162: Encouraging Young Adults to Get Married and Have Families

To the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Well, nothing too controversial today on the podcast, just a little episode on marriage. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Allen Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church, and we are in Perryville, Arkansas, central Arkansas.

Encouraging Young Adults Toward Marriage and Family

And today's episode is really a sermon clip from a recent sermon through the book of Ruth. And in this clip, I talk about just that we should have an unapologetical stance that we believe young men and young women ought to get married, ought to think generationally, ought to establish a home.

They ought to do this at a young age. It's even more important than college. It's even more important than career. Not that you can't still do those things, but there is a priority. Education's important, actually.

We shouldn't disdain it. Careers are important. We shouldn't disdain it, but there is a priority, right? And I understand we can caveat this thing to death, but the point is that we ought to recover an encouragement, and even a God-desiring, like a biblical requirement, that God's plan for most people is that they would get married, have children, have multiple children, have a home.

I understand there are so many caveats that you could pick through with that, but we're not gonna beat that to death. We're just gonna let the truth speak for itself. So you pick up in the message talking about rest, and we're talking about what Naomi got right, and so you just have to listen to the message, but I do wanna start with our rest in Christ, so that's where the sermon will begin, but then we get into the so-called controversial take on the fact that we should be encouraging men and women to get married, establish home, have families, so hope it's beneficial to you.

The Lord as the Source of Rest

Okay, we're talking about some things that Naomi got right. Here's the fifth and the last one. The Lord is the source of rest. Think about what she said in verse nine. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband.

Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. The Lord is the source of rest. The idea of rest here, the Hebrew word, conveys permanence, security, peace. I don't know how your Bible may translate it, and Naomi recognizes there in verse nine that it is Yahweh that must grant this.

It's the Lord who gives rest, and so this is something the Lord must give if it is truly ever to be found. I think it was Augustine, right, who said our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.

Talking about God. You'll have a restless heart until it finds its peace in Christ. So two things to mention here. First, most naturally, my mind runs to Matthew 11, where Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So there's a gospel call here for you. Like we talked about this morning, here's an invitation.

Are you tired of your sin? Is your sin a burden to you? Are you crushed by seeing the law of God and that you continually fail, fail, fail to ever meet or broach its perfect standard? Jesus says, come rest in him.

That goes out to you now. Come rest, come be forgiven. He has met the law's demands by his perfect life, and he has met the law's demands by dying under its just penalty for sinners. Your weary soul may find rest.

But it's only in Christ alone. Said earlier, he's the kinsman redeemer of his bride. Only in Christ, our bridegroom, may the church find everlasting rest. And here's something interesting. I got another application, but here's something interesting while we're thinking about that.

Ruth, Redemption, and God’s Answer to Prayer

Go to the back of the book of Ruth, back of Ruth, Ruth chapter four. It's interesting. Ruth chapter four. Okay, spoiler alert, but if you don't know the story of Ruth by now, then that's on you, bro. So verse 13.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife, and he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel.

You know what happens sometimes to God's people? We say silly things or things that are kind of right, but not fully right. And then God takes what Naomi said for Ruth. May you find rest in the house of your husband.

And she didn't even know what she was saying. And God answered her prayer beyond what she could think or even ask. And that is how God often does for his people. So first application. Rest is only in Christ.

Eternal security is only in Christ. The bridegroom that you need is Christ alone, who's completed the work. Now I have another point about rest, and it's the most controversial of the sermon. Verse nine.

Marriage as God’s Design for Human Flourishing

The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband. There is a spiritual rest that is priority, that we all need, and it can only happen in Christ. But hear me, this shouldn't be controversial.

But in our present cultural climate, it is controversial. Hopefully it's not controversial in this room. But there is a restlessness, if you will, in the heart of men and women that God has designed to be settled in one way.

Marriage. Now there are a small, we bring this stuff up, people bring up what about, what about, what about. Look, there is a small percentage of people, small, who are called to celibacy. There are some who cannot get married because they have very serious health issues or very serious mental conditions, granted.

