he shouldn't have seen. That would have been talked about in my last session. But I was like, "Oh, cool! This is fun, right? And so, mind you, by then we had been married 20 years. So I start watching it, and I was probably five to six minutes in, and I had to turn it off. I'm like, this is horrible. Like, I cannot stand listening or looking at these people. Like, they're so annoying. They, why do I sound like that? Why did I keep using that voice like as a joke, I was annoying myself so much. There's a general there's a general discipleship thing in there that you should probably be annoyed with how you used to be as you grow in Christ. But for us, in terms of marriage, it was like a recognition of these different seasons that we've gone through, like we are not who we were then. We just literally aren't the same people. I felt like I was watching strangers. It was a very odd moment. So, like, here's the thing: is who I married is not the same person as she was when we got married. I am not the same person. So I met Bridget as a teenager. She she was a teenager. She was 19. I was 20. Then I got to know. So I got to know her. Then I got to know her as a young woman. I got to know her as my fiance. I got to. By the way, that sounds arrogant. I got to know her as my fiance. There we go. Whenever you say "say fiancee, you automatically sound arrogant. So I'm glad I corrected that. I got to know her as my young wife. I got to know her as my pregnant wife. As a young mom with babies, and now as a still very young mom with teenagers, and in every season, I have had had to and had the honor of falling in love with her over and over and over again. It's learning to love a different person over and over and over again, and it's this work that I truly love doing. So if all I do is think back to that honeymoon video that's so annoying and painful to watch, and expect that that's who I'm married to. I'm missing what's actually happened in our marriage, what's actually happened in her life, and who she is, and and in her with me as well. The beautiful thing is, I actually love her now more than I did when we first met, and more than I did when we first got married, because I get to see this beautiful woman that God is forming more and more into His image. It's incredible. So, in marriage, as in life, right? There's different seasons that we go through. Somebody told me recently. I said, "I've just this is a really busy season for me, and they said, "You know, you say that every time I ask how it's going. Maybe you're just too busy, which is probably true. But we we use this idea of seasons for everything. I want you to, if you have your Bible, to open to Genesis 37. Interestingly, in the Bible, there there's actually not hardly any long narratives of a married couple. There's really not. You have a few, and they're all horrible.

Like you you don't want to look at their marriage and be like, oh, that's the one. That's what we're trying to be like. Like there really, there is like very few, and the ones that are, there's like these snippets. Like, oh, that was good. And so, we're actually going to be leaning in to somebody's story, a young man that's having to navigate different seasons of life, and in that we'll see God's presence with Him through all of it. Marriage is very similar. So my goal here with this session is to help us understand a theology of seasons and then apply that To marriage, let me pray for us, Father. You are good and worthy of all our worship, God. I pray that you would be here with us today. That this session and the rest of this day would be healing and encouraging. That it would be equipping. That we would all be open to what it is you want us to do. That I would be open to what you want to say, and God, that you would unite marriages in this church, not just for the rest of the day, but that this would be create, like we prayed before this day even started. This would create a generational ripple effect throughout this church and this community. God, we give this time to you in Jesus' name, Amen. So we're going to dig into five different marriage principles that we can take from watching the seasons of Joseph's life unfold. So Joseph is-he's actually my favorite character in the Old Testament, I love Nehemiah. I love David. I have different people that I like for different things. But Joseph, for me, in my opinion, he is the strongest archetype of Christ represented in the Old Testament. When you look at his life, though, it's wild. It's full of ups and downs, different seasons that he goes through. He goes through seasons of plenty and seasons of want. He goes through seasons of favor and seasons of wondering what is happening. He goes through seasons of freedom. He goes through seasons of slavery, seasons of weakness, seasons of power. Throughout it all, we see a couple of truths. One, we see that God is always with him. He doesn't abandon him, and two, we see that Joseph maintains integrity, like he maintains his integrity through it. So as we look at Joseph's life again, I want to see what we can learn from the seasons of life that he goes through, and then apply them to marriage. So we're going to look at at five of these principle number one. Five principles. Principle number one. The season that you start in isn't necessarily the season you'll stay in. Season you start in is not necessarily the season you'll stay in. Genesis 37 three. Let's read that. He says, "Now Israel, the man, right? Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors. Okay, so for Joseph here, we see he's in this season of favor. He's in this season that we also know is a season of dreaming, like God's giving him these these dreams, but this season of favor, at least insofar as it pertains to his dad, he was loved. He was treated so well by Israel. It was really this this beautiful season for Joseph. But things changed like that. Verse four. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. So he said to them, please hear this dream which I have dreamed. There we were binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also and also stood upright, and indeed your sheaf stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf. And his brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us, or shall you indeed have dominion over us, so they hated him even more for his dreams and his words. Jump down to verse 23. So it came to pass when Joseph had come to his brothers that they stripped him of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him.

