Hebrews 13:4 Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel

They believe marriage is a contractual relationship where two people agree to an exchange goods and services. One person agrees to provide something to the other in exchange for something else.

And if either person fails to live up to that arrangement, then the contract is broken and must be renegotiated or dissolved altogether.

There’s just one problem though. We are all sinners.

Viewing marriage this way, viewing marriage like its a 50-50 relationship that has the ultimate purpose of making me happy and making sure that I get what I want in a relationship, makes marriage in any real sense of the word, impossible.

Looking at our spouse and saying “Listen, I’ll do my part if you hold up your end of the deal,” isn’t love, its selfishness.

And as a result our world is littered with a wasteland of broken and unhappy marriages, all because we don’t actually know what God gave marriage for.

Marriage is not ultimately for making us happy. Marriage is ultimately about making us holy and glorifying Christ.

If your marriage is ultimately about your personal happiness, what happens when you and your spouse argue a lot. Do you just give up and try again with someone else?

If it is ultimately about your sexual fulfillment and companionship, what do you do when your physical intimacy just isn’t clicking like you think it should.

Do you resign yourself to a sexless marriage or try to find sexual gratification in a screen or in another person?

God gave marriage for something so much more than our personal happiness and fulfillment. Yes, those things happens in marriage. But those things are not the ultimate point of why you are married to your spouse.

God gave marriage to glorify Christ.

This is the truth that will change your marriage. When we stop trying to take our marriages and make them all about us, we actually get to enjoy marriage the way God intended it.

We get to enjoy the wonderful gift of love and romance with our spouse only when we view our marriage in its proper light.

Along with everything else under the Sun, marriage was given to glorify Christ and only when we cultivate and shape our marriage according to that purpose, will we ever get to enjoy the gift that God meant it to be.

So how do we do that? How do we cultivate a marriage that glorifies Christ so that we can enjoy our marriage and all the blessings that God meant it to be for us?

Hebrews 13:4 gives us the answer. So we will start with point number 1...

I. Marriages that Glorify Christ Honor Him as Lord and Savior

Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all...

That word honor is key to understanding this verse. It means to treat marriage as something precious. Something that is to be valued and treasured.

And he even says that marriage is to be honored among all. Not just among married people, but single people in the church as well.

So Let me speak for a moment to the single people in our church. I don’t want you checking out of this sermon just because you aren’t married.

For one, statistically speaking, you are likely to be married one day and you will need to know what God says a marriage is so you can build your marriage from the very beginning on the solid foundation of God’s Word.

But some of you may never be married. God may have given some of you the gift of singleness. Now if that doesn’t sound like a gift to you then it is probably not your gift.

And you need to know that being single does not make you any less of a Christian. In fact, Paul says those who choose to remain single do better than those that choose to get married because all of their time can be spent focusing on serving the Lord and his Kingdom.

Married believers have to worry about things of the world. How to please their wife or husband. How to raise children.

We need single people in the church who don’t have to concern themselves with things of the world so that they can focus solely on serving Christ.

Singleness is a gift, and even if its a temporary gift for you, don’t waste it. Use your life to serve Christ!

But even single people need to honor marriage because God gave marriage to glorify Christ and when we honor marriage, even other people’s marriage we worship Jesus.

This is one of the most counter cultural things we can do as a church.

The world does not honor marriage. Those of the World look at marriage as nothing more than a mutually beneficial relationship, a contract, with the sole purpose of making both people happy.

They denigrate marriage which God gave as a covenant between one man and one woman to be enjoyed all the days of their natural life, and they let divorce come easy when happiness doesn’t.

The world also tries to redefine marriage saying, “We get to decide what marriage is, and we say that men can marry men and women can marry women, and that is good!”

But that is no marriage no matter what the world says.

And if Christians want to honor marriage, then they cannot support or pretend that homosexual marriage is legitimate in any sense of the word because it is an abomination that rebels against God’s good created order that intended marriage to be between one man and one woman with the sole purpose of pointing the glory of Christ and his gospel.

