Untitled Sermon

Message

God’s Design

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, when He designed man and woman, He also designed the highest of all human relationships, the marriage relationship. It’s in the beginning of our Bibles that we find this most beutiful story. God made Adam from the dust but then declared, that, for thee first time in His creation, something was not good. Genesis 2:18, “18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” God makes this judgement on Adam’s solitude state, it is not good. And then He declares His divine plan to address Adam’s solitude, I will make him a helper fit, or suitable to Him. God will make a being perfectly suited for Adam, the woman Eve.

Then God puts Adam through a scenario in which he would come to realize the same judgment, that he was alone and that was not good. God parades all the animals of the earth and gives him the instruction to name each one. In this exercise of naming the animals, Adam would see that there was no one suitable for him. He would see Mr. Lion and Mrs. Lion, Mr. Monkey and Mrs. Monkey, Mr. Elephant and…Mrs. Elephant. Mr. Tiger…and Mrs. Tiger. And after he was done, after he could not find a helper fit for him, God put Adam to sleep and made the woman Eve. And when he awoke, and saw his bride for the first time he cannot help but to proclaim his love with the first love song ever, “at last! bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This was not just a statement of fact that she was like him, this was an exclamation of his covenant commitment to her. At last! One who is perfectly made for me. And then, upon Adam’s adoring declaration, God blesses the marriage union, declaring, Genesis 2:24 “24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” What I want you to see is that marriage then and this marriage now are by God’s design. He fearfully and wonderfully made Adam and Eve to be perfectly suitable for each other and He fearfully and wonderfully made you Jordan and you Kamalani to be perfectly suitable for each other.

But for what purpose did God design the marriage relationship? Why did God make marriage?

To Mirror His Covenant

We find the answer latter on in the Bible, in the New Testament book of Ephesians. Ephesians 5:31-32, which caps off Paul’s teaching on God’s instructions for wives and husbands, Paul says this, “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.” Notice that Paul quotes what God said at the wedding of Adam and Eve and then adds this statement, this mystery is profound. This mystery is referring to marriage, to the union of man and woman into one flesh. And the reason why marriage is a profound mystery is that it was created to display the glory of God in a way that no other relationship or institution in creation does. Specifically, the marriage relationship has been, from the beginning of Creation, patterned after the covenant relationship between Christ and His chosen people, the church. Frequently, Jesus spoke of Himself as the bridegroom coming to be with His bride. Jordan your marriage to Kamalani and Kamalani your marriage to Jordan was designed by God to reflect the Christ’s relationship with His bride, His church. Put another way, your marriage is to be a mirror to where when you and when world look at your marriage, at your love and your commitment and your care for each other, we all see Christ and His love and His commitment and His care for us His church. This is glorious.

And there is so much that I could say about how exactly to do that, I could preach a whole month of sermons on that truth, but alas, this is a wedding and not a church service so allow me to focus in on the heart of what you are to reflect. At the center of God’s covenant relationship with His people, we find God’s covenant love. In the Old Testament we see over and over again this term lovingkindness. God declares in Exodus that He is a God who shows lovingkindness to thousands of generations - in other words His covenant love lasts longer than a thousand lives. David shares in Psalm 63 that God’s lovingkindness for us is better than life itself. Psalm 36, His lovingkindness reaches to the heavens. It is a love that is ever faithful, that is everlasting, ever true. It is the source of our forgiveness, it is the root of God’s compassion and mercy and patience.

And it is in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus that we see Christ embody this lovingkindness. He is love itself. And it is with His blood that He binds us, His church, to Himself as His bride in the New Covenant. We are forgiven, reconciled, accepted, adopted into God’s family and made righteous and holy by His blood. Throughout the New Testament we, the church are called the beloved of God. Think of that! We are Christ’s beloved. This is what is at the root of His covenant relationship with us. He loves us with His covenant keeping love. We are His beloved.

And the most beautiful reality of this love is that nothing can separate us from it. Listen to the words of Paul in Romans 8, “35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from Christ’s covenant keeping love. We were made His beloved by His death on the cross and that death could not hold Him. Jesus rose and defeated the most powerful reality in the world - death. So then it stand as a true and certified fact that not even death itself can take His love away from us. If death couldn’t hold Him, what makes us think that death or anything less powerful than death could separate us from our Beloved.

Now let me bring this home. We, Christ’s blood bought church, are in a covenant relationship that is defined most powerfully by a covenant love that can’t be defeated, that extends to the heavens, that is sweeter than life itself, that will never fail. And God designed marriage for one special purpose to reflect this most beautiful relationship, and this highest of all loves, the love of Christ for us His bride. God has brought you two here today and all of us as witnesses to the formation of a mirror of His love.

So then here is my charge to you Jordan and to you Kamalani. Each morning you wake and you look at each other think in your mind and believe in your heart, “at last! here is the one who was perfectly made to be my companion” And then think in your mind and believe in your heart I am to love her, I am to be faithful to him, I am to serve her, I am to be devoted to Him because our marriage must reflect Christ’s perfect love for us, His beloved. It’s in 1 Corinthians 13, in that famous love chapter, that Paul instructs us in the love that we must have for each other. And he concludes that instruction by saying this, “7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

Jordan, Kamalani, may your love for each other endure all things and may it never it never end because Christ’s love endures all things and it never ends, it never fails, it is ever faithful. Let nothing separate you from your love for each other because nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. May your marriage ever be the clearest of all mirrors of the marriage between Christ and us His church to which we all say Amen!