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Please turn with me now in your
Bibles to Revelation chapter 21. A sermon this morning, as
Tom mentioned, will come from Genesis chapter 2. We'll be looking
at verses 18-25. Genesis 2, 18-25. But before we turn to that, let's
look at Revelation 21. Here at the end of John's visions,
7 sets of 7, we have John seeing His second to last vision, the
new heavens and the new earth. This is Revelation 21. And I'll
read verses 1-14. Hear now the Word of the Lord. Then I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as
a bride, adorned for her husband, And I heard a loud voice from
the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with
man. He will dwell with them, and
they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them
as their God. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there
be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former
things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne
said, behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, write
this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he
said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give the spring
of water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have
this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as
for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all
liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire
and sulfur, which is the second death. Then came one of the seven
angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues
and spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the
wife of the Lamb. And He carried me away in the
Spirit to a great high mountain, and showed me the holy city,
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory
of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear
as crystal. It had a great high wall with
twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates
the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.
On the east, three gates. On the north, three gates. On
the south, three gates. And on the west, three gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them
were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Amen. When John looks first in verses
1 and 2, he sees the new heaven, the new earth, with a new city,
a new Jerusalem. He describes that new city, Jerusalem,
in verse 2, as a bride adorned for her husband. He reverses
this image in verses 9 and 10, in which he says, then I saw
a bride, the wife of the Lamb, and she was, verse 10, the holy
city, Jerusalem. So whether we flow from the holy
city, Jerusalem, to the bride, or whether we flow from the bride
to the holy city, Jerusalem, you get the point. The church,
is the Bride of Christ. The metaphor hangs together.
What is powerful about John's vision, though, is that when
he speaks of the Bride's adorning in verses 2 and following, he
immediately goes to the Emmanuel concept. The dwelling place of
God is with man. In what way is the Church, are
we as a congregation, the Bride of Christ? John's first answer
is, He dwells with us. Just as a husband and a wife
dwell together, so God and His people dwell together. Secondly,
he says that they are in covenant. He will be their God, they will
be His people. There is a bond of love and a
permanence in covenant together. Thirdly, he says, he will wipe
away every tear. Death shall be no more, nor mourning,
nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away.
And isn't that the hallmark of your marriage? Oh, wait, that's
heaven, not marriage. You see, it's a metaphor. It
captures the theology of salvation but it isn't itself salvation. With that in mind, turn back
to Genesis chapter two. Our sermon this morning is from
Genesis chapter two. We'll begin in verse 18 and we'll
read through verse 25. What is notable in the flow of
the story is that God has created the heavens and the earth God
has created all that is in them, the living creatures. This story
that we are about to read is actually the last act of creation. This is officially the end, the
last story in the stories of creation. Next comes the fall. So here then, the last story
of creation. Genesis 2, 18 through 25. Hear
now the word of the Lord. Now the Lord God said, it is
not good that the man should be alone. I will make 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. Whatever the man called every
living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all
livestock, 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. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man, and while he took one of the ribs,
one of his ribs, and closed up in its place with flesh, 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. Therefore, a man shall leave
his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. They shall
become one flesh. And the man and his wife were
both naked. and we're not ashamed. Amen and amen. Well, I had planned to begin
with a story, something to do with Lydia and me and romance
and marriage, but you're not getting that today. Instead,
yesterday I was at the funeral for my grandmother, which sounds
like a much better opening line for a sermon on marriage, right? But it is. because my grandmother
knows a lot about marriage. 63 years she was in her marriage,
only 13 more to go. 63 years of marriage. But what
stood out to me most yesterday in her funeral was the intense
way in which all the family members had come together onto the same
idea without communicating it. Here's what I mean. My father
called me for two weeks leading up to the funeral, expressing
concern and anxiety that the family was going to come together
and spend so much time talking about what a wonderful woman
she was, when she would desperately want us to talk about what a
wonderful savior Jesus is. So everyone who spoke, without
consulting each other, made it a point to fix all their remarks
on Jesus in honor of my grandmother. In fact, when the service was
over, there were about two stories that told you something about
grandma. Everything else was about Jesus.