And this is ultimately why we are called to honor marriage. Because marriage isn’t just about a relationship between two people. Marriage points to Christ.

Turn to Ephesians 5.

Ephesians 5:31-32 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Paul here quotes Genesis 2:24 where God created Adam and Eve and performed the very first wedding.

And God says that when he married them and they consummated their marriage through sexual intercourse, they became one flesh.

In fact, the words hold fast literally mean glued or cemented together. That in marriage something astonishing happens. Two people, one man and one women come together and God makes them one flesh. One person.

There is a union between the husband and the wife that is meant to be permanent, unbreakable, and effective in making the husband and wife one.

And Paul says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

What is Paul saying? Paul is saying that marriage is a mystery. For Paul a mystery is not something that can’t be known. A mystery is something that was hidden but is now revealed.

So what he’s saying is that from the very beginning of Creation, all the way back to the first marriage of Adam and Eve, God was pointing to Christ and his church.

On this side of Christ, we can see with eyes wide open why God gave marriage. God gave marriage to show us how he saves sinners by making them one with Christ through faith.

As sinners, we were enemies of God under his wrath. God is holy, just, and righteous.

And the collision course of our sin and God’s holiness means that God can’t just ignore or sin or sweep it under the rug.

We need to pay for our sins, and if we are the ones paying, the wages of sin is eternal death. It is suffering for all eternity under God’s righteous wrath.

But God gives grace. He sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross and suffer the wrath our sin deserved. His infinite holiness paid the infinite debt of our sin when he died as our substitute.

Jesus took our place on the cross and rose again three days later overcoming sin, Satan, and death.

And we are forgiven through faith in him, because through faith we are made one with Christ. His death becomes our death and his righteous life our life.

This is the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ.

The Bible says that through faith, we are in Christ and he is in us. We are made one with him. That through faith we have been crucified with Christ Gal 2:20, we have died with him 2 Tim. 2:11, we have been buried with him Rom. 6:4, and we have been raised with him Col. 3:1.

In other words we have been saved by him, because God in his grace has made us one with Christ.

This is the mystery that marriage points to. This is why Christians must honor marriage.

The one-flesh union of a husband and wife that God creates in marriage, illustrates the unbreakable bond between Christ and his church that secures our salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

God gave marriage to display the glory of the gospel not just to the people who are married but to the world!

So how does a marriage proclaim this mystery? How does a marriage glorify Christ and display the salvation that only comes through his gospel?

Here’s the answer. Marriages proclaim the glory of Christ by reflecting the relationship between Christ and the church.

When husbands and wives together fulfill their God given roles in marriage, they reveal to the world the great mystery and glory of Christ!

Wives show the love and respect the church has for Christ in their submission to their husbands, and husbands show the love and sacrifice that Christ has for the church in how they love their wives.

We’ll start where Paul does, with wives.

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Now this is one of the most offensive things you can say in our culture today. For many women, they hear this command and the first things that come to mind are inferior, lesser, doormat, controlled, and dominated.

Honestly, it makes sense that women would view and fear submission this way.

In the garden, submission was a joyful gift, but when Adam and Eve sinned, God said Genesis 3:16 Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.

The curse of the fall makes everything in a woman want to resist and fight the trusting and submitting love God created her to have for her husband. Its part of the curse

But things like being controlled and dominated could not be further from the truth of what submission is.

Biblical submission is not slavery where one person owns another. And its not subservience where you exist solely to do the bidding of your husband with no questions asked.

The biblical model for marriage is a loving complementarity where the husband and wife are both partners in displaying the glory of Christ in their marriage.

Its a mutual relationship of value and respect where the husband lovingly leads his wife, and this loving leadership is met by the wife’s joyful trust and respect of her husband.

So submission does not mean your husband comes in and subjugates you. Men, the NT never calls you to subjugate your wife. To make her submit.

Submission is a holy and voluntary deference to your husband. And it is voluntary deference reserved only for your husband in particular. Not any man in general. That’s why Paul says submit to your own husbands.