But let's set those caveats aside and never apologize for the fact that God has a design for the overwhelming majority of the human population to get married and to establish a home. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband.

Now in this day, this is certainly especially significant because a woman without a husband was in a very serious situation. But I just want to tell you, don't just run 3 ,000 or more years later, actually, and think, well, we don't struggle with that today.

This application is just as true today, all right? Liberalism has told women that they will have a fulfilled life if they'll go out, get four degrees, get a well-paying career, show the man that you don't need him, don't worry about kids, and then you just live your life and you'll be fulfilled.

But you know, this is a very sad thing, and you can look these up. Very sad thing happening the last few years. You have women in their 50s and they're making videos, and whether they're real or not, you know, about they're actually sad, I don't know, but 50-year-old women who regret that they listened to that advice.

And guess what? There's nothing they can do to go back and start a family. Now I'm not letting men off the hook. I think the problem with men, and I mean, there's several things we can mention, but one is that men are extending boyish escapades into their 50s.

You know, you used to talk about, you know, the 30 was the new teenager, but it's well into men in their 40s and 50s, and they just won't grow up. And I understand that what I'm about to say is quite countercultural, but hear me out.

Education, Careers, and the Priority of Establishing a Home

I'm not saying, we can talk about this, I'm not saying there's never a time for a young lady to go to college. I'm not saying there's never a time for a young man to go to college. Be careful, because education is good, and God is the God of the mind, and we should not just despise degrees for the sake of despising.

So just be careful of tossing that out altogether. But I'm making the argument that in the last 40 years of our culture, that we have valued education, careers, lavish living, wildlife, just more, more, more, more.

We value these things in society over settling down, marrying, having babies, and thinking generationally. By the way, this is not a coincidence. And as ironic as it is, because you think about progressive ideology, liberalism, it's not progress.

The Dignity of Wifehood, Motherhood, and the Home

Ladies, just, can I speak to you from my heart? Like, you're valued in God's sight. You are important. You are a non-negotiable factor to the kingdom. Don't let our modern society cheapen your existence by belittling being a wife, belittling being a mother, belittling having a home, belittling marriage.

Those are lies. The evil, listen, young ladies, children, the evil one is lying. Liberalism is lying to you. It's simply common grace to think the way that our forefathers thought even 100 years ago. I think about this, just for a second, quick illustration.

My grandfather, it's hard for me to think about that he would be this old, but he was born in 1922, so this year, it'd be 104. And my grandmother was born in 1927. Now, neither one of them, at least in their early years, professed to be Christians.

So 1922, 1927. They got married, if my dates are correct, in March of 1946. So my grandfather would have been, what is that, 23? And my grandmother would have been 18. I believe that's when they got married.

1946, you can give or take a year or two on that. And they were married for, until my grandfather died in 2009. 63 years. They had four children. Why? What was it in them? Why did they do that? Do you understand that that is vestiges remaining of Christianity?

That it is a common grace upon a society when men and women get married, establish a home, have children, and think generationally? Do you understand that this is an evidence of the common grace and blessing of God upon a people and upon a nation?

That even just a hundred years ago, people thought like that. Now, some of you, I understand, you haven't been given over to the modern day ideas on this. And I say two things to that. One is a praise.

Praise God. Second is a caution. Don't be prideful about it. This is what happens all the time. Christians figure out a doctrine like they figure out the doctrines of grace. And what they do is, when they figure out the doctrines of grace, they run around and they beat everyone else up because they haven't embraced the doctrines of grace.

This happens all the time, and it's a ploy of the evil one, I'm sure. But don't be prideful about it, right? Be careful of slamming other families because they haven't made some of the choices that you've made.

Instead, work to be gracious, work to teach, work to help others, work to understand that in a fallen world, there are going to be a variety of scenarios and even situations given by God that are simply we cannot control.

