THE TRUE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE
TEXT: Genesis 2: 15-25
Introduction:
Before I begin this morning, I want to show you this cool toy my wife bought for me. It is a new digital video camera. It will do amazing things. I can make movies and download them directly to my computer. I don’t know how to do it but she told me it will. I can make a movie of my kids and email right to their grandparents –I don’t know how to do it but she told me it will.
I can even hook it up to my computer and use it as a camera and talk to my parents through it - I don’t know how to do it but she told me it will.
Marriage is like that for many folks. They hear and believe that there is great stuff in it, but they do not know how to get that from their marriage.
God Himself designed marriage and designed it to be wonderful. In fact, it is a living illustration of the most wonderful thing in the world – salvation. But it must follow His design in order to work correctly and be all God designed.
That’s why God gave us His instruction manual – the bible – and His template for marriage – the picture of salvation. It is there to help us get all of the blessings God has prepared for you in your marriage.
OUTLINE:
Here is our outline for today. It is simple and yet unlocks for us the key to marriage. We will see these truths:
I. Picture of Salvation
II. Problems are from sin
III. Practical solutions
I. The Bible says Marriage is a picture of salvation
God actually designed marriage in a particular fashion. It has a specific plan and purpose and as such must be functioned in that way. If you are having trouble, or simply aren’t getting from marriage all that is there then the problem stems first from not following God’s pattern. It is like trying to use the video camera without reading the instruction manual.
Let me give you a definition:
One man and one woman totally committed, through Jesus Christ, to live out a picture of their salvation relationship through their marriage to each other.
Let me say this clearly so there is no misunderstanding: Outside of this definition, marriage will NOT work. Marriage is God’s! It must follow His design. It isn’t an accident that the Bible has a wedding as the beginning of recorded human history and a wedding – the Marriage Supper of the Lamb – as the beginning of eternity for those who know Jesus. God designed it this way and connected the dots for us in scripture.
God conceived marriage, He created marriage, and He consummated marriage. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 19 when He quoted the Old Testament in Genesis:“ What God has put together, no man can put apart.”
A. Marriage parallels our relationship with God.
This passage clearly teaches how God defined the roles of marriage. He created marriage as a moving, life-sized drama of the beauty of salvation. The husband is an actor portraying Jesus. He loves his wife with total sacrifice, dying on the cross for her daily. The wife then plays the role of a person who accepts Jesus as his or her savior in order to teach how this is accomplished. The wife gives herself completely and totally to her husband. This is designed to picture “if any man would come after me, then let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
God did this because he wants to reach people with the gospel. He wants them all to have a chance to search for Him and to know Him. Therefore, He chose the fundamental experience which is inherent in all people, regardless of time, culture, nationality, etc. – the family. He wired into the basic human relationship – man and wife – the picture of salvation and thus the search for Jesus. Every person who asks how to do this relationship comes to the search for true love and salvation which found only in Jesus as the source of all true love.
In every aspect of marriage, it pictures salvation. This is true without exception. Let me give you some examples.
B. Marriage “oneness” pictures oneness with God
The promise of marriage is found in verse 24/25. The 2 became 1. “Oneness” is the one word definition of marriage. Intimacy is what defines a beautiful marriage. It was given for us as God’s gift and is God’s target for marriage. See verse 25. This mirrors that deep longing in every person’s heart to be one with God through salvation. This is God’s complete and effective answer for loneliness.
Look at how God designed the first marriage. Adam and eve were completely intimate in the garden prior to sin. The last verse of Genesis 2 gives this powerful image. “The man and woman were naked and not ashamed.” How beautiful is that? It just speaks to your hart doesn’t it?
This is the living illustration of the oneness that a believer has in Jesus: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
John 15:4
“At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” John 14:20
C. Marriage roles picture the plan of salvation
Husbands: model the love of Jesus
Ephesians 5:24-27
Wives:
Ephesians 5:22-23
D. Forever – picture of eternal security
God has intended marriage to be forever and that is a picture of the eternal security of the believer. When the two become one as described in verse 31, this oneness is inseparable because God has designed it to last as a picture of eternal life.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
That is why Jesus said, “What God has joined together, no man can put apart” Matthew 18.
