Genesis 2:18-25

Illus: Sherlock Holmes—Me: more observant. Joanna: More worried someone is going to kill her.

Different views of sex and marriage. Low view. It’s boring and not special. (Which encourages a get it while it’s hot view).

We live in a world that is obsessed with sexuality and on the other hand scared to death with sexuality.

We live in a culture that works at figuring out how to have sex without babies and babies without sex.

We live in a culture where we want pleasure without pursuit and pursuit without pleasure.

At the very beginning of the Biblical story Moses tells us what it means to be male and what it means to be female and why it is that sex is so powerful.

It is not enough to just observe culture and say they are obsessed with sex. They are because the culture is.

Every group of people on the face of the planet is concerned with sexuality. And every has to figure out, how to we navigate the relationship and the differences with men and women.

The Scripture indicates this is essential of what it means to be made in the image of God…therefore Satan hates it and attacks it. From the beginning there has been issues and there will be until Jesus returns.

God creates them male and female. And the New testament in tells us why God did it this way.

Adam could have been cloned or subdivided. But God created a man and a woman who is like him but different from him and they are joined together in one flesh.

Paul tells us that the reason it happens this way is that the man and the woman are picturing something else. What God will do with Jesus and the Bride (his church).

God makes this picture of what the end will look like strong and powerful at the beginning at that makes it dangerous precisely because it points us to the Gospel.

Your understanding of male and female relationships, of marriage, of sexuality is all about the picture of the Gospel.

Illus: Lincoln memorial//or your favorite picture of a loved one.

There is a picture of Christ and the Church and the picture of the Gospel is torn apart.

Notice the how the Scripture shows us the correspondence between the man and the woman.

NOT GOOD—wow. The image of God is a relational image. God is not alone. This is why Islam and Judaism does not worship the same God. God is one God in 3 persons.

The man, here by himself and alone and that is not right. there must be a helpmate fitted for him.

Single people, less than human? No, because they are not alone, they live in families, amidst friends, and church community. Relationships and fellowship with other males and females.

You cannot have maleness and femaleness without each other, they are to be in community with each other.

Helpmate—used to later describe the activity f God with man, so it is not degrading at all.

So what does God do? He shows that Adam is alone. Not one of the beast is fitting for Adam. Why not? He is superior and is to rule over the beasts. He has dominion. Adam needs someone to have communion with.

God creates a woman who is equal to the man in dignity, in her created-ness, she bears the image of God. the man does not have dominion over her. Instead he is given a covenant headship over her.

NT/OT teaches that there is a headship in the family of the husband over the wife. This is not the same thing as a relationship between a boss and an employee. or between mankind and animals.

It is the headship of Christ to the church who is his bride. Adam is given a woman who is equal to him who he is to protect and provide for.

When the NT says the man is to be the head the of family. This does not mean that the woman does whatever the man says...

Make dinner, get me some chips, clean the house. etc, etc. Nor does it mean “Please, sweet wife, get me some chips and then lets pray.” HA.

It is a headship that makes decisions, and decisions for what purpose? For the interest and ones wife and children. Pouring oneself out, even as Jesus is pouring himself out in death in sacrificing himself for the bride he loves.

That means making decisions and being responsible and that you are accountable for what happens in your household.

Decisions should be made not on what will be best for you but will present your wife and children as washed with the word. In splendor and in glory.

Adam sees all of these animals who are not fit for him until he has this woman and he understands she is fit for him.

1. Male and Female correspond physically.

There is a physical fitted-ness that is there. There is a reason why our electronic devices have a male and female part.

2. Male and Female correspond emotionally.

There is an emotional fitted-ness in which men and women think and feel different about things. This is God’s design. Together these things come together in a fitted ness that is good for both male and female and for the coming generation. That complements one another. You do not need to despise these differences but embrace this.

3. Male and Female correspond functionally.

There is a fitted-ness in our roles. The man is outward focused, bringing up the bread from the ground. The woman is inward focused bringing up the next generation. And nurturing them.