Grace, Providence, and Compassion for Exceptional Circumstances

And so we just wanna be careful about using God's grace in our lives in order to beat up someone else. Remember, Ruth and Orpah in our narrative, they would have loved to be married and to have children, but their husbands were dead.

So too can providential reasons prevent marrying young and having a child or multiple children. So what I'm saying is, we just wanna be tender to these realities. We wanna be gracious, even as we don't compromise the truth.

Encouraging Young Men and Women to Build Families

So with all that being said, I do want to say that we should not apologize for having this foundational biblical teaching. And that is with prudence and in biblical holiness, we ought to encourage young men and young women to get married and to have families.

I cringe when I hear someone counsel a young person. Y 'all better be using birth control when they get married. You know what could happen? She might get pregnant and have children, which are a blessing of God.

Oh, but you know, it'll be hard. I'm not casting aside biblical wisdom. I just want us to think biblically. I just want us to be strong and understand that God has designed men and women to get married, to have families, to think generationally, even about the kingdom of Christ, right?

This is a net good, by the way. It's the blessing of God for a society when young men and young women are not living lavish lifestyles, are not just settled on a career and that's it. They're not just having carnal pursuits and cruises and touring the world.

And then go back and they realize they have nothing to leave in their life. No, no, God is blessing a society when you see that society have young people who are being fruitful and multiplying and having families and building homes and having children.

This is a good thing. We should love this thing. We should encourage this thing. And it shouldn't make us feel weird. I said this earlier, it would not have been weird to anyone in America. What I'm saying would not have been weird to anyone in America until, you know, the latter half, especially the sexual revolution, but the latter parts of the 20th century.

Holding to Biblical Marriage Without Pride or Coercion

So let us work to hold this line, show grace, help teach, go forward in God's truth. I understand that Naomi, all that I just said that Naomi is not saying when she said, the Lord grant that you may find rest each of you in the house of her husband, that she kissed him, they lift up their voices and wept.

I understand that that's not the primary application, but it is an application. It is an application from the text that Naomi understood that what would be great for these young women is for them to have a home and to be a wife and to have children.

Now, I understand when you talk this way, what happens is we live in a culture of offense. And so everybody just gets offended. Well, I have this medical condition and I can't have children. Well, then I'm not talking about that, right?

Or say, well, well, I, God has called me to be a single man or single woman. And while I think that's few in the history of people, it is a real thing. Okay, well, I'm not talking about you. I'm not slamming you or trying to make you feel guilty, but what I am trying to say is that we need to stand fast on these truths.

People may think we're weird. If people are gonna think I'm weird because I encourage a man and a woman to get married, have a home, have children, think generationally, press on for Christ's glory, well, then so be it.

Gospel Renewal Rather Than Top-Down Cultural Mandates

Now, let me say this and then we're gonna close. Do not think, do not think, because I'm gonna use my grandpa as an example again. Do not think that if we just get this back in culture that that fixes everything.

Do you understand that this is not something you can mandate? So let's suppose you have President Trump's ear and you could make him sign an executive order or something that would, you know, give harsh punishments for not getting married or whatever.

That's not gonna fix it. Do you understand that our society is never gonna be fixed from the top down? No society that has any modicum of godliness has ever strayed from that and then been fixed from the top down.

Well, then how can we fix our society? It's going back to the focal point of Ruth, which is what? God's grace in Christ. Do you know what our hope is for America? Our greatest hope is not that everyone would just get married young and have babies and have a home and all those things, I don't know.

Our greatest hope for America is that God would be gracious in sin revival, that he would bring about repentance and faith in mass. And the only way that's gonna happen is if we continue to preach the gospel.

But as we preach the gospel, brothers and sisters, we hold fast to the implications that the gospel brings into our lives, thinking rightly about God, thinking rightly about providence, thinking rightly about covenantal love, thinking rightly about the home and marriage and children and families.

I've rambled enough. I hope that the Lord has spoken to you in some way through the preaching of his word.

The Church as God’s Work and the Call to Respond

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?