And that's exactly how she would have wanted it. This is what has happening in
our theology of marriage. It's all about Jesus. You see,
the theology that is developed in Ephesians 5, the theology
that is developed in Revelation 21, is not an afterthought. It is not a plan B. But rather,
God in His wisdom gives a good gift to humanity, by which there
will be more humans in the world. And also, a living, ordinary,
daily experience of the doctrine of salvation. You see, marriage
is an image of salvation. This is good news for us. This
is gospel truth for us. For those who are wondering about
marriage or getting in it, for those who are in it and still
wondering about it, for those who have long endured it and
have found it sweet. Regardless of your relationship
to marriage, wherever that marriage is located, it was given by God
as an image of Christ and His church. And this makes it beautiful. This makes it glorious. This
makes purity worth pursuing. Marriage is an image of salvation. Let's pursue purity. Look at the text with me this
morning. Notice first that we are given a theology of marriage
that begins, as all of creation has, with the Lord God, the covenant
God, the Almighty God. He has spoken the world into
existence. He has spoken out the space,
the sky, the sea, and the dry land. He has filled it with the
living things, the sun, moon, and stars. He has filled it with
the birds, and the fish, and the beasts of the field, and
the livestock, and the creeping things. And at last He has planted
a garden, and in that garden He has placed a human. And do you remember what Moses'
refrain, what his chorus was as he told us this story? And
it was good. And it was good. And in the end,
when the man is in the garden and all is growing and life is
thriving and the world is sunlit and beautiful and colorful, God
looks down and says at last at the end of chapter 1, it is very
good. But now in verse 18, the Lord
God looks upon the man in the garden with all that goodness,
all that very goodness, and says it is not good for man to be
alone. Notice, this is not in any way
diminishing the goodness of creation. It is good, indeed it is very
good, but it is not good for the man to enjoy all that goodness
by himself. It is not good for him to be
deprived of the sharing, the having together in common of
goodness. Now this is true specifically
of marriage, but it is also true more collectively of society.
It's not good for humans to live alone entirely. We're designed
by God to enjoy the goodness of this world with friends and
neighbors and coworkers, with parents and children. We're designed
for community. We're designed for relationship.
And for this reason, God comes up with a plan. I will make him
a helper fit for him. I will fashion something. Notice
God's solution isn't, I will find something in the creation.
God's solution isn't, I'll repurpose something else. I'll take it
from what it was to be, and I'll make it this purpose instead.
God starts over. He says, no, I will make something
for him. But not just something. He says,
I will make someone. who will be fit for him, who
will be appropriate for his needs, who will correspond to him. Now within marriage, this is
a literal, biological, anatomical fact. Male and female have corresponding
anatomy that is appropriate for creating life. Sorry for the
gore, it's where we all come from. It's how we all got here. the corresponding reality of
male and female. But it's not just physical. It's
also emotional, and mental, and spiritual. That God has designed
the relationships of humans, starting with marriage, to be
this harmony, this cooperation in which we talk to each other,
think together, share our feelings, and process our place in this
world, but not alone, for that is not good. Notice also, then,
that this is God's plan. It doesn't start with Adam discovering
this. It doesn't start with Adam deciding
this. It starts with the Lord God.
Marriage is God's idea. Human relationships is God's
idea. Community and society is God's
idea. It's not good for people to be
lonely. It is good to have relationships.
And so to have society, God first created that institution from
which all societies come. Marriage. A man and a woman making
more humans. But as I've said, all this theology
points us to Christ. You see, salvation isn't our
idea, is it? Salvation is something that the
Lord God came up with. It was His plan. When He looked
upon humanity, when He looked upon you and me in our sin and
in our misery, He decided and concluded, it's not good for
you to be alone there. I will make something for you.
I will make salvation for you. But he doesn't just make salvation
as a thing, he makes a person who is suitable for you, who
is appropriate for you, someone capable of understanding your
thoughts, someone capable of understanding your feelings,
someone who is tempted in all ways as you are, yet without
sin. You see, this beautiful theology
of marriage, by which we should order our beliefs about marriage,
is also the theology of salvation. That it comes from God, and it's
not ours. That we should meddle with it
or mess with it. But secondly, notice that with
regards to marriage, God not only comes and initiates, it's
His idea, He gives it. But secondly, he has to experientially
convince the man of it. So the garden is set up one sunny
day. The trees and shrubs are beautiful
because they're always beautiful. And a parade begins. Not a parade
of tractors like in the town I grew up in. Not a parade of
floats like at Geneva College on homecoming. A parade of animals. And Adam is sitting there in
the garden, and here come the giraffes, here come the elephants,
here come the horses and the hippopotamus. And as they come
by, each of them notice, brought by the Lord God himself, that
God, like an excited father, is bringing all these little
treasures past his beloved son. What are you going to name this
one? What's this one? And Adam sits there, and beside
the Lord God, Adam names each animal. That one's horse, that
one's pelican, that one's hippopotamus. He obviously used different nouns.