Complementarianism does not mean all women need to submit to all men everywhere. Both men and women are made in the image of God and equal in dignity, worth and value.

Submission specifically refers to the marriage relationship where the wife is called to model the church’s submission to Christ. The church’s trust and respect of the Lord, by submitting to her husband’s leadership as he lovingly lays down his life for her.

The opposite of submission, women, is a nagging difficulty. Just being hard and demanding.

Its Constantly putting down your husband trying to show him how he’s failing and how you could do it so much better.

But Proverbs says Proverbs 27:15-16 A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one’s right hand.

A wife like that is like Chinese water torture.

Likewise Proverbs 12:4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

A wise Christian wife is one who makes every effort to adorn a quite and gentle spirit who aims to delight her husband and help him to lead the family according to God’s Word.

Now does this mean that you always have to agree with your husband or keep your opinions to yourself? Of course not!

God made Eve as a helper for Adam. And every man in here, no matter how much of a man we think we are, knows we need a lot of help.

A wise husband seeks his wife’s counsel because he wants to lead well.

But what it does mean is that once a decision is made you get behind that with a joyful trust and respect.

You don’t keep making your opinion known or tell him I told you so when things go sideways.

Instead, you submit to him as to the Lord. Now that doesn’t mean your husband is God. Your husband can’t compel you to sin and call that submission. You first answer to the Lord.

What it means that when you submit to your husband, ultimately you’re not submitting to your husband, you are submitting to Christ.

In this way submission is really just a beautiful picture of trusting faith. Do you trust Christ enough to trust your husband?

I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to willingly submit yourself to another person who everyday you see just how sinful they really are.

But I do know that whenever a wife submits it is an incredible act of faith that says Jesus I trust you to work through my husband for my good and my blessing like your word says.

Maybe the most practical help I can give you is this. If you want to be a submissive wife, glorify Christ and honor marriage, a helpful question for you to always be asking is, “How can I show my husband a picture of what it looks like for the church to joyfully submit to Christ?”

In doing so you are showing him what his life should look like in relationship to the Lord. What a great gift and privilege you have in submission.

Now we come to husbands.

Ephesians 5:25-30 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.

So wives are called to submit to their husbands who are the head of the marriage, and as the head, husbands are called to love their wives like Christ loved the church. Sacrificially.

Our love for our wives, the love she is called to submit herself to, is to be absolutely bent towards her good, not our own.

God did not entrust us with the responsibility of headship so that we could serve ourselves. So that we could use our wives to get what we want. He entrusted us with headship so that we would lovingly lead and care for our wives in order to see her grow and flourish in Christ.

If the purpose of life is to glorify Christ, then the husband’s role in the marriage is to lovingly serve his wife to make sure that happens.

To guard her from sin and to lead the family in a direction that honors Christ.

And the only way we can do that is if we love our wives like Christ loved the church. What does that mean?

Paul gives a hint of it in verse 29. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

The words nourishes and cherishes round out and give meaning to the word love. If we are going to love our wives like Christ loved the church, we need to nourish her and cherish her.

To nourish means to develop, nurture or bring up. To feed and care for.

What that means is that as husbands, we must take care to see our wives grow in Christ. We need to make every effort to help move her life in a godly direction.

In other words, we need to care about how her life and faith are going.

That means if we are striving to live a godly life, we don’t leave our wife in the dust. God calls us to lead her. To bring her along.

Are you praying for and with your wife? Are you looking out for sin and disunity creeping into your marriage and initiating conversations to repent and recenter your marriage on Christ?

You are called to nourish your wife even when it would be easier to just throw your hands up and walk away.

To love our wives we must also cherish them.

Literally this word means “to make warm.” That means that we must love our wives in such a way that she warms our heart with affection.

That we value you her and hold her dear above all others second only to Christ.

That she is the treasure of our life. That we don’t compare her to other women or constantly nitpick about her.

