Introduction:
A. Our sermon for today continues our series called Marriage Matters.
1. Last week, we discussed the fact that marriage ain’t easy.
2. We talked about some myths about marriage that can set us up for marriage failure.
3. Today, we want to explore the fact that marriage belongs to God.
4. I’m borrowing a lot of information for today’s sermon from chapter six in David Platt’s book, Counter Culture. The chapter title is: A Profound Mystery: The Gospel and Marriage.
5. I appreciate Jake Lougee for directing my attention to this resource.
B. One day, a psychiatrist visited a mental institution and interviewed a patient. “So, how did you end up here? What is the nature of your illness?” he asked.
1. The psychiatrist received the following reply…“Well, it all started when I got married. I married a widow with a grown daughter who then became my stepdaughter.”
2. “Then my dad came to visit us, fell in love with my lovely stepdaughter, and married her.”
3. “So my stepdaughter is now also my stepmother, but that also makes my wife my step-grandmother.”
4. “Soon, my wife and I had a son who was, of course, my daddy's brother-in-law since he is the half-brother of my stepdaughter, who is, my daddy's wife and my stepmother.”
5. “Now, since my new son is brother to my stepdaughter who is also my stepmother, he also became my uncle.”
6. The patient ended his explanation asking: “Now can you understand how I got put in this place?”
7. After staring blankly with a dizzy look on his face, the psychiatrist replied: “Now I think I’ve lost my mind as well!”
C. Marriage has always been a complicated matter, but it is getting even more and more complicated with the moral revolution that is taking place in our time.
1. For millennia, civilizations have defined marriage as an exclusive, permanent union between a man and a woman.
2. Two decades ago, politicians in our country voted across party lines to defend this definition of marriage in what was called the Defense of Marriage Act.
3. Yet in June of 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down key provisions of that Act, paving the way for the complete redefinition of marriage across our culture.
4. Presently, there are 37 States that have legalized same-sex marriage (only three by popular vote), and there are 13 States with laws outlawing same-sex marriage.
5. Presently, the Supreme Court is deliberating about whether same-sex couples have the right to marry anywhere in the United States.
D. As if that 2013 Supreme Court ruling were not enough of a paradigm shift, the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that the men and women who had voted for the Defense of Marriage Act had acted with intent to harm.
1. The majority opinion painted supporters of marriage as it had been defined for millennia as “bigots” who sought to “demean, disparage, humiliate, and injure” same-sex couples.
2. In that sweeping decision, the Supreme Court of our country redefined “an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence-indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history” while at the same time labeling proponents of traditional marriage as “enemies of the human race.”
E. The court’s 2013 decision represents only one part of a much larger trend away from traditional marriage across our culture that has been taking place over many years.
1. Census figures continue to project that nearly half of all first marriages end in divorce.
2. Many men and women have turned to cohabitation rather than marriage and so the number of cohabitating couples has nearly quadrupled over the last 30 years.
3. We are seeing more and more singles postpone marriage, or put aside marriage altogether.
4. Statistics show that over the past forty years, the number of independent female households in the U.S. has grown by 65 percent, while the share of independent male households has skyrocketed by 120 percent. (Mark Regnerus, “The Case for Early Marriage,” Christianity Today, July 31, 2009)
F. All of these realities cause us to wonder…
1. Is marriage really that important in the first place? And what’s the problem with redefining it?
2. Are we really going to say it’s wrong for two men or two women to marry each other?
3. Isn’t it more wrong, or even hateful, to deny two men or two women the right to love one another like this?
4. In the words of Rob Bell, a “Christian” leader who advocates the redefinition of marriage, “God is pulling us all forward into a greater realization that we need more love…we need more people who are committed to each other. It’s not good for us to be alone. So this is a huge moment when I think lots of us are realizing the old way of seeing things doesn’t work.” (interview: Why Rob Bell Supports Gay Marriage, youtube.com/watch?v=-q0iDaW6BnE)
G. So is the discussion of marriage in our culture simply a matter of moving on from an “old way of seeing things” to a new way of seeing things?
1. Is marriage merely a tradition that is open to changing with the times?
2. Or is marriage an institution that was ordained to be consistent through all time?
3. The Word of God has answers to those questions that certainly don’t sit well with our present culture.
4. But if we are willing to carefully search the Bible for answers to these questions, then we need to be ready for the solid answers the Bible offers.