Then they took him and cast him into a pit, and the pit was empty. There was no water in it, and they sat down to eat a meal, which is just messed up. They're like, "Let's murder our brother, and you guys want to get lunch? Like, then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, and on on their way to carry them to down to Egypt. So Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not and let and sorry and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brothers listened. Then Midianite traders passed by, so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver, and they took Joseph to Egypt. Let's keep in mind that Joseph has done nothing wrong here. It's like a wild thing that's happening now. Maybe if you're a brother and you dream that all your brothers are going to bow down to you, probably want to keep that one close to the vest. But technically, still didn't do anything wrong. He was for sure, though, not expecting his life to turn so quickly. Stripped of his robe, thrown into the pit and sold into slavery. It's quite the contrast from what just was when he goes. So he goes from a favored son to a slave. For pretty much all of us, when we enter into marriage, we are expecting a certain kind of life, and then it takes us somewhere completely different. I remember Bridget and I first got married. We were we were best friends. We had been together and are, but we had been together for four years, right? We never fought, and I'm not I'm not just saying that. Like we really didn't. We had never we never really fought, and for a long time that's actually how it was, but life changes, changes directions, and when you go from being young and in love to being like real adults that have real lives with real responsibilities and real problems and real issues, and then you have kids and you have bills and stress and jobs and all that-it's like stressing me out right now. All she, no joke, she was literally just on the phone with our bank. That's how this life works right now. But seasons change. They-they just do. But in those new seasons, we can see them as challenges, or as opportunities to love more deeply, as each other and God as we grow in our marriage. But we got to know that's happening. We got to know it's coming. Expecting the season to change allows you to embrace it and even look forward to it. So right now, I mean, that's the thing. When I think back on like that honeymoon video, and I think of where we are now, that's why it feels like we're totally different people. The amount of things that we've been through since then are like, I I don't even know those people. Right now we're in a really totally different season. It's crazy. We are in a season that's very busy and expensive. We have three teenagers, but here's the thing: it shouldn't have snuck up on us like we have kids. We know that they're growing, and what what I'm realizing over the last maybe year, is that within the next six to 10 years we're going to have another massive change. We're going to have a massive change going from like teenagers to empty nesters, going from married with kids to married with with grandkids. Like that's crazy. That my kids are nerdy Christian kids. Within 10 years, somebody's going to be married with babies. Like that's what happens. And so I'm like, that is mind blowing. But get, but I'm super excited about it. I'm excited about like this season that I could that I know is coming. So, principle number one: the season it does not stay the same. Number two: some seasons are imposed on you.