Instead we delight in her. Prize her. And we make sure she knows it.

They might not ever say it, but sin causes our wives to be filled with doubt and insecurity wondering “Do I please him? Am I enough for him? Will he love me until the end or will he get tired of me and move on? Am I safe with this man I married?”

A wise husband will know this about his wife and use every opportunity to speak and show his devotion to her.

It is a godless husband who knows nothing of grace that forces his wife to earn his love and affection.

That is not how Christ loved us. Christ did not say prove to me you are worthy of my love! He came to us when we had done nothing and gave he us grace.

Christ gave up himself to sanctify the Church. He laid down his life for our benefit.

In the same way, we ought to lay down our lives for the good of our wife and do whatever we can to cherish her above all others and nurture her in Christ.

Maybe this will help. Many men look at headship and assume that what that means is that they are the one who has the final say. The one with the ultimate authority over their wife to lead however they see fit.

That’s true, but I don’t think that’s a helpful way to understand your role as the head of your wife.

Instead of the final say and ultimate authority, you should think of headship as bearing the final responsibility for your wife.

God has put it on you, it is your responsibility, to lead your wife and family in godliness, and how you do that is by laying down your life, your wants, your comforts all for the good of your wife.

So the same way I gave the wives a question to be constantly asking themselves, I want to give you a question. In all of our marriage, we must continually ask, “Am I showing my wife a picture of how Christ loves the church?

Am I pursuing her? Forgiving her? Helping her? Cherishing her? Is my leadership marked by expecting her to submit to me, or by laying down my life for her?

Marriage reveals the mystery of the gospel. It shows us how God saved us in Christ by making us one with him, and we honor marriage as we live out what that looks like in our everyday life.

That means we need to look to Christ and let him shape how we live in our marriage.

Wives: Am I submitting to my husband like the church submits to Christ? Husbands: Am I loving my wife like Christ loves the church?

And it is so crucial to keep the gospel central to our marriage because if we don’t, submission and headship will become twisted and gnarled by our sin.

If we only focus on the role God has given us, instead of focusing on what those roles represent, we will start to see submission as subjugation and headship as a right to dominate our wife or, on the other side, something that is so difficult that we might as well not even try.

That we become passive in our marriage and fail to lead at all.

But the gospel transforms marriage. Instead of fighting one another, sinfully trying to make the other submit to us, we actually become partners who are working together toward the same goal.

The way my wife and I say it is We are on each other’s team.

We compliment each other. We become one-flesh with the sole purpose of glorifying God.

Submission and headship only work when both husband and wife are doing so for the glory of God, not their own.

Men, you should lead in this but for some of you married couples, you need to take the time today to sit together with your spouse and say “Honey, we’ve gotten of course. I’ve twisted our marriage into something it was never meant to be.

I’ve made it all about myself and my happiness and my fulfillment. I want us to repent. I want to honor marriage and have a relationship that glorifies Christ.

And even it seems impossible and like your marriage is too far gone, remember what Hebrews said.

We have a great high priest in heaven who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses and give us grace to help in our time of need.

Marriages that glorify Christ honor him as Lord and Savior.

II. Marriages that Glorify Christ are Sexually Holy

Hebrews 13:4 …and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

When the Author says Marriage Bed, that’s a euphemism for the sexual relationship between the husband and wife.

He says that a couple’s marriage bed should be undefiled. That is, it should be pure and holy.

Our sex life in marriage should reflect God’s will and purpose in giving sex to husbands and wives.

And the Author gives the reason why Christians must practice sexual purity. He says, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

The sexually immoral are fornicators. They are people who have have premarital sex, live together or engage in any sexual activity whatsoever before marriage.

The adulterous are those that actively step out on their spouse. They engage in sexual activity of any kind with someone other than their husband or wife.

Sexual immorality is normal for the world.

The world worships sex as God. Its the ultimate end. The highest treasure. So much of our culture is geared towards sexual gratification and fulfillment however we can get it.