II. Marriage problems come from sin
Let’s look further at Genesis 3:1-8, 6-18.
Marriage problems began in the Garden of Eden because of sin and this has not changed in today’s world.
A. Sin causes a loss of intimacy - “they made for themselves coverings.”
In fact, when Adam and Eve sinned the first thing they did was to cover up from each other. This is the effect of sin in our hearts and marriages – it destroys intimacy. This too parallels our walk with Christ. God was perfect in every aspect of His design. When you are struggling in your marriage, I can tell you that the root cause destroying your marriage is sin. It is in the form of selfishness which makes you deviate form your role of selflessness towards your spouse and it cuts off the intimacy of your marriage.
B. Sin is and therefore causes selfishness.
Adam and Eve both sinned because of their selfishness. They wanted to be like God. But what is also important in this passage is to recognize that each of the stepped out of their God-given roles and therefore sin entered into their marriage and lives.
We will share more in the next two weeks how to fulfill the definitions of husbands and wives. Suffice it to say now that what keeps men from dying on the cross for their wives is selfishness. What keeps women from submitting themselves to their husbands? It is the same thing –selfishness!
I want to share with you the two most destructive areas of self-centeredness in marriage today. I see these in all marriages and they are killing our homes. They are in the marriages here in the church. Many of you who have come seeking answers are struggling with these tow things – here they are:
1. Emotionally disconnected men
2. Critical, mean spirited women
One of these will damage even the strongest man or woman. Both spell the end of marriage. I heard about a man giving advice to a young groom. He told him, “son, you can forget every mistake you have ever made once you are married. There’s no sense in two of you remembering them all.”
Both of these have their roots in selfishness. Both will wound the other spouse and cause them to retreat from the one they love. Write down this verse:
Proverbs 18:19
“A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle.”
The answer – you can only fix yourself. Do not fix your spouse, but go to Jesus and ask Him to help you better live out your role and you will see your marriage and spouse change.
C. Sin causes us to hide from our Savior and source of live (care and provision)
In Genesis 3:8-11, Adam and Eve hide from God because of their sin. It is amazing that we think marriage is hopeless. It is not. What is hopeless is doing marriage without Jesus. God only has our best at heart. He created the garden of Eden version. We made this mess through selfishness and sin.
When you return to Jesus in your walk with Him and then let Him make you who you are supposed to be, then His blessing and power return to your marriage.
D. Sin causes us to blame others and not the cause.
Watch in this passage in Genesis how they immediately blame someone else for their choice to eat of the fruit. Since sin is selfishness, it does not want to take responsibility for its own choices.
You may be thinking “I hope my spouse is listening to the pastor. It would be wonderful if they met my needs like he is saying.” This is the heart of selfishness working to cover up your own sin. You worry about letting Jesus make you Christ-like enough to fulfill your role and see just how much your marriage improves.
The biggest hindrance to wives submitting to their husbands is not the wife, but the husband who does not die on the cross for her. The same is true in the converse as well.
III. Practical solutions for Marriage
Here are a few instructions which are self=explanatory and are the applications which sum up the principles we have learned.
1. Look to Jesus.
If marriage is a picture of salvation, then you must walk with Jesus in order to accomplish your role. You cannot die on the cross without walking with the one who died for us on the cross.
2. Always refer to your “template.”
This is the instruction manual for you. Do not fight it but step out in faith and follow His plan.
3. Understand yourself and where you fail.
Know how your tendency toward selfishness as a sinner saved by grace affects you and ask God to help you grow in that area.
4. View yourself only in terms of you are God’s provision for your mate.
This is the best way to combat selfishness.
5. Model Sacrificial love.
If you follow Jesus’ example, He will bless you and He will work through you to draw him or her to you just as His love drew you toward Himself.
