Turn with me once again in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians. Chapter 5. We're interrupting our series through Ephesians, I guess, to look at a different portion of the book dealing with a section on husbands and wives. We'll pick it up with V. 22 and read to V. 32. Ephesians 5, beginning with V. 22 and reading to V. 32. If you're following along in the Bibles provided, it's on page 1,346. Remember, this is God's Word. It's His inerrant, infallible, inspired Word. And it is the truth. We read, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church. and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Thus far the reading of God's holy word. I'm sure that some of you might have been shocked to open up your email from yesterday and look through the bulletin, or maybe even this morning look and see that the title of today's sermon is, Heather has two mommies. What kind of sermon title and sermon for that matter is that for Mother's Day? Well, I admit to you that I've never preached a Mother's Day sermon like this before, but I think it's important. It's important because if we look at what's happening with regards to our society, the institution of marriage, and with that then of fatherhood and motherhood, is under attack. No area of our society, no age group, as it were, is immune to this. About two to three months ago, I started thinking about today, because I saw an article on Yahoo News whereby a book was being republished called Heather Has Two Mommies. This book is geared toward kindergartners so that as a little girl named Heather who loves the number two, loves not only her arms and her hands and her legs and her feet and her two pets, but also her two moms. One named Jane, the other named Kate. Jane a carpenter, Kate a doctor. They have fun playing together and baking. But one day Heather had to start school. And as she was at school, kids asked her, where is your daddy? She realized that she did not have one. And so the teacher then encouraged all the students to draw pictures of their families and noted the following conclusion. Each family is special. The most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love each other. The issue of Same-sex marriage is in our culture. It's before us. In the news, there was a couple known as the Clines who owned a bakery who denied a lesbian couple opportunity for a cake to be baked for their wedding. As a result, the couple claimed that they were subjected to 88 and 90 counts of trauma and abuse. They took this to court, noting that they did not have full and equal access to the bakery. They won their suit, and as a result, the family was fined $135,000. They lost their business, and their family is devastated. Some of our young people might have had to deal with the issue just a month ago as there's a group who is encouraging students to protest the ill-treatment of those who are of the LGBT community and show an entire day of silence. Videos have started to be promoted to note that being homosexual is not anti-biblical or sinful, that you can be gay and Christian. They say that there are 31,000 passages in the Old and New Testament, but only six or seven really deal with the issue of homosexuality. And even these have not been rightly understood by the church. This group has gone on to say that there are those who are committed Christians who believe a few passages in the Bible referring to certain actions of people of same gender to be historically misconstrued. And there are also others who are committed Christians who see these actions as sinful and flies in the face of what God desires. And they basically say both are okay. A survey was done in 1988, noting that two-thirds of white Americans believe that same-sex marriage was wrong. Of that group, 85% who were born again noted it to be wrong. And basically, 20 to 30 years, 20 years, from those 85%, now in 2010, only two-thirds of evangelicals see it as being wrong. As it relates to millennials, basically people who are around 20-something and a little younger, only 44% of young evangelicals oppose it and 17% are uncertain. As it relates to groups within the Christian faith, 63% of mainline Protestants say it's okay. 57% of Roman Catholics say it's okay. Many denominations bless these types of marriages, bless these types of unions, even acknowledge that members who acknowledge themselves to be in this position are accepted. And those who might be celibate as it relates to this practice could even serve in leadership. Some even under the Reformed heading have embraced this. So how do we think through this? There are various arguments that these individuals will make. Remember, many of these people, in order to have an inroad into the church, will say, we're committed Christians. And they'll make some of these types of arguments. We're committed Christians who love God. We believe the Bible. We want to follow Him. And as we read the Scriptures, we conclude that God blesses these types of marriages. They might even go on to take a text that we read from Genesis chapter 2 and say, God himself said that it's not good for man to be alone, that he needs a helper suitable, that loneliness is not good for the world, and the way in which we can resolve loneliness for individuals is whoever a person wants to marry, we should allow that. After all, did not Paul say it's better to marry than to burn? And so I should follow what the Bible prescribes for me as relates to my desires and pursue after an institution. Furthermore, they would even note that Jesus himself never condemns the sin of homosexuality. Others might