Men, Women, and Marriage
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Genesis 2:18-25
Genesis 2:18-25
God made a good world. Everything God does is good.
He made humans in His image. With amazing creative potential and reason. He gave us responsibility over his world to manage it and care for it.
He gave us the gift of work to provide for ourselves, and lead by example and gave us the gift of rest to enjoy it and each other.
Genesis 1:27 gives us a summary statement on the creation of “ad-am”, humans:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
But in chapter two it gives us some beautiful details about the process.
A man, Ad-am or “Adam”, was made first and given the work to do and the command to be in charge of this good world. God put him in a garden in a land called “Eden” and told to take care of it.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
1. We were not made to be alone.
a. We all need companions. We are incomplete alone. Couple of things about that….
i. Was this an “oops” on God’s part? An afterthought?
1. I think what we’re seeing is God systematically filling creation with what is necessary and good. First air, then land, then plants, seasons, etc.
2. The next and final step is a man who is alone.
3. And I actually think he wanted the man to see it too before he provides. He’s naming animals, noticing the two genders of each, and maybe wondering…. Are there any more of me? I wonder if God wanted him to notice.
4. Just because you are experiencing a need, a disappointment, something missing in your life, it doesn’t mean God won’t provide for you. He just hasn’t YET.
ii. Quick side note: I don’t believe God is saying to you that you’re not complete unless you’re married. It’s easy to think that because God is about to give Adam a wife. We hear these passages at weddings.
iii. If you’re single maybe God has a plan for you that involves a spouse, and maybe he doesn’t. In the New Testament Paul talks about that. What you should take from this statement about being alone is that you need to cultivate friends. Don’t relationally isolate yourself. Like marriage, friends:
1. Encourage and build you and celebrate your victories.
2. Lovingly hold you accountable for your failures.
3. Keeps you balanced between confidence and humility.
4. And yes- have friends from the opposite sex.
5. Men are in the image of God….. And so are women.
6. They bring different ways of expressing the image of God and both have incredible value.
b. If you think you’ll never be truly happy and satisfied until you’re married, you’ll bring your disappointment into that marriage expecting your spouse to fix it for you and they can’t. Your ultimate satisfaction needs to rest on God.
i. Single people: if you are enjoying singleness and have friends to walk through life with you, enjoy that as a gift from God.
ii. Single people who do want to get married someday…. That’s ok but check yourself. Don’t want the idea of marriage. Want to meet the right person that you’ll want to spend your life with. It’s better to be single forever than married to someone who isn’t good for you. Pray and ask God to bring the one who is right for you and for the wisdom to recognize him or her. THEN WAIT PATIENTLY AND GROW YOURSELF.
c. God’s plan for Adam involved a wife. A helper “fit” for him in this translation.
2. God made two genders to complete God’s design for humanity.
a. To complete God’s design God made two humans that are different, and thereby compliment each other and do God’s will together.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
a. Adam accepts her as the gift from God made perfectly for him. Notice this isn’t because he needs to breed. Technically the “be fruitful and multiply” command hasn’t come yet. This is just about Him and her.
b. I’ve used the term “complete” or “compliment”. Because they are different but together are “fit” or “complete”.
i. The man came first.
1. He was to take the lead.
2. Take the responsibility. Make sure the work gets done.
3. God seems to generally give men strength, determination, a tendency for independent work, processing, etc.
4. Men you have great power to show your family, friends, and community that you want them to reach their potential and you’ll be a part of getting there with them.
5. When you don’t, you leave a big hole that cannot be filled in the same way by a woman.
ii. None of this means the man has to have “the idea” and a woman never should. Men do not own all the “influence”.
iii. Ladies don’t be hurt by thinking “we only exist to help men”. First of all again you carry on yourself and in yourself the image of God.
1. God Himself is described with this word “helper” too. Exodus 18:4, Deuteronomy 33:7, 26, 29, Psalm 33:20 are just a few.
2. The idea is to come alongside or opposite. A whole created by two. To complete God’s will for humans and human relationships.
3. You are needed!
iv. The woman came next to meet the need created by the things men generally aren’t built to do.
1. Women seem generally more relational
2. better nurturers.
3. Detail oriented
4. Emotionally attuned
5. Ladies you have great power to show your family, friends, and community that you’ll bring your gifts to the table to help them get to their full potential. When you don’t, you leave a hole that cannot be filled in the same way by a man.
c. Back to the Bible: Adam meets his wife and it’s the first marriage! He accepts her as a gift from God and they form a family.
Verse 24 Moses now takes a moment to give us a “therefore”. All this to say, “because of this story’s truth, we believe or act like this”:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
a. Kinda fun to think about God made one man, split him in two, for the purpose of becoming one. about marriage!
3. God gave us marriage to complete His picture of love, companionship, and raising a godly generation.
a. How should that work? 3 things we just read:
b. Leave: Separate dependence and allegiance from the parents. A new family is established that may respect the elders but they have no authority. The man and the woman married are depending and submitting to each other more than they would to their parents.
c. Hold Fast/Cleave: bonded. The vows are about this. We belong to each other and are not to break this bond. Commitment!
d. Become one flesh: Complete intimacy. Everything shared. Mutual trust, openness, and yes sexual connection. One in every way.
e. God’s design for marriage. One man, one woman. Not multiples or interchanged. Not partners who are dependant on their parents or weak commitments. Not holding back good from each other and completely open and intimate.
f. What’s up with raising a godly generation?
g. Genesis 1:28
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.”
a. And it worked:
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
c. Nothing to hide or be afraid of each other. Total intimacy.
Married people: pursue this sort of intimacy. Be trusting, and offer trust. Be supportive and receive support. Be interdependent. Sever dependence and allegiance to other people if it is even close to that which you share with a spouse. Accept your spouse, with all his or her faults, as a gift from God. If you’re married God wants your marriage to work. He won’t force you to work though, he’ll guide you. Marriage is a picture of the completely intimacy God sacrificially creates with the Church through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For your marriage to work, it will take sacrifice. That completes the picture of God and His people.
If you’re single God wants a relationship with you and can do great things in your life and through you as you have no bond that demands your attention. Paul loved being single because of the opportunities it gave him. Yes loneliness comes but use that to propel you to God, and to be for your friends. Intentionally develop your friendships as a way to experience God and love in a different way but a fulfilling one. Work at becoming like Jesus and God will prepare you for whatever is coming.
Reflection
Prayer
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ge 2:16–25). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.