Cohabitation, sexual immorality, hook-up culture, pornography, adultery, all of these things are common and celebrated in the world, but Paul says in Ephesians 5:3 sexual immorality should not even be named among Christians!

Dear Christian, if you are enslaved to sexual immorality, if you are in bondage to pornography, lustful thoughts, or God forbid sex outside of marriage, confess your sin and seek help!

God will forgive, but sexual immorality must not even be named among you. God says, You were bought with a price so glorify God in your body!

But we can’t go to far the other way either.

Christians can be tempted to reject sexual immorality so much that we start to actually believe sex is gross.

That it is something that makes us unclean and defiles us. That its not something God has given us to enjoy in the proper context, but is something that is carnal or sinful.

But look at what Hebrews says.

let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Remember, the marriage bed is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. And the Author says that what defiles the marriage bed is sexual immorality, not sexual activity.

If the Marriage bed can be defiled, then that means it can also be pure. It can be holy. It can be set apart for God and his good purposes.

God gave us sex so that a husband and wife could express, enjoy and celebrate their one flesh union that reveals the mystery of Christ and his church.

That means that God gave us sex as a gift and like any gift, he wants us to enjoy it.

God does not give gifts arbitrarily. He gives gifts so that we might enjoy them to their absolute fullest and in doing so, give glory to God!

But this is where the church has failed in years past. We have been silent on how God wants believers to enjoy and celebrate sex in godliness.

And this silence has created a vacuum where the only one speaking about sex and shaping our view of it is not God’s Word, but the World.

I want to fix that. If we aren’t supposed to worship sex as god, and if we aren’t supposed to reject sex altogether as gross, how do we receive sex as God’s gift?

What does that look like? How do we have a biblical sex life so that we can enjoy God’s good gift and give glory to Christ as we express our marital union through physical intimacy?

I want to give you two principles from God’s Word.

First, Husbands and Wives should not deprive one another from the marriage bed.

And two, Husbands and wives should strive for passion in the marriage bed by striving for unity outside of it.

1. Husbands and Wives Should Not Deprive One Another from the Marriage Bed

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 7. This passage is foundational for having a God honoring marriage and sex life. God is so good to give us such practical wisdom for our relationships. Paul says...

1 Corinthians 7:1-5 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

This was a problem going on in Corinth. Paul is not saying it is good not to have sexual relations, Paul is quoting the Corinthians who are saying that.

You had some people in the church teaching that sex of any kind, even in marriage, is wrong.

But here’s what Paul says.

2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

This is amazing. Paul says that one of the ways we can guard ourselves from the sexual immorality that defiles the marriage bed is by frequently engaging in loving intercourse with our spouse.

Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. They should have one another.

But what does that look like? What is frequent enough? What happens if one of you isn’t really feeling it? Sex takes two to tango, so how do we do that biblically?

Paul tells us...

3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

In verse four Paul says something profound. In Marriage, our bodies are not our own. They belong to our spouse.

Men, your wife has the right over your body for you to slow down, and take your time to please her. To not rush the mood but to enjoy the mood together.

Women, your husband has the right for sexual intercourse when he desires it. It might be a little more frequent then maybe you need or want, but he has the right to enjoy his wife!

But don’t miss what Paul said in verse 3. He didn’t say Husbands, take your rights! Wives, stake your claim! What did he say?

He said husband, give your wife the gift of sex. Wife, give your husband access to your heart and body.

The reason we should be free and generous with our spouse is because our bodies belong to them, and we should be willing to love and satisfy them because we are one flesh.

A biblical sex life isn’t one that takes what is ours. Its one that gives our spouse what is theirs.

Men, you can’t use this verse to compel your wife to have sex with you. Paul is not instructing you to to take it, he’s telling both husband and wife to give it.

That’s why he says...

5 Do not deprive one another,

Just like sex is a gift that God has given us, it is a gift we are to give to our husband or wife.

The world says sex is all about pleasing yourself. The Bible says sex is all about pleasing your spouse.