go on to even say, you know, you might disagree with what I'm doing or what I think, but for the sake of unity. I mean, after all, the church has gotten a really bad rap and has gotten a bad name. And there have been a few black eyes that have been cast upon the church. So you know what? Let's just all get along and show that we can come together and have support. After all, who are we to judge one another? Some might not go that route, but they might say, well, guess what? We really love one another. You can't be opposed to love, can you? We want to demonstrate and announce our love for one another and have a life that we can openly share our dreams. And besides this, Doesn't the institution of marriage need to be bolstered? After all, over half the people within the Christian community have at one time or another been divorced. Why not allow us to come together in order to be able to be a party that's involved with this and can in turn help to support the institution of marriage? Besides, this allows us to progress societally. Because marriage, we see shortly after Adam and Eve, we see polygamy, and then polygamy moved to being monogamous. And now from this, we can see that we've advanced from not just those who are heterosexuals but now same-sexed. Sometimes we hear arguments as it relates to the children. There are thousands of children in foster care. They would love to be a part of a family. These unwanted children can be adopted by those who would love them and care for them and support them. They can be like Heather that we heard at the beginning, who learned that the most important thing about a family is that we all just love one another. Isn't this the heart of Christianity? Jesus himself said that the second commandment is like unto the first, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. And Paul tells us that there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ. Therefore, as we are one, we should listen without prejudice and we should show God's love and realize that we can come together in this. One individual even went so far as to say, that anything that would prohibit him in terms of pursuing this is a fruit of bad teaching, that causes him emotional and spiritual devastation, and that his self-esteem and self-worth should not be torn down. studies have been done to show that these very arguments have no merit, no standing. The very thing that they attempt to promote and to say has no position. After all, the families of same-sex couples end up being more so on welfare than those who have moms and dads. Ten percent of these individuals, these kids, are abused. Sons and daughters, sons are seven times more likely to enter into homosexual relationships, and daughters are either four times, if they live under women, or six times, if they live under men, more likely to pursue this type of lifestyle. They've been arrested more often, they deal with depression more, and they see a negative impact on the family. But even that isn't the key, the concern as it relates to Heather has two mommies. The issue really pertains to what we read this morning from Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5. You see, there's all sorts of arguments to be made. The emotional ones, the play upon love, the play upon unity, the play upon coming together, the play upon the benefit that could be had. You could even argue, and they have responses back regarding what the book of Leviticus says, or what happened in terms of Sodom and Gomorrah, or what we understand as relates to 1 Corinthians 6 or 1 Timothy chapter 1. But there's something I think that's most fundamental. It's something that we acknowledge on Mother's Day, the fact that we have moms, that moms have been in a position whereby they've been married and they have a spouse and God has blessed the relationship of husband and wife to allow them to have children. It goes back to the very fundamental idea of marriage itself. Jesus makes reference to this in Matthew 19, I think much to the chagrin of those who would like to see same-sex unions identified as marriage, because Jesus undermines homosexuality without even making reference to it when He says, Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them? male and female. We heard that this morning from Genesis 2. We see the identification of that again in Ephesians chapter 5. The first thing that we must assert is that we cannot approach Scripture and twist it to our own wants and our own desires to make it fit what we want it to say. Those who are engaged in this sort of lifestyle are doing that very thing. They're twisting. They're very subtle. They're very skilled. They're very emotional. They make all sorts of appeals to cause you to feel badly about yourself and to cause you to think that although this is a populace within our country that is less than 5%, that this is the most important fundamental thing that ought to be embraced at this time. But we must remember that the Word that we deal with in the 66 books of the Old and New Testament are not the words of men alone, but rather the very inspired Word of God. We may not mess with His Word that is without error and that is truth and that has lasted for all ages. And simply turn it and make it what we want it to be. As we look at Ephesians 5 and Genesis 2, we see that marriage is rooted in creation. You saw that as we read from the text this morning, that as God was laying out on the sixth day His activity, that He creates man, and in creating man He then brings the animals to Him, and Adam names the animals. This is the first week of creation, day