Adam’s name means dirt. Why? he is focused on the outward to provide and protect his family. So that he can bring bread from that dirt.

Eve’s name means mother of the living because she will be inwardly focused on loving and nurturing the coming generations.

Why is this important? This is what Jesus is getting at tin the gospel. As soon as Jesus is risen he calls for his followers. He forms his church, washing his bride with water, making her ready for the wedding party he has planned, he is focused upon her and her holiness and future.

The reason that sex is so powerful, because God created Adam and Eve to demonstrate and show the gospel.

To twist this is to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ. Out of the covenant relationship between man and wife

sex is not just immoral, or naughty, it is a distortion and perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sex isn’t just about sex, you were created to be driven toward the gospel. When you see that sexual expression within a covenantal marriage of a one-flesh union you are seeing the gospel itself.

4. Male and Female correspond in unity.

There is also unity. Eve comes from Adam. Adam sees he and says she is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” For this reason a man holds fast and cleaves to his wife and becomes one flesh.

Marriage is not an arrangement about money or houses or just physical pleasure. It is a one flesh relationship. Everything that belongs to the ma/woman now belongs to both of them.

They become a new one flesh union. This is why a man must leave his father and mother. Some of your are miserable because you haven’t left mamma or father.

There must be leaving in order to cleave. This is how the image of God spreads and covers the earth.

illus: of phone calls and complaining to parents.

Your spouse is the fulfillment of the needs you have. And you are to be unified. No matter what happens you belong together.

Notice…the man and woman are naked and not ashamed. Naked exposes reproductive organs. There are limits and there are needs.

Adam and Eve are not ashamed to be naked because they are wholly given to one another. There is a oneness and intimacy that is glorious because it points to the gospel of Jesus and his church.

Satan wants to turn sexual attention away from the covenant of your spouse. So single people cheat on your future spouse and distort the gospel in the process. If you are married, they want to turn your attention to someone else so that you preach with your body another gospel.

Satan wants you to be obsessed with sex in every way. Except in the way that preaches the gospel.

Satan wants you to think that fornication is exciting, adultery is exciting, pornography is exciting. But what they want you to do ultimately is to diminish the sexual union within marriage because it is designed to bring and increase and further the intimacy that brings about union and communion that demonstrates the gospel.

There are some of you who are miserable in your spiritual lives because Satan is winning in the bedroom. And nothing is going on or everything that is wrong is going on. (That’s not your business) This is the business of the church. When you have a one flesh union that is being ripped apart, even by neglect, you have something that spiritually affects all of us. When intimacy is being decreased, and why some of us find it difficult to be even in a relationship with our spouse is because you are afraid of the intimacy and the kind of covenant responsibilities. And the satanic powers are making it easier and easier for you to draw your attention to something else that will ultimately destroy you.

How many of you in this room are alienated from your spouses. men your are enslaved to a wrong view of sex. And women you are enslaved to romance novels or the idea of another romantic man and you are becoming further and further isolated and alone. That is a foretaste of hell.

The Biblical picture of marriage here is of a man who loves and cleaves to his wife. A wife who loves and cleaves to her husband and a union that goes deeper together.

The union between a married man and women who have been married for 50 years should be a better picture of the gospel than newly weds on their honeymoon.

Satan wants to turn you away from that intimacy in whatever means they can. Fornication, adultery, pornography, fantasy, or just laziness. They do not want you to see a one flesh union that points you to the gospel.

Jesus doesn’t neglect his bride, forget his bride, he pursues her, he purchases her, washes her and cleanses her. He clothes us with righteousness.

Some of you are miserable because you have never trusted the gospel for salvation. Repent and believe in the gospel.

Some of you have embraced the gospel but you are in great warfare. Some of you husbands are not leading your wives and some of you wives are not respecting your husbands. Some of you couples are so alienated...

The answer to that is repentance. The repentance is needed because this is not just about your happiness as a couple or the picture of marriage you are giving your children…all of those things are true but this is warfare.

When the satanic powers see a man and a woman cleaving together through everything, they hate it, because they see Christ and the church, and they see the gospel.