Genesis 39 verse two through five says, "The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had put and all that he had, he put under his authority. So it was for. The time that he had been the overseer of his house and all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake, and the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, all that he had in the house and in the field. So here's the thing: Joseph, he definitely didn't choose slavery. He was he was in this like great season of plenty and favor, and then he didn't choose slavery, but he gets put into this slavery situation. But guess what? God didn't abandon him. God's with him. Things get better. Now he's in this amazing place, and God's giving him favor yet again. But Potiphar's wife comes along and accuses him of something he didn't do. Is this story new for anybody? Do I need to get deep into that? We all got it, right? You know the the story well enough. So he gets accused of of trying to make advances and doing stuff with with his boss's wife. Verse chapter 39 verse 2021. Then Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of prison. So Joseph certainly didn't choose slavery. Certainly didn't choose prison. These things just are like happening to him. He was consistently choosing integrity. So so far his life has gone from favor to the pit to slavery to success, to false accusation, now to prison. So here's the thing: you don't choose all the seasons. Some things just happen. Some things just happen to you. Trauma. The death of a loved one, infertility, illness, miscarriage, a job loss, a wayward child, grief, unexpected career changes-like things just happen. It's not necessarily something that you did. Doesn't mean you did something wrong just because things change and things happen and sometimes it just happens to you. They just do. In marriage, though, it's so important to remember when these things are happening that you're on the same team. We're on the same team. I'm in it with you, for better or for worse. So, like when I think back through all the ups and downs of Bridget and my relationship, we've had great times where we've acknowledged that, like, hey, we're on the same team. So, like, I don't, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but come hell or high water, we're in this together. We, I got you, and you got me, and no matter what, we're good. Sometimes we weren't like that though, and we got, we get blindsided. But a consistent reminder that we're on the same team. We're going to ride the highs and lows of this life together. That's that's the the that's what a husband and wife have to be. Otherwise, I'm going through like this last several years has been insane. I we can talk about that on a personal level a different time. Like the last five years for our life, both individually or mainly individually, and of course that bleeds into family, has been just wild. Like, but we there's one thing we tell. Hey, I'm in it with you. We're we're together no matter what. All the ups and downs. Who was with Joseph? The Lord was with Joseph, and the Lord is with you too. Number three. You cannot always see what God is doing in the current season. Genesis 4014 and 15 says, "But remember me. Okay, so Joseph's in prison, all right, and he's now he has started like interpreting dreams there. But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me.

He's saying to this guy, to the cupbearer, make mention of me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house, for indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews, and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon. So this kind of gives Joseph's perspective, and he understands like I haven't done anything wrong, and he didn't. He doesn't know why. This is happening, and that's kind of how we all are in the middle of something. Like usually, when things are happening and are are happening to us, like we don't know why. We don't know what God is doing. We're not able to see what He's doing. But then watch what happens. Okay, Joseph's in prison and finding favor because he's Interpreting dreams, he's developing a good reputation, and he says, he says, like, hey, don't forget me when you get out. Make sure you tell Pharaoh, like, make sure you tell him about me, like what I what I'm doing in here. That's what he says in 14. Jump to verse 23. Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Like, are you? How was it? Come on, man. He can't catch a break. He helps. He he helps the the cup bearer, thinking this is my ticket out of here. I'll be back. Things are going to be good. Nope, forgotten. Two more years. It says he's in prison. Two years. Then Pharaoh has this dream. The cupbearer remembered Joe. Oh, you know. Oh my gosh. There's actually a guy that I know. I forgot. There's this guy that can. He can tell you. So Pharaoh ends up elevating Joseph. He interprets his dream. Pharaoh elevates Joseph, puts him over all like all the land. Ups and downs, man. I mean, it's unbelievable. You think about how wild his life has been, but when you think about your marriage, it's probably not that dissimilar. I mean, the extremes might not be quite so much. It's very difficult to interpret what God is doing when you're in the middle of the story. Like we can't see what what he's doing, so maintaining our integrity within that, staying on the same team, understanding that like God is with us and He is doing something. We may not know what it is, but He's doing something. Is incredibly vital. So when Bridget and I first, when we were dating, I wasn't a Christian. She was, she settled. But I, what I was, she. So here's this this thing. Like she, and we've talked about this. So I'm not like putting her on blast, she wasn't strong enough in her faith or personality to tell me things that probably needed to be said and to stand on her convictions. I was young, foolish. I'm like, I'm doing what I want. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna chase that. I'm gonna chase this. So, I baseball was like my life, and I got an opportunity to go play baseball in college in Dallas. Mind you, I was living here while we were dating, and I'm like, I'm going. And so, here's the crazy thing: that school I went to was a small Catholic school in Dallas, mind you, I did not believe. I go to this school to play baseball. I end up quitting, but I stayed at the school. And guess what God did? Me chasing my stuff, her not being like maybe strong enough or willing to like tell me things that need to be said, God used this weird situation of me being at a Catholic school to begin like unraveling the things that I thought I knew, and putting people in my life and even professors in my life that were way smarter than me, obviously, to take all the things I thought I knew about God and break them down, and God used that to then introduce me to Jesus. Now I didn't know any of that. She didn't know any of that. We just we were just being who we are. Life is happening to her. She's probably super. She was super frustrated by it. I was just dumb and chasing things. But in the middle of that, God had this this plan, where He's like, you you're doing something stupid, but I'm going to redeem that.