six. What do we see? That marriage then is not something that Adam developed. Marriage is not something that man contrived. Man did not come together and say, you know, it'd be really good if we could protect ourselves, if we just came up with some sort of group or way that we could identify ourselves so that we could somehow come together and have groups. God instituted marriage prior to the fall. It was His design. And His design notes that the relationship that exists is between one man and one woman. To be a little trite here, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. God put man and woman together so that they then would have an intimate, lasting relationship according to the way that He purposed. Now, as God did this, note how God made man first. If you look back in Genesis 1, verse 26, we read, God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and cattle, and all the earth, and over every creeping thing. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them." Now as we look in Genesis 2, God noted that it is not good for the man to be alone. Now this is interesting because here we see man being created, we confess that he was created to know his Creator, to love Him, and to live with Him forevermore in a position whereby He would have complete fellowship with His Creator, that He would know Him as it relates to His mind, that He would heartily love Him, that He would desire to follow after Him all the days of His life. And yet, God looks upon this man that He made, and as He looks upon him, He says, this one who's perfect, it's not good that you're alone. God then notes that he wants to make a helpmeet suitable to him. He wants to make a compliment to him. He wants to make an exact fit. Not an exact copy, but a perfect fit. One who will stand alongside of him. Now in order to show this, God then creates the animals, brings them before Adam, Adam names them, and as Adam names the animals, he looks and he notes. There's Mr. Lion and there's Mrs. Lion. He notes that there's Mr. Tiger and Mrs. Tiger. That there is also a Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe. He notes this as it relates to the birds and every animal that God brings before Him. But he then notes that there is no Mrs. Adam. God then causes a sleep to come upon him and He pulls the woman as it were out of man by taking a rib and forming her from the dust of the ground. Now think about that as this creation occurs. Matthew Henry notes that God did not take a piece of bone from Adam's head so that the woman would rule over the man, and that God did not take a piece of Adam from his foot so that Adam might be able to have dominion or squash his wife, but he pulled her from his side, from his rib. He goes on to note, even from his heart, that she would be there next to him for love and support and companionship. This woman, who is an exact fit, although she differs, yet she properly corresponds, and she has the same intellect, the same emotions, the same morality, the same will. Jesus notes, Paul notes, that these two then become one flesh. God did not make two men. He did not make two women. He made a man and He made a woman. The point that God notes in relation to the garden is not the issue of loneliness per se, but that loneliness is satisfied between male and female. Not simply so that we might say, we need friends, we need companionship, we can do it however we want. God also notes that in making these two, He brings them together so that they might be one flesh. Listen again to what Paul writes in Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, verse 28 and following, So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies, for he who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. There's a standard here as it relates to marriage. The standard is that there is a leaving of father and mother, a cleaving of the man to the woman, and a weaving then together. The man leaves his parents. He leaves his blood relation. He breaks his ties in order to establish new ties. As one commentator noted, he leaves one blood in order to join another. Now, I think this is something that's important to remember, that marriage is not so that husbands and wives can live at the whims of mom and dad or grandma and grandpa or whoever the matriarch or the patriarch is. These two establish a new home instituted by God. As is noted, man leaves father and mother in cleaves to his wife. They are glued together as it were. They come together as they are woven. To be of one mind, one heart, one purpose. No longer two, but one flesh. Jesus notes in Matthew 19, what God has joined together, let no man pull asunder. This oneness is noted to be of intimacy so that it is an indivisible oneness. Because Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 notes that one who would join himself to another woman who was a woman of indiscretion is committing a filthy act in causing himself to be one with her. Paul notes that as it relates to the union of husband and wife as they weave themselves together, this is sealed when they come together physically. So that each is for the other. That they are now bone of bone and flesh of flesh. The Scripture notes to us that this oneness was had because the conclusion in Genesis 2 is that Adam and his wife noted that they were naked and not ashamed. There was no sin present. Sin didn't come until Genesis chapter 3. There was no effect whereby there was any sort of division between the two of them or any sort of need for hiding or any issue of shame that only comes when sin is introduced. Now this sort of love, this sort of