Battle of the Sexes: Marriage
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Intro
Intro
Last Week: Created order
-God created Adam and Eve in his image
-Eve out of the rib of Adam
-Two become one flesh
-After all that we read this verse:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
This is when we see the ordinance of marriage first established, which is what we are talking about this week.
First, lets define Biblical marriage:
The joining of one man and one woman in a physical, spiritual, emotional, exclusive, and lifelong union that reflects the love of Christ for his Church.
Now, lets look at the Merriam-Webster:
the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship
Can you see the important differences? Biblical marriage has security and love. The world’s definition implies neither. It has no demands. It has no requirements. It has no reward.
But Biblical marriage has all of that. And that’s what we are walking through today.
Can you see the important differences? Biblical marriage has security and love. The world’s
Tension
Tension
How is Biblical marriage Physical?
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:28
Sex is a gift that comes through marriage. This is really important: The blessing to be “fruitful and multiply” comes only AFTER Eve, not before.
-Sex is introduced after God puts Eve alongside Adam. There is no sexual encounter in Adam’s life before Eve.
2. How is Biblical marriage Spiritual?
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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.
First, Husbands are to lead.
-Not tyrannical
-Not domineering
-But as Christ loved the church, willing to sacrifice himself for her.
Second, Wives are to support their husbands as they lead.
-Not blind submission
-Not “staying out of man -talk”
-This is holding her husband accountable to lead, giving him space to lead, and supporting him in that process.
3. How is Biblical marriage emotional?
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
It goes on to say that “no man hates his own flesh.”
Marriage is death to individual self-interest and life to the oneness of you and your spouse. If you understand that then you love your spouse as yourself: caring for their physical and emotional needs.
You move from being “in-love” to truly loving someone. Ask anyone who has been married for any length of time the difference in the two.
4. How is Biblical marriage exclusive?
But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
What does “the wife of your youth mean?”
-Just because your husband doesn’t look like Adam Levine anymore, or your wife doesn’t look like Ariana Grande, or whatever else, that doesn’t give you the choice to go find someone new.
Why? Because marriage mirrors Christ’s exclusivity to his bride: the Church. And no matter how bad the Church messes up, no matter how ugly we are, no matter how much we ignore Christ’s lead, he was still willing to die for us. That is the union that marriage is meant to replicate.
5. How is Biblical marriage lifelong?
We see it in those last verses as well: Delight in the wife of your youth. Just as Christ’s marriage to his bride (the Church) is permanent, so should be ours.
Now, I want you to know about some Biblical exceptions: Abuse, Adultery, and Desertion. These are Biblical grounds for divorce if the offended party desires, but it doesn’t have to be.
Application
Application
So WHAT? And why does this matter to you now?
Because we have to understand that Biblical marriage is a blessing, not something to keep us in a miserable relationship or something to keep us form having fun.
Listen carefully to me: If you have the wrong understanding of marriage it will wreck your life!
45% of marriages end in divorce. 35% of those have share at least these three things:
-Married before the age of 18
-Have a baby before getting married
-Dropped out of High School.
Hear me clearly, none of these things define you in Christ. But statistically, these things stack up against a lifelong marriage.
2. Those who co-habitate (live together before marriage) have twice the chance of ending that marriage in divorce.
-Why? Sex before marriage dulls the significance of what Biblical marriage is, therefore lessening the value and respect that the ordinance of marriage deserves.
3. Protected from things like STD’s
As with all things that God requires from us, Biblical marriage is not some arbitrary rule for his own fun. It is there for our protection: physically, emotionally, psychologically, and it reflects the love that our God has for us.
So, Biblical marriage?
-First, lets define Biblical marriage:
The joining of one man and one woman in a physical, spiritual, emotional, exclusive, and lifelong union that reflects the love of Christ for his Church.
Or the worlds marriage?
the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship
Which one do you think is better for our souls our hearts, and our lives?