I. Male and Female He Created Them
A. Our understanding of marriage is built upon our understanding of sexuality.
1. According to our culture, sexual differences are merely social constructions.
2. Yes, men and women have physical distinctions, but even these can be altered, if one prefers, like in the present case of former Olympian, Bruce Jenner, that is receiving so much media attention.
3. According to our culture, aside from physical differences, men and women are equal – and by equal, our culture means identical.
4. Therefore, in our cultural thinking, it makes total sense for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman.
B. But what does God, who is the creator of men and women think?
1. The first two chapters of Genesis record complementary accounts of human creation.
2. Genesis 1 tells us, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)
3. The dignity of men and women is on display from the start.
4. Nothing else in all creation, not even the most majestic angel, is portrayed as created “in the image of God.”
5. Men and women alone are like God, but not in the sense that we share all of God’s qualities.
a. God is infinite; we are finite. God is divine; we are human. God is spirit; we are flesh.
6. Nevertheless, in a way that nothing else in all creation can, men and women share certain moral, intellectual, and relational capacities with God.
a. We have the power to reason, the desire to love, the ability to speak, and the facility to make moral decisions.
b. Men and women have the opportunity to relate to God in a way that dogs and cats, mountains and seas, and even angels and demons can’t.
7. As soon as God created a man and a woman, he immediately blessed them and began a relationship with the only beings in all the created order who resembled Him.
C. This is where any Bible-informed conversation about men and women must begin – with men and women both created with equal dignity before God and before each other.
1. Men and women both share in the inexpressible worth of creatures formed in the image of God.
2. In this way, God speaks loudly from the start of Scripture against any sort of male or female superiority or dominance.
3. In 1 Peter 3:7, men and women are referred to as fellow “heirs…of the gracious gift of life.”
4. So, according to God’s design, men are never to be perceived as better than women, and women are never to be perceived as better than men.
5. Both are beautifully and equally created in the image of God.
D. But being created equally doesn’t mean that we are created identically.
1. Equal dignity does not eliminate distinction.
2. Genesis 1 makes clear that God created humans as male and female; God did it for a reason.
3. Right after God created them, God blessed them and commanded: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:28)
a. This command is only possible by virtue of the distinctiveness of male and female.
b. Multiplication would have been impossible if God had created humans male and male, or female and female.
4. But this divine design involves far more than the capacity to reproduce, as important as that is.
5. There is something greater than mere biological accident or evolutionary adaption going on.
6. God created man and woman to cherish their shared equality while complementing their various differences.
E. Genesis chapter 2 provides a more detailed description of the creation of male and female that gives us a number of important clues to God’s plan for the relationship between husband and wife.
1. First of all, we learn that God made man from the dust, breathed life into his nostrils, and placed him in the Garden of Eden.
2. God then paraded all the animals before Adam, tasking him with assigning names to each of them.
a. The point of this procession was to make clear to man that he was alone – that there was no one else like him.
3. And then for the first time in the Bible, we read, “It is not good.”
a. Everything God had made and done up to this point was “good.”
b. But one thing was not good…man was alone.
4. So God said, “I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen. 2:18)
a. God caused the man to fall asleep, and God performed the first surgery, He took a rib from the man and created a woman using that rib.
b. Obviously, God didn’t have to do it this way. God could have created the woman just from the dust of the ground as He had done when he made Adam.
c. Instead, God took a rib from the man’s side and He formed a woman.
5. When Adam awoke and saw the woman he was stunned, and the first recorded human words are poetry: The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Gen. 2:23)
F. Please don’t miss the magnificence of this scene.
1. God brings man to realize that he needs someone equal to him, made with the same nature that he possesses but different from him, in order to help him do things he could never do on his own.
2. This is precisely what God gives to man in woman, and the stage is set for the institution of marriage.
3. The very next verse states: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)
4. Behold the beauty of God’s design for man, woman and marriage.
a. Two dignified people, both molded in the image of their Maker.
b. Two diverse people, uniquely designed to complement each other.
c. A male and a female fashioned by God to form one flesh, a physical bond between two bodies where the deepest point of union is found at the greatest point of difference.
d. A matrimony marked by unity in diversity, equality with variety, and personal satisfaction through shared consummation.