relationship that is found in the biblical institution of marriage as ordained by God for man and woman, is what those who are desiring same-sex marriage, it's what they want, but they can't have. They can't have it because of the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1, and they have an answer and response for this as well, although they again pervert Scripture as they continue in their own perversion. Paul basically notes in Romans 1 that God reveals Himself against all ungodliness and unrighteousness to those who take the truth and suppress it. They push it down. They subdue it in a desire of hate and disdain for what God says. God continues to manifest Himself. He has written His law on their heart, and yet they deny this truth. They continue to do so, and as a result, Paul says, these ones are without excuse. And as they continue in this manner and profess themselves to be wise, they became fools and they show the manifestation of their foolishness by noting there is no God. They exchange the truth of God for the image of creation. They worship. the creature rather than the creator. And therefore we read this, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. Because of their idolatry, God has given them over to polluted practices so that they pursue after unnatural desires and immoral perversions. The homosexual attempts to argue against this by saying, well, I'm not doing anything that is unnatural. This is a natural desire. It would be unnatural if I were to love a woman or love a man, depending on their nature. But I'm doing that which is in accordance with my nature. I love one who is like me, the same as me." One commentator noted that Paul had this practice brought before him, for the philosophers promoted this sort of love, and the army of Sparta even noted that they would build support by pursuing these types of relationships among the soldiers. Paul was aware of this culture, and yet he does not cite it or make reference to it. They are pursuing after an immoral behavior that is unnatural as it relates to what God has established in the created order, which is one man, one woman, leaving, cleaving, and weaving. But there's a more fundamental issue than even what is found in the natural order. Turn with me back to Ephesians 5. Verse 31 and 32. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ and the church. The reason that you and I must preserve marriage as God has revealed in His Word, the reason that we cannot acquiesce to those who would want to say, let's just redefine it, let's just make it what we want it to be, isn't about social relationships. In some respects, you could even concede the created order. Marriage pictures the relationship between Christ and his church. Husbands and wives are symbols. They're signs. They point to something else. They're not the thing itself. For example, if you saw me hanging out by the McDonald's down the road and saw me just standing under the sign, and I was remaining there, and you said, McGee, what are you doing? I'm at McDonald's. I'm getting a hamburger. You can't get a hamburger from the sign, you've got to go into the store. As great as marriage is, as wonderful as it is, God notes that that which has been given to us is simply a sign or a symbol of something else. Isn't it interesting to note that God opens His Word with marriage? Adam and Eve. Revelation 21 verse 9, God closes His word with marriage. But the marriage that He closes with is not Adam and Eve. It's Christ. It's His church. It's that beautiful, blessed relationship between our Lord and Savior and we, His members. Paul notes this to be a mystery. Basically what he's saying is that now it is unknown. That now we will not discover fully the reality of it, but one day that which has been covered, the cover will be taken off and the reality of it will be manifest unto us. Christ demonstrated a tremendous love for His people as pictured in the relationship of husband and wife. The church will one day manifest a tremendous relationship to her Lord, her Husband, her Head, Jesus Christ, as wives sign and picture even now. But marriage, as great as it is on this side of heaven, is only a picture of that which is to come. William Hendrickson, in noting the union that occurs, said the following, the union of Christ with the church is so that from the sweep of eternal delight in the presence of his father, God's only begotten son plunged himself into the dreadful darkness and awful anguish of Calvary in order to save his rebellious people gather them from among all the nations, and even to dwell in their hearts through His Spirit, and at last present them, even those utterly undeserving ones, to Himself as His own Bride, with whom He becomes united in such intimate fellowship that no earthly metaphor can ever do justice to it." The Church, the Bride of Christ, in engagement with her head, but one day to be fulfilled at the wedding feast of the Lamb, to come for all eternity, is basking and celebrating even now their Lord's redeeming love." It's the acknowledgment of our issue of sin and our miserable condition as we fell through our first parents as they disobeyed by heeding the advice of the serpent. and plunging themselves and all their descendants into a miserable condition whereby they're dead before God and they have no hope and no ability in themselves. It's the acknowledgment that Christ came down and that through the gospel then He provides healing. He provides the forgiveness of sins even to those who are broken. That in Christ there is love, there is support, and there is fulfillment. Those