The ethic of biblical sexuality is that we do not deprive one another, but willingly give ourselves to our spouse.

I believe that if we were inclined to see sex not as something to satisfy our own gratification but a way to serve and please our spouse, a hundred problems and difficulties would be solved in the Marriage Bed.

A healthy sex life is one where both partners are concerned solely for the good of pleasing the other person.

But what does this look like in practice?

I think if one of you wants to, you should. Now of course this implies you are considerate of one another’s needs.

If one partner is demanding sex its no longer a gift, its an obligation.

The biblical ethic is for both partners to strive together to generously give themselves to their spouse even if we aren’t in the mood, have a small headache, or had a hard day.

Even in those times where its not ideal or even our first choice, godly marriages aim to serve the other.

Outright rejection from the husband or the wife should have no place in a Christian marriage. When our spouse pursues us and we respond with anything less than enthusiasm, what we are saying to them is “We aren’t as one as you think we are.”

That is extremely devastating to the relationship and it isolates your spouse. It puts a barrier between you when you should be one.

Every rejection makes your spouse think twice about pursuing intimacy again because at least if they aren’t flatly told no or begrudgingly given sex like a dog being thrown a bone, they can still pretend like they are enough for you and that you love and desire them and want to be one with them.

So they stop asking, and before you know it, you are in a sexless marriage.

So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take time today with your spouse to slow down and say, How are we going to live out 1st Corinthians 7? What are our ground rules?

How do we make it where both of us know that our priority is to do all that we can to give ourselves to one another?

The normal pattern of sexual intimacy should be to give ourselves to our spouse whenever they desire, and not deprive one another.

2. Husbands and Wives Should Strive for Passion in the Marriage Bed by Striving For Unity Outside of It

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Paul says there is a time where we might refrain from having sex in our marriage.

And that is for a limited time only by agreement so that we may devote ourselves to prayer.

Now when in the world would that ever need to happen?

Paul doesn’t say explicitly, but I think this would come when there is a rift in your relationship that makes the physical act of coming together as one flesh that would prevent the physical act of coming together as one flesh lose its meaning because you aren’t united as one flesh in some other part of your life.

Sex is meant to be a celebration of our love and unity. If we are divided, sex loses all of its meaning.

So what you do is you agree for a limited time to use the time and energy you would normally use for making love, and spend that time in prayer asking God to help you forgive one another and live as one again.

There’s also a flip side to what this means. Intimacy in the bedroom comes from intimacy outside of the bedroom.

If you want great sex, the answer isn’t to have more of it or try new things although that can be helpful.

The answer is to focus on your friendship with your spouse. The more one you are emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, the more oneness you’ll have to celebrate in the marriage bed.

So men, you need to do the work of pursuing your wife. Finding ways to love her, romance her. To not just have a woman who lives in your house but a friend, who you share you’re life and heart with.

If you want great sex at 9pm it starts at 7am.

That’s your responsibility as the head. God puts the intimacy of the marital relationship on you!

And when, by God’s grace, we grow in our love and friendship, our intimacy and passion in the marriage bed will grow as well.

Not every time. This doesn’t mean that every time you come together is going to be some mind blowing experience.

Just practically sometimes you don’t even have time for that. Sometimes its all you can do to steal 2 minutes and lock the door.

But the idea is that the main goal of sex is not our gratification, but a celebration of our love for our spouse.

Where both the husband and the wife are mutually enjoying one another and celebrating their love and intimacy.

Look at how the husband celebrates his intimacy with his wife in Song of Solomon.

Song of Solomon 4:9-11 You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride;

you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes,

with one jewel of your necklace.

10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!

How much better is your love than wine,

and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!

11 Your lips drip nectar, my bride;

honey and milk are under your tongue;

the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

He’s saying, I can’t get enough of you. I love you with everything I am.

And how does his wife respond?

Song of Solomon 4:16 Awake, O north wind,

and come, O south wind!

Blow upon my garden,

let its spices flow.

Let my beloved come to his garden,

and eat its choicest fruits.