And so, literally within eight months of graduating college, I had given my life to Christ in a back here, by the way, in Long Beach, in a church here, and then 20. Two, three years later, here we stand. I don't know what God was doing, and sometimes He'll use things, our mistakes, our decisions, things that happen to us, like in the midst we don't realize it, but He'll use that to fulfill His good purpose. Just because we can't see what he's doing doesn't mean he isn't doing something. Number four, and this one is going to be quick. Every season requires integrity. Every season requires integrity. We kind of talked about this a little bit in the session two, where it's just the men. But regardless of what season you're in, integrity is required. You think about Joseph's life. This is part of the reason I love it because you just watch him and you like he. Who knows what it was actually internally happening with him? But he has integrity as a son. He has integrity as a brother, as a slave, as a manager. He has integrity when he's tempted. He has integrity in prison. He has integrity as an interpreter. He has integrity as a leader. All these different seasons, same integrity. And I said to the guys, like, we have to be consistent. Like, our wives should not wonder which Charlie is coming home. It shouldn't be angry Charlie, happy Charlie. Shouldn't be drunk. Charlie, sober Charlie. Charlie wants to go out to eat and have fun. Charlie's coming in mad because he had a hard day. Like maintaining my integrity, even in that maintaining my integrity with how I how I handle temptation, anger. Like maintaining our integrity in every season-that's day to day. But when big seasons happen, standing on who we are, on our identity, and knowing who I am, knowing who Bridget is, knowing who we are as a couple. So, as newlyweds, right? Like your integrity. Honestly, you're usually faced with the realization that you're a much bigger sinner than you thought you were. There's there's no better mirror of your sinfulness than your wife or your husband, until you have kids, and then there's no better mirror of your sinfulness than your kids. You have to learn to communicate differently. You have to learn to die to yourself. You have to learn to sacrifice when you're young parents, parents of teenagers. Then you learn how to like practice patience and discover who these new people are that live in your house that weren't there, even though they're the same people, and you're like, "Who is this person? Empty nesters like have to have integrity and learning what it means to continue to strengthen their love for one another. When all of a sudden life is pow, everybody's gone. Caring for an aging spouse requires integrity that looks like endurance, Tenderness, because the covenant that we make to our spouse doesn't change. The covenant does not change. It grows. It deepens, but it doesn't change. Number five, God is present in every season, which we probably know this, but I we have to talk about it. This is the last chapter in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20 says, "But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive, this is the culmination of Joseph's story. And as as he looks at the timeline of his life, he he real has a realization that not only has God been with him, and he but he couldn't quite see what he's doing. But he's been with him, but he recognizes that even the things that happened to him, all these seasons, all these things that happened, that God meant it for good because of the position that he was in then. He did not know this when his dad gave him the the tunic. He didn't know this in the pit. He didn't know it in slavery. He didn't know it when he was in good standing. He didn't know it when he was accused. He didn't know he's in prison. He didn't know it when he got out of prison. God was doing all of this for not just his good, but for the good of his of his people. He's now confident in God's faithfulness.

