Help For Every Marriage Series

We continue our series When Two Become One this morning. Thank you for joining us. Our hope is that this strengthens the marriages of our church and our community.

A number of men have been complaining that this series has been a little too hurtful to them. They asked that it might be balanced a little more toward the wives. While I may not make everyone happy in a marriage series, I am here to announce that we will be placing a sports ticker so the men can follow the scores during the worship services. They will be happy after this ?.

Keep your Bibles open Ephesians and put a bookmark there. Find the Old Testament book of Hosea with me if you will.

There are three to four powerful metaphors throughout the Bible to describe our relationship with God. Often, God is seen as a great King who rules over us. At other times, He is a Shepherd, who guides us, His sheep. Still other times, He is a Father loving His children. But in a startling picture, Hosea tells us God is not only our Shepherd and our King; He is also our Husband.

You’ll never understand God if you ONLY approach Him as your King, your Shepherd, or even your Father. It’s not until you see Him as your Husband that you can understand how intimate and personal your relationship with God truly is. And it’s not until you see yourself as the unfaithful spouse that you can really grasp your marriage.

Today’s Secondary Scripture (Page 893 in your pew Bibles)

And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” 4 For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days” (Hosea 3:1–5).

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body” (Ephesians 5:25-30).

In order to understand your friend’s marriage, your parent’s marriage, or even your marriage, you need to understand the source of marriage.

1. Your Relationship with God is a Marriage

“And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods…” (Hosea 3:1).

The word “And” at the beginning of verse 1 gives you a clue that you’re stepping in “mid-stream” in the middle of an ongoing story. Hosea’s marriage is the backdrop to a larger story. Hosea’s marriage to his wife, Gomer, acts like a walking/talking parable. God says in effect, “What you see in Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is what you’ll see in My (God’s) marriage to My people.”

Now, this entire small neglected book is dripping with passion.

1.1 A Secondary Marriage

And throughout its pages, you’ll see God using the marriage between Hosea and Gomer as a picture of His marriage with His children. And Paul picks right up on this theme in Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

It’s evident when Ephesians discusses the marriage between a husband and a wife, there is another marriage running in the background. In a similar way, there is another marriage running behind all the talk of husbands and wives in Ephesians.