There is a mutual enjoying of one another. This is not a one sided marriage bed. Its both of them together celebrating all that God has given them in each other.

Men want to be wanted by their wives. Sexual gratification is not enough.

Women, that means you should make an effort to show your husband you’re engaged and that you desire him. Also, its totally ok for you to initiate sex.

In a healthy marriage both partners are going to be initiating because both want to celebrate their union with each other.

And how does God respond to the husband’s and wife’s passion and intimacy?

Song of Solomon 5:1 Eat, friends, drink,

and be drunk with love!

God’s desire is that we enjoy the gift he’s given us!

If your marriage is struggling with intimacy. If you are struggling to be naked and unashamed, to have unity in your marriage so that when you come together it can be a celebration, then come together and pray.

Pray that God would work in your marriage to give you and your spouse love and intimacy with one another not just in the bedroom but outside of it as well.

And listen these things can be hard.

Some of you might be sitting there and looking at your marriage totally defeated.

It already feels so broken. This kind of love and intimacy feels so out of reach. You might even feel like your marriage is already too far gone.

But Jesus said what God has joined together let no man separate. God has united you with your spouse and even if years of sin have driven a wedge between you, God promises to walk with you in our marriage every step of the way and make it something that displays the glory of Christ.

Not to mention, all of us, both husbands and wives can also have trauma or sexual sin in our past that makes us feel dirty and ashamed to be one with our spouse.

If that’s you, I encourage you seek help. Come to your pastors. Get into some solid biblical counseling and marriage counseling.

God redeems all of our sin and all of the sin done against us. There is nothing that his grace can’t cleanse. Now it might take some time, sure! But God is faithful.

And if you’re married to a spouse that struggles with that, God calls you to be loving and patient. Don’t drive home and say, “You better repent! You better do whatever you need to do to get over this so we can have a biblical marriage.”

Especially if you’re the husband. This is what it means to lead and lay down your life for your life. God is calling you to patience and faith in him to redeem what only he can.

So If your spouse struggles with this, you take their hand and say, "I am with you, and I am for you, and I am not going anywhere. We are in this together no matter how long this takes.”

And by God’s grace as we strive for marriages that glorify Christ by cultivating our marriage to be an expression of our one-flesh union, we will grow in our love and intimacy in the marriage bed.

So if you want to keep the marriage bed pure and undefiled, don’t deprive one another, and keep sex in the proper place of your relationship.

Its not the end all be all. Great sex doesn’t create a great marriage. Great sex comes from a great marriage.

Conclusion

I started this sermon saying my prayer was that God would use this sermon to absolutely transform your marriage.

The reason why most people have problems in their marriage is because they are looking for their ultimate happiness and fulfillment from their spouse.

But the problem is our spouse can’t bear that weight. And we can’t either.

When you put one sinner in a marriage with another sinner, it doesn’t equal happily ever after.

But if you take one sinner committed to glorifying Christ and put them with another sinner committed to glorifying Christ, that is a marriage that can be marked by joy and life because its sole focus is Christ’s glory.

God did not give us our spouse primarily to make us happy. He gave us our spouse to make us holy and point us to Christ.

God gave marriage to glorify Christ.

The one-flesh union between a husband and wife points to the union we have with Christ by faith so that through his life, death, and resurrection our sin has been paid for and we’ve been forgiven.

And the way a husband and wife live out this one flesh union is meant to be a picture that shows us a glimpse of the love Christ has for the church and the honor and respect the church has for Christ.

Do you want a transformed marriage? A new marriage?

Then make your marriage about Christ! Stop trying to use your spouse to satisfy your own happiness.

Instead serve your spouse to the glory of Christ, and when both husband and wife are doing everything they can to center their marriage on him, that is what makes a happy marriage because that is what makes a holy marriage.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Revelation 19:6-9

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!

For the Lord our God

the Almighty reigns.

7 Let us rejoice and exult

and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready;

8 it was granted her to clothe herself

with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

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