I don't know which words Adam used. But those are the, he names
them. And whatever he names them, that's
what they are. You see, at this point, it would
be very tempting to think Adam could find a helper among the
animals, a helper fit for him, for two reasons. One is Moses
says that these animals came out of the ground. Adam came
out of the ground. They share the same point of
origin. Adam was made from dust. These
animals were made from dust. Why wouldn't they be fit to work
together? Secondly, he says, Adam names
them. Secondly, Adam names them. He
says their names. This shows Adam knows the animals. He recognizes them. He is familiar
with them. He has a kind of relationship
with them, a kind of authority and dominance over them that
he can name them. But Moses draws us to this conclusion. The man gave names to all livestock
and to all the birds of the heavens and to all the beasts of the
field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fitting for
him. You see, marriage doesn't work
with animals. They don't correspond. Why not? They are not made in the image
of God. It is the peace they are missing. Yes, Adam is from
the dirt and the animals are from the dirt, but Adam has the
breath of God and they do not. Adam has thought and Adam has
feeling and they do not. And Adam needs someone to talk
to and someone to emote with. There is to be this intimacy
of person and of self that is beyond the mere physical reality. Adam could not find a helper
fit for him. This theology then migrates into
our salvation theology, the reality that we are so prone to search
for salvation in this world. and that we will exhaust the
massive parade of hopes that go through our little gardens.
Maybe I can save myself. Maybe my parents can save me.
Maybe my children can save me. Maybe my spouse can save me.
Maybe my job can save me. Maybe a vacation can save me.
Maybe a sabbatical can save me. Maybe, fill in the blank. What's your story? The Red Sox
winning the World Series will save me. We search for all these
hopes, and yet the scriptures teach us that just as marriage
must come as God's gift, it is what God has given to humanity,
and it is what God has given to each human. So salvation is
God's gift. It is not found by us. It is
not uncovered in this world by us. It is revealed to us and
shown to us. What I find striking about this
piece of the story is that Adam only comes to the conclusion
through experience. I mean, theoretically, God could
have sat down with Adam and reasoned with him. Look, Adam, here's
what you need in a woman. Let me make her for you. Theoretically,
he could have written him a poem or given him a story or all kinds
of solutions. But Adam's discovery of his need
rests in his experience of the insufficiencies around him. Does
that have any echoes to you? I sat with a beloved family member
yesterday and he shared some of his sad story and I shared
some of my sad story and we both landed on this same truth. Isn't
it amazing how slow we can be to learn the grace and love of
God and how we insist that he drag us through sin and sorrow
till we will wake up to the reality of his grace. experience is sometimes
the lesson we insist on. But the third piece of our theology
of marriage in verse 21, 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 in its place, 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." Again, notice at the end of verse 22, the prevailing
theology. that this is the work of God.
The Lord God caused a sleep, the Lord God took the rib, the
Lord God closed up the flesh, and the Lord God brought her
to the man. This is still practiced in many
Christian weddings today. What happens at the start of
the wedding? There's music, and people are
dressed up, and they're taking pictures, and there's a bunch
of very awkward-looking dudes in a line at the front of the
sanctuary, pacing back and forth on one foot, unless the photographer
told them to stand still. And in comes the bride and the
father of the bride. Here is the father of the bride,
the Lord God himself, walking his beloved daughter down the
aisle. and he brings her to Adam. He presents her to Adam. Here, Adam, is what I have made
for you. Notice further that this has
come about through a deep sleep. This isn't your ordinary Sunday
afternoon nap. This isn't your ordinary middle-of-the-night
circadian rhythm going through all the REMs and the cycles of
sleep. This is a trance. This is a spiritual
immobilization. Adam cannot react. It's a gracious anesthetization
so that he can have surgery. but it reappears in Scripture.
