Sermon Tone Analysis

And God Said

Have you ever thought about the power behind those 3 words?

When God says something things change don’t they.

He spoke and a world existed.

He spoke and things appeared on our world.

But when God speaks, it also conveys His thoughts.

His thoughts are powerful, they’re humbling and they know what’s best for us.

Since tomorrow is a very special day that we celebrate every year.

I want to spend some time this morning contemplating this helper that God decided to make.

Do you notice the word made there, the Hebrew word is banah.

It means “to build”.

Adam’s rib formed the basic material from which his companion was “built.”

The woman was formed for inseparable unity and fellowship of life with the man, and the mode of her creation was to lay the actual foundation for the moral ordinance of marriage.

She was “to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him” God led the woman to Adam.

Adam is called a “son of God” in Luke 3:38 and this woman should properly be called the daughter of God.

God her father led her to Adam and presented her to him.

This first marriage covenant is appropriately called the covenant of God.

(Prov 2:17, Mal 2:14) It implies His authorship of this sacred institution.

Why didn't God make her from the dust as he had made her husband?

Why this kind of miracle with such an elaborate procedure?

God knew the offence it would cause in the 21st century and yet he made woman this way.

Why?

What is the significance of this?

Because it was God alone who made woman in this way Adam could never tell Eve, "Remember all you are you owe to me.

You came about because of my initiative, my plan, my prayers and my skill."

No. Adam was in a virtual coma, totally unconscious, and God alone was at work devising and accomplishing the creation of woman.

Woman’s creation was the climax of all of His creation, the culmination of the creation story.

Woman is what she is through an act of God; her design and her gifts are all due to the Lord.

"I am what I am by the power and love of God," every woman can say.

Woman was to be a companion and a helper for man, to be one with him and to cheer and encourage and bless him.

Man in turn was to be her strong provider and confidant.

The husband is to obtain the pure affection of a woman’s heart, and the wife to soften and improve her husband’s character and give it completeness - these then would fulfill God’s purpose for them.

When you have experienced this I believe that it is the most wonderful and special gift that God can ever give us.

That was His original intent.

This original intent so mimics that relationship that God wants to have with us if we will cultivate it.

But it’s the gift within the marriage gift that I want to look at today.

We know from the Bible that man and women are 2 parts of one flesh as said by God.

And it also good that men and women are different.

Would I get any disagreement with that?

Guys, would we want women to be just like us?

How about you gals?

Would you want the guys to be like you?

No of course not.

You may have heard me say this before, I think that God gave men and women different attributes of Himself.

We each have different parts of God within our nature.

(That’s another whole sermon in itself) Did you know that our word “sex” comes from a Latin word meaning “to divide or separate,”?

Masculinity and Femininity.

These words are usually associated with male and female and they are definitely different.

Both sides of the fence have some of both, but they are lopsided depending on which sex you are and it’s that way by design.

“Masculine and feminine can be understood only in terms of each other; basically they are opposite and complementary qualities.

They are like darkness and light.

It is very hard to understand darkness except in terms of light, and light except in terms of darkness.

They are two extremes on a continuum.”

God said the 2 are part of one.

God’s Gift to the Human Race

We can see and feel from our own experience what Adam must have felt when he saw the woman for the first time and said “At last” He saw before him the most exquisite being that God had so far presented to him.

He saw beauty beyond his imagination, he saw an end to his loneliness, he saw the companion he had felt he was lacking.

When he said “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”, he realized that he was looking at the other half of himself.

Adam was formed ready for this companion.

For the rest of us males, it happens in many different ways.

For some I’m told, it’s an instantaneous process.

For other the Lord, if were listening, lets us know over a matter of time as we realize that there is an a depressing hole in our lives when that special someone isn’t around.

However it happens, the result, if mentored by the Lord, is a special reality that only grows and matures over time and deepens our relationships to that oneness that can only happen in the trilogy that God originally intended that marriage should be.

Husband, Wife, and God.

Guys what do you find in your spouses or fiance that makes them desirable?

I’m sure I would get answers like beauty, caring, loving, helpful, insightful...

If you look up what Solomon had to say, you’ll find 19 specific things that a virtuous woman or wife should possess in Prov 31:10-31.

The list is pretty daunting actually.

God has endowed my wife, our wives, our daughters with traits and abilities that we could never even hope to posses.

I saw this on Facebook and it think it fits very well.....

I don’t mean to say that women or superior to men, but lets face it God gave our women abilities that He only wanted them to have to be our support group.

It was a perfect design and it still is.

Has God’s design been left untouched by sin? No.

All those special attributes, Satan has exploited in so many different ways.

I have met so many women who have to deal with this, some in just one from others in multiple compounded ways.

I see more probably in nursing than others might.

The list of things that women deal with has been going from the first couple down to the present.

I won’t dwell on them, because we all now at least one aspect of the list personally whether we are male or female and that knowledge hurts very much.

I know the thoughts are out, so I’ll say it.

I thought it was mother’s day tomorrow.

But can you have a chicken before and egg?

What about a maple tree before the seed?

You can’t have a mother without their being a girl to grow to womanhood.

The process of getting there has so many facets to it.

I’ll just say that God is amazing.

I fully believe that God’s love gift has 2 very important facets and you can’t have one without the other.

Women or young women that spend time in God’s presence produce Godly mothers.

The word mother brings so many mental images into our minds.

For some of wonderful images, others not so good.

The very first came into existence with this statement in the Bible.

Eve or the Hebrew word Chavvah means life.

Have you ever thought about the fact that Adam gave the name “the living one” to his wife in faith, seeing in her the “mother of all living” at a time when his death sentence had just been pronounced.

Instead of rebelling, Adam fastened his eye in faith upon his Judge (God) and claimed the promise he had just received, and, before she even gave birth to her first-born, called her, hopefully, “the living one.”

Faith was indeed to him “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb.

11:1).

The Bible doesn't tell us how long that Eve lived, but Adam lived 930 years.

If she lived even closed to that time, she must have watched with joy and sorrow as motherhood developed in this new world not just for herself but for others as well.

She had the first joy of experiencing love, affection and intimacy with her husband.

She experienced the wonder of a new life growing within her and then the pain and ultimate joy/love of delivering and holding her first child, the first child created by a human couple.

I’m sure the wonder/love of motherhood was at it ultimate and praise for God was boundless at that time.

But in a sinful world there is pain and heart hurt.