Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Who we are and what we do.

Who here has been married the fewest years?

How about longest?

This year, Christy and I will be married 23 years!

I know, we look too young to have been married that long.

At our 5-year anniversary, when we were 18, we began to ask, “where has the time gone?”

Do you remember before you got married?

Men, please don’t say anything because we’re trying to have a nice night.

Do you remember how you idealized your now wife?

And it wasn’t until a year later that you understood why her dad and brothers were pointing at you and laughing!

Ladies, don’t say anything, because we’re trying to have a nice night, but do you remember how you’d look into his eyes and think, “there’s nothing he could do that would drive me away!”

And it wasn’t until a week after the honeymoon that you were wondering why his momma thinks he hung the moon!

Brothers and sisters, we fall in love for different reasons, but generally, we idealize the other person until we’ve been with them for some time.

Before we were married, we had a picture of life with our spouse that was a little too unrealistic.

This is because before we were married, we were imperfect ourselves.

Add another imperfect person to the mix and you get double trouble.

But scripture shows us a different image of marriage, and if you’ll allow me tonight, I’d like to come at it with the gospel in mind.

We are going to look at:

A Picture of the Gospel in the Beginning

A Picture of the Gospel after the Fall

A Picture of the Gospel through the Church

A Picture of the Gospel in the Beginning

Gen 2

Gen 2

Quickly, we see several things in these verses:

We see that God gave man a command.

Gen 2:

This gives us an indication that He made the rules.

If there are any ground rules to follow, certainly His would be of utmost importance.

We also learn that God knew man needed a companion; but it was done with a twist:

Gen 2:18-

God doesn’t simply give him Eve, but shows him that all the other living things weren’t what he needed.

His companion would be made from him.

She would be “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”

(23)

What do we see next?

We see union among man and woman.

Togetherness

A bond

We see sex as a gift from God to be enjoyed in the context of marriage.

What do we see next?

They were naked!

This picture shows that they were unashamed.

Untouched by sin.

Completely open with one another and God.

Gen 2:

The gospel in this picture where man and woman are together in the garden, enjoying God’s creation is seen through a perfect relationship.

You see, things were perfect, we then disobeyed God, sin entered the world, and now things are broken.

But the picture in the beginning was perfection.

This is what God desires, AND demands.

But the problem is that we’ve all sinned.

So, a picture of the gospel in the beginning shows us perfection.

Adam and Eve had a perfect marriage.

One made to complement the other, beautifully working the garden as a couple loving one another and God.

A Picture of the Gospel after the Fall

So here’s what happened next:

Gen 3:

We went from, “oh, you are perfect, and I’ll love and take care of you,” to “what did you do!

Not only did you sin, but you took me with you!

My mom told me not to marry you!”

We go from a perfect union, one flesh, to this:

Deut 24:

The NKJV uses the word “uncleanness” while the ESV uses the word “indecency.”

The Hebrew for this means “nakedness,” which could mean anything indecent.

What we learn from Jewish history is that they aren’t too different from us because they are human.

The earlier, more strict Jews, would have interpreted this as, “she showed her nakedness to another man, was flirting, or was immodest.”

Ladies, he isn’t cool with you chatting with your high school “buddies” online.

Later on in Jewish history, the rules are relaxed a little.

Kinda like today.

Instead of outright adultery, or flirting, in indecency, the law was interpreted to mean whatever the male wanted it to mean.

The first century version of “irreconcilable differences.”

Today, we call this a “no fault divorce.”

Talk about the epitome of sin.

Neither one of us are at fault?

Doubt that.

Take a look at for an example.

Listen to what Jesus says:

Matt 19:

This picture of the gospel through marriage in the fall shows us that, like our relationship with God, our marriages are supposed to be whole, perfect, sinless.

But when sin enters into the equation, they become broken, imperfect, and sinful.

We see people looking for loopholes to get out.

We see one physically and mentally damaging the other.

We see kids, family members, and friends being used as pawns that are oftentimes expendable as long as we get our way.

A picture of the gospel through marriage after the fall is one you and I live weekly.

Just as the first marriage started out as perfect and whole, our marriages, through Christ, can be a representation of what He’s done for us through His shed blood on the cross.

We get offended by our spouse, but because Christ forgave me, we seek to reconcile rather than seeking revenge.

Since we are sinful and oftentimes weak, one of us may be struggling.

When this happens, the other one holds up and supports their spouse.

A Picture of the Gospel through the Church

Listen to this passage from :

Eph 5:25-

Verse 33 is a big deal!

Drs.

Les and Leslie Parrott wrote a book explaining that almost everything in a marriage boil down to the wife desiring love and the husband’s need to provide it, and the husband desiring respect and the wife’s need to provide it.

Think about the picture the Apostle Paul paints using the familiar language of husband and wife.

Christ, the husband, loves His bride.

He loves His bride so much that He gave Himself for her.

This is one reason that I’m baffled when people say, I love Christ, but I hate the church.

How do you think I’d respond if you said to me with all seriousness, “Toby, I really love you, I do; but it’s that wife of yours that I hate!”

You’re no friend of mine!