In Genesis 15, Abram cuts the pieces in half, and the blood
of the animals makes a puddle in the middle, and Abram is ready
to march through the blood and to bathe his feet in blood as
he enters into a covenant of life or death with God. And the
next thing is, Adam, Abram falls into a deep sleep. He's inert,
he cannot move. He is not passing through the
pieces. It is not his death that will
save. Peter at Joppa is on the rooftop, and the sweet sea breeze
is coming in from the Mediterranean, and he falls into a deep sleep,
and he sees a sheet lowered from heaven. No longer will there
be clean and unclean. The old covenant is done away.
The resurrection of Christ reigns supreme in the world now. All
alike are saved in Christ. These deep sleeps are moments
of divine intervention. And so it is with marriage that
we pass as a human species into this sense of God is at work
in our world. How many of you have a story
of meeting and or falling in love with your spouse? How many
of you love to tell that story? That was gonna be my opening
illustration, but anyway. We have those senses of providence. That it wasn't we who were in
control. It wasn't we who were running
the show. That it was God providing for
us a good gift. Adam is asleep. It is not what
he is doing. He is unable to do it. He cannot
deliver this. He cannot make it work. This
is our theology of marriage. But so it is our theology of
salvation. The third thing before I go to
the theology of salvation is that while he slept, he took
one of the ribs and closed up the place with the flesh and
took the rib and turned it into a woman. For this reason, God
shows the utter unity and equality between a male and a female,
a man and a woman. The old phrase goes, woman was
not made from man's head that she should rule over him, nor
was she made from his heel that he should walk on her, but she
was made from his rig that she should be beside him, face to
face, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm. But what is more, it
shows us the theology of their oneness. Adam was made from dirt. Animals were made from dirt.
In fact, the only living creature in this creation story not made
from dirt is Adam's wife. She is made from him. That we
should have this theology of marriage that humans come from
humans. That we should have this theology
of marriage that a man and a woman united together in love and commitment
produce more humans and that's God's idea, not ours. It is brilliant and it is beautiful.
It is the giving of my flesh, my life to another human. And if that doesn't have any
echoes of salvation, what does? That Christ should come and be
human with us. And Adam gets this theology.
In verse 23, Adam takes up a poem. He takes up a song by which he
celebrates this theology of marriage, this sense of incarnation, that
something has come in the flesh that is full of life and hope
and help. The man says, this at last. By saying this at last, Adam
is agreeing with God that there are no animals for the job. No
bulls, no goats, no rams, no lambs, no turtle doves. You can
kill them all, they'll never atone for sin. This, at last,
is the helper. This is what Adam is saying,
but he's saying it of his wife. That parade of animals was helpful. I cannot find a helper suitable
for me and them. It is the gift of God. He leads
me to this. Secondly, Adam says, bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh. This will become a refrain that
is used throughout scriptures. When Jacob shows up after years
away being raised in the promised land, and Laban goes out excited
to see him, Laban grabs him and says, you are bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh. When David has been driven out
of the land by his son Absalom, and he has defeated Absalom and
he is on his return, Judah as a tribe rises up and says to
David, you are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It is
the epic, poetic expression in Hebrew for utter unity, for utter
commonality. We are family. We are one. You are my bone. You are my flesh. You are like me and I am like
you. The I and the you are one. And again, is this not a theology
of salvation? That we are united to Christ
deeply and intimately. My sin is His sin. His righteousness
is my righteousness. His death is my death. He is
bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. so that he would be
my savior. Then Adam says, she shall be
called woman, for she is taken out of man. I debated on whether
or not to use the Hebrew. I'm gonna use the Hebrew because
one, it's easy. You can handle it. And two, you
can then use it. It's fun. Man, in Hebrew, ish. I-S-H, really easy, ish. Woman. Ishah. I-S-H-A-H. That's it. Ish, Ishah. That's
what Adam says here. I am Ish, she is Ishah. What is the meaning of this?
I'm the male one, she's the female one, we're the same one. She
was taken out of me, and we are one. We share thoughts, we share
feelings, we enter into this depth of commonality and union. And in this, he gives us this
theology of marriage. For indeed, each one of us was
taken not out of a man, but out of a woman. This is the first
and last time a woman comes out of a man. For the rest of history,
all other humans came out of a woman. And thus, Adam permanently
embeds, through his poetry, this theology of existence, that to
be a human is to be someone who came from the union of a man
and a woman. The two become one flesh. You
can actually, we now know, break this fact down into like a molecular
or cellular level. You are 46 chromosomes, 23 from
mom and 23 from dad, yeah? Did I get the math wrong? Here's
the theology embedded in our genetics that the two have become
one flesh. This new human. And how much
more do we celebrate this theology in our salvation? That there
is Jesus and there is sinner, and when you put those two together,
there is a new creation in Christ Jesus. There is a saint, saved
by grace and bound for glory. There is a child of wrath, but
you unite them to Christ, and there is a child of God. Because
this is our theology of marriage, because this is our theology
of salvation, it should utterly transform how we relate to each
other as males and females, as humans, as married persons or
unmarried persons. And I've tried to move slowly
and methodically, partly because I'm exhausted from yesterday's
travels and efforts, and partly because I want to weave together
in your imaginations, in your hearts, this theology of marriage
and salvation, so that you know there is significance to marriage. It is a special relationship.