He's seen it over and over and over again throughout this story, is that the Lord was with him, but the Lord was with him. I want to encourage you. God has a plan for your marriage. He does. He wants it to thrive, and the. Different things that happen, the different seasons. Whether it's like linear, like when we were this age, this age, this age, or whether it's things that like times just shift and we don't realize it's happening. He wants to train you to rely on Him. And the thing is, I think we all know that, and I think we would all say that, oh, God was with me, God's working in me, He's doing something. But like when we're in it, we don't really believe it. But I think that distance can be really helpful for that. Even Joseph, like, oh, what God? Well, you meant for evil. God meant for good. He's. This is like time. Distance has had time has happened. This is a long time. It's so powerful to look back at your life, to look back at your marriage, and see how God has been at work. And we're actually going to do that together. One thing that I think we, as as people, just in general, we're too busy, and so we don't do this. We don't look back enough and just marvel at not only what God's done, but like who we've become in it and how He's worked. And so we're going to actually take seven minutes right now to do this. So rather than just talking about seasons, I want you to. We're going to do this together. So I want you to. Can you guys? Hi, me, Monica. Can you pass these out really quick? You didn't know you were getting employed today, but you did. Just like one, you can two per couple or one per couple is probably fine. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at like a timeline of our marriage seasons that you loved. We're going to think about think about this seasons that you loved, seasons that you didn't choose, things just happened. Seasons that you don't understand or didn't understand, and seasons where you look back and you see, oh, that's what God was doing. God was doing something that I didn't see back then, or that we didn't see back then. Looking at God, how God has worked all along, and seeing where he has brought you is a super powerful way to learn to trust him for the future. Like that's what's so great about God, is that we have our testimony to to help us believe him even more for the future. So when things happen, when things go crazy, we can remember, we can remember what he's done, and invite him in when new seasons come up. So, on that timeline, can you switch to the next slide? On that timeline, you'll see it looks like that. So, I don't know how long everybody's been married. I'll let you choose those how the distance on those hash marks, maybe it's 2468, 10. Maybe it's 510, 15. I don't know. Like I know there's like somebody in the 50. You got to list it out, and so you're gonna basically. Here's how it's gonna go. Above the line, these are high moments, high moments in your marriage. Like we say, man, that was awesome having the kids. Our wedding day. Oh yeah, maybe. All like big moments. Somebody was healed from something. We got through this time, got a new job, whatever. Low times could be. We had a really rough patch this year. Lost a job. Wayward child. Lost a child. And then what we're going to do from there? Go to the next slide. What we're going to do from there is you're going to. So this is actually a one that I did differently, but those dots are just kind of plot points, right? And you're going to write a two-label, a two-word label by each dot. And then after you've done that, we're going to go back and put just like a little cross by the dots that you can look at and go, whoa! Look at what God did there. So I'll give you just a really quick example.

So this was about more about my life, but you see around eight that was married, right? Like Bridget and I don't pay attention to the numbers because I just this is this is transposed on another one I did, so married big moment for me. Jesus and marriage were like really really like the same within months for me. Phoebe, so my daughter was very ill and God healed her. Like I'm going to talk about that another time too if you want to hear that story. Unbelievable. Our church closed in. 2020 that I was pastoring, and of course that was low. But I see now, man, I see what God was doing. The other, all the kids being born clumped together up there, as you can see, was like obviously like this amazing time. And so we have five, six minutes as couples, and just do that. Just kind of sit with it, plot the points, and put little little cross at the areas where you can now look back and see that God was working. Highly encourage you to do this for your actual life, like as an individual as well, because you you did have a life before married, and that actually shapes a lot of stuff that you bring into marriage, so super encourage, super encourage you to do that to work to look at how God's been working in your life and in your marriage throughout the seasons. Like He has been with you the whole time, and if we learn, if we learn anything like that part about like we're we're in this, like me and you, it's it's it's crucial to know for one another that like no matter what I'm good, and no matter what you like we're good. We could lose it all, and we're good. Okay.