5. Praise God for His perfect plan for man and woman!
II. Christ and the Church
A. God’s creation of man, woman and marriage was not haphazard.
1. From the beginning of time, God designed marriage in this way for a purpose.
2. That purpose was not fully revealed until Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and instituted the church.
3. In Ephesians chapter 5, as Paul discusses marriage he quotes Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Eph. 5:31), Paul then adds, “This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:32)
4. When God made man, then made woman, and then brought them together in a relationship called marriage, He was painting a picture, and giving an illustration about His future relationship with the church.
B. While it is true that personal enjoyment and human development are part of God’s good plan for marriage, God’s purpose didn’t stop there.
1. God created the marriage relationship to point to a greater reality.
2. From the moment marriage was instituted, God aimed to give the world an illustration of the gospel.
3. Marriage, according to Ephesians 5, pictures Christ and the church.
4. It is a living portrait drawn by a Divine Painter who wants the world the know that He loves His people so much that He has sent His Son to die for their sins.
5. In the picture of marriage, God intends to portray Christ’s love for the church and the church’s love for Christ on the canvas of human experience.
C. So how is this picture portrayed?
1. Ephesians 5:23-27 reads: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
2. In other words, God intends for husbands to be a reflection of Christ’s love for the church in the way they relate to their wives, and God intends for wives to be a reflection of the church’s love for Christ in the way they relate to their husbands.
3. Lord willing, in future lessons we will explore these roles and duties of Christ and the church and how they reflect and inform the relationship between husbands and wives.
4. But for our purposes today, I simply want us to realize that God established marriage at the beginning of creation to be one of the primary means by which God illustrates the gospel before a watching world.
5. This is why biblical marriage is worth defending in the face of cultural redefinition.
6. This is why biblical marriage is worth displaying even when it may mean cultural confrontation.
D. I hope that today’s lesson has brought into focus a vision of marriage that is higher and deeper, stronger and more glorious than anything that we or our culture has ever imagined.
1. Ultimately, humankind cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God.
2. The two most important points that I hope we walk away with from today’s lesson are:
a. First, that marriage is God’s doing and therefore, marriage belongs to God.
b. Second, that marriage is for God’s glory and proclaims God’s relationship with us.
3. God is the creator of male and female, and He is the creator of marriage.
a. God is the first father, who gave away the first bride.
b. God is the One who designed marriage for a man and a woman to leave father and mother and cleave to each other.
c. God is the One who creates the one-flesh union in each marriage – As Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)
d. So marriage is from God and it is through God that marriage occurs and is sustained.
4. And marriage is designed to display God’s glory in a way that no other event or institution is.
a. The highest meaning and most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and His church on display.
b. When we realize this, we realize that marriage exists as much or more for God than it does for us.
c. Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is His bride.
d. Christ knew He would have to pay the dowry of His own blood for His redeemed bride.
e. Christ did so willingly and lovingly.
f. Christ is married to His bride, the church, forever. He will not break His covenant.
E. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court and our culture may redefine what marriage is, we can hold true to God’s definition and God’s design for marriage.
1. In so doing, we can be a gospel witness in this spiritually dark world.
2. As spiritual darkness engulfs the biblical picture of marriage in our culture, God’s spiritual light will stand out even more starkly in the portrait of a husband who lays down his life for his wife, and a wife who joyfully follows her husband’s loving leadership.
3. We can be sure of this: God’s design for marriage is far more breathtaking and much more satisfying than anything we could ever create on our own.
4. The more men and women manipulate marriage, the more we will discover that the marriages of our own creation don’t gratify us, because the truth of the matter is, that only marriage as God designed it is able to bring complete satisfaction.
5. Ultimately, we have much reason to be confident in the resilience of marriage as God has defined it.
6. After all, it has been around since the beginning of time and it will be around at the end of time when Christ returns for His bride.
7. Toward the end of the last book of the Bible, John writes: 7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” (Rev. 19:7-9)
F. Allow me to conclude today’s sermon with these truths:
1. God’s Word is true and good.
2. God’s plan for marriage is true and good.
3. Marriage belongs to God…let’s follow His plan and His design.
4. If we follow God’s plan, then our marriages will be blessed and will be a blessing.
Resources:
A Profound Mystery: The Gospel and Marriage, Chapter 6 from Counter Culture by David Platt,
Tyndale, 2015.
Staying Married is Not About Staying in Love (Part 1), by John Piper, www.desiringgod.com.