but it is also and most importantly significant because it is an
image of salvation. Meaning whether you're in it
or not, you should honor it. Because it is an image of salvation. How then do we honor it? How
then do we work this theology in our lives? There are five
statements Moses then makes that I'll move through quickly. But
these five applications of this theology of marriage all tease
out the same theology of salvation for us. Let's apply this to our
lives. Think with me on this for a moment.
Verse 24. Therefore, because of this theology,
Because of these truths, that this is what it is to be a human,
this is what it is to be a man, this is what it is to be a woman,
this is what it is to be in the image of God together on earth,
not alone, but in community and society. Therefore, because of
this theology that God has given us this gift, a man shall leave
his father and his mother. The first step of entering this
relationship is creating independence. is creating a separation from
the ones on whom you have depended. Now, I do gotta add the caveat,
the fifth commandment hasn't ended, okay? Just because you're
married doesn't mean you can dishonor your parents. But it
does mean that you are now established as having stepped out of your
parents' home in a level of independence. This is why in most human societies,
certainly Western societies, you have to have a job and maybe
even a car and a home before you can get married. Because
we want to see that you are no longer dependent on your parents.
We want to see that you can provide for needs and feed hungry people
and pay bills. A man should leave his father
and his mother. There should be a resilience
and a strength and an independence that contributes to this relationship. A departure from the old to the
new. How much more in our doctrine
of salvation? where Paul repeatedly says, leave
the old self and embrace the new self. Leave the sinful man
and woman behind and become a new creation in Christ Jesus. But
not only this departure, a holding fast. Moses says that a man should
leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. This is a clear theology that
not only must men and women grow up throughout their childhood
into independent and competent and responsible adults so that
they can marry and care for each other, so once they do, they
must hold fast, cling to one another in marriage. This is the beginning, this is
God's vision. Jesus himself will explain in
Matthew 18, divorce was because of the hardness of your heart.
It was not part of the original design. There was a holding fast
from the wedding day to the death day that that marriage should
be clung to and held to, to the very end. Come what may. We hold fast. And this is our
theology of salvation as well, is it not? That we cling to Christ
and we cling to Him to the end. And this is how we are saved.
But then thirdly, they shall become one flesh. By departing from the parents'
oversight, by entering into this covenant where they cling to
one another, a man and a woman produce one flesh. Children. It is not universally the case,
it is not everyone everywhere, but it is generally the case.
And it is certainly the case for Christ and his bride. That
they produce fruit. that they produce one flesh,
that there is a union, a coming together of two humans, that
life might continue, that humanity might continue, but so much so,
so more, Christ who is united to us, whose spirit dwells in
us, in order to produce in us the oneness, that we are conformed
to his image, that we are righteous as he is righteous, holy as he
is holy, loving as he loves, hating as he hates, thinking
as he thinks. The fourth one is that the man
and his wife were both naked. There's no place in marriage
for masks. There's no place in marriage for secrets. There's
no place in marriage for hiding. Marriage was made to be that
space, that safe space for nakedness. Again, there is that literal
biological element that a man and a woman are alone and naked
together in their marriage. And in that sexual union, There
are babies, humans, but how much more as you go through the rest
of the list that their union consists of naked thoughts, that
they speak to one another their minds. Here's what I'm thinking. What are you thinking? I cherish
your thoughts. I want to know what you think.
This is a hallmark of marriage. They are naked with their emotions,
they share their feelings, and they receive and invite and welcome
the feelings of others. Not others, their spouse. This
is the hallmark of marriage, that they enter into this vulnerability
and this intimacy of person, and the two become one flesh
through this process. Some of you, many of you, who
have gone through either premarital counseling or marital counseling
with me, know that I like to refer to this emphasis in communication. All of you may assume that you
entered your marriage speaking English. You are wrong. You entered your marriage speaking
your specific form of English. Your spouse spoke a different
one. And you discovered that pretty quick, didn't you? Yes? You started having conversations
where you were told something, and you quickly realized it wasn't
what you thought you were told. But I thought you asked me to.
No, I didn't. And vice versa. We need to strip
off our assumptions and lay naked our intentions and learn a new
form of communication. Indeed, the two have to become
one flesh in communication. That we learn to talk one to
another in a way that you can understand and I can understand
and we can walk away from the conversation understanding together. How much more our theology of
salvation. then we have to learn to talk
to Jesus. We have to learn to be naked
in prayer before Jesus, telling Him our thoughts and our feelings,
showing Him our sin and our sorrow and our struggle, letting Him
know who we are and being intimate and vulnerable with Him, our
Savior, Jesus Christ. But how much more are we to learn
to pray using His word? that His Scriptures should train
us in such intimate communication, that His Scriptures should teach
us such careful conversation with the lover of our soul. The
last one. What do we do with our marriages
as a result of this text? What do we do with our salvation
as a result of this text? And we're not ashamed. In the garden, the man and the
woman are there. And they are naked. And they
are not ashamed. No fear. No guilt. No disgrace. In one sense, I want to describe
that to you. I want to unpack that image for
you. In another sense, I don't know
how. I don't know that I've ever been naked and wholly unashamed. I've known sin all my life. I've
known guilt all my life. I've known shame all my life. Can you ever replay in your mind
sins of your youth that you just wish God had a magic eraser and
could make disappear? Do you know that feeling of shame
that creeps up in your soul when you see those sins in your memory? One day, that memory will be
very different. You will be with your Savior
in glory, not a garden, but in glory, and your conscience will
be naked and unashamed. No condemnation, no guilt. And marriage is given to us as
an image and a picture by which we can experience this. Again,
there is the literal physical element of a man and a woman
alone together, naked and not ashamed, loving one another,
whatever they see. But there is also the spiritual
and emotional reality. Have you ever hurt your spouse? If you've been married for more
than 24 hours, my guess is yes. Have you ever felt his or her
forgiveness and then released from shame? Isn't it beautiful to taste salvation
face-to-face, earth-to-earth? Isn't it beautiful to see that
God has given us this gift of marriage by which we have so
many reflecting and refracting images of how Christ loves us,
His bride. That He knows our every thought,
our every feeling. We are, as a statement of fact,
naked before Him. But we need not be ashamed. He died for every sin and every
shame. Let me sum this up as best I
can. You see, what Moses is urging
us to see in this story is a call to pursue purity. The purity
of oneness. That whether we're married or
not, we live like a one-woman man. That's Paul's word in 1
Timothy 3. That we live like a one-man woman,
having eyes to a marriage, whether we're
in one or not, because we're in one with Christ. And that we should embrace this
vision of who we are as humans and who we are as Christians. There's a beautiful image in
this that we get to live through and thus experience as Adam did
in the garden. so that we might know our doctrine
of salvation in a daily way and draw out this metaphor and this
image. The last connection I'll make,
and this is one of the reasons I was switched by opening illustration.
Yesterday was my grandmother's funeral, memorial service. We wept, we stood around remembering. Yesterday, not exactly, not literally,
it was October the 8th actually. October the 8th, 2024 was her
wedding day. She got home to glory and she
saw her husband. I don't mean Donald, I mean Jesus. And that's what she would tell
you too. This marriage is a momentary thing. This marriage is an image. of the great glory of heaven
that is coming, of the salvation that is in Christ, so beloved
in your thoughts and in your words and your looks and in your
actions, pursue that purity that reflects both well on marriage
and on salvation. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, we give
you thanks for this beautiful passage. We give you thanks for
this beautiful world. We give you thanks for our beautiful
Savior. And pray that that which we have
this day learned and understood, you would write it on our minds
and on our hearts and bring it forth into our lives. to the
building up of your church and the advancing of your kingdom.
Remember us for good, O God, that we would preserve, protect,
and pursue our purity, being one of heart, one of mind, devoted
utterly to Christ and to one another. We give you thanks for
these things and ask these blessings in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Romance
Series Book of Genesis
| Sermon ID | 111624223125922 |
| Duration | 49:27 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Genesis 2:18-25; Revelation 21:1-14 |
| Language | English |
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