who are desiring to change the name of marriage are crying out for the very thing that marriage answers. They're noting their problem, their struggle. They're noting their loneliness. They're identifying their hurt and their angst. only trying to find the answer and solution in their own effort. Maybe a relationship with this person will make it last. No, it won't. Their stats to show that in terms of relationships, hardly any of them remain committed. Those who have even remained committed for over five years, none of them have been faithful to the one that they committed themselves to. They're continuing to be hurt. They're continuing to have issues of trust. They're continuing to have struggles. And they want to fulfill their need in their identity and in this extra additional gift, looking to the shadow when they need to run to the reality, to Jesus Christ. To see that His marriage shows us that Christ came to save sinners. To show the cleansing and healing that He secures. To note that through him he can overcome these things, for Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, as such were some of you. So marriage allows us to have that picture. So what do we do with all this? One member was concerned about overtime, and I confess that we're there a little bit, but bear with me for a few more minutes. How do we deal with all this? How often do we give ourselves over to prayer for those who are engaged in a desire to pervert the truth of marriage? We complain a lot. We gripe a lot. We might even note that there are those people and there they go again and they're acting in that manner. Do we take time to pray for them? God notes in Romans 1 that they've been given over to a perverse nature and a vile passion. Does that move us? Does that cause us to cry out for them that God would spare their soul, that God would intervene, that the work of His grace would make the reality of marriage brought before them? Does it cause us to be concerned about little children like Heather who are growing up in their homes seeing these very things so that those individuals would be more likely to follow in pursuit of that type of lifestyle? May we pray for those individuals. May we pray for grace within our own marriages. But for the grace of God go any of us. God has allowed us to have natural desires and to see those brought out. And yet how often do we see homosexuality as being the unpardonable sin, but we excuse the practice of lust as it relates to our own hearts, or what we might think upon, or what we might look at. How often do we excuse various things because, well, that's natural. We ought to pray that God would grant us grace as husbands and wives to love one another as we are called through love and respect. That God would protect marriage. We ought to pray that God also would bring a true reality of righteousness within our own society that we would rightly call, once again, good, good, and evil, evil. We need to address the issue of marriage itself. Address our own marriages, taking time to pray with our spouses, to pray for one another, to discuss the various issues, and if there are problems, to seek counsel. To find out what the scriptures note and say regarding the struggles that we might go through. That as husbands and wives, as moms and dads, that we ought to teach our children to honor marriage. How often, parents, do you deal with your children concerning the issues of sexuality? There are pressures within this world. There are the temptations of the flesh. There are the arrows of the devil that must be fought against. And yet, if we hide, if we don't address it, if we don't acknowledge that it's present, we then are going to be shocked when our child comes before us and says, guess what, mom or dad? This is what I've decided. We must be vigilant and diligent to not hide or be ashamed. Those of you who are older, continue to model in a faithful manner good godly marriages to those of us who are younger. Those of you who are older, be willing to come alongside of the younger and mentor them. Paul in Titus chapter 2 encourages the older women to come alongside of the younger women. the older men to be examples for the younger. Pray that God would enable us the grace to live out the principles of our family in a pure manner. Purity doesn't stop once you get married, it continues. So may we think about the way in which we do that. Lastly, we ought to think about how we interact with those who are homosexual. They rightly remind us that Jesus ate with sinners and that He interacted with tax collectors. And they question our double standard as it relates to not only them, but even how we might excuse divorce within our own churches. And we ought to hear that and rightly acknowledge where we sin. But with that, in eliminating our double standard, Jesus, in dealing with the adulterous woman, met up with her and said, does anyone here condemn you? Neither do I. And then he said, go and sin no more. We do not condemn the homosexual, but we do not excuse, justify, or permit their sin either. When we have opportunity, may we carefully, charitably, and boldly speak up when necessary at school, or work, or the family. We ought also to think about opportunities that we have within society, even in the realm of government, to spread the word? What do we post on Facebook or on Twitter? Do we call radio stations to interact in a subject? Do we send letters to the editor? Do we talk with our government officials, only to nod and then be surprised what they decide to do? We ought to encourage decisions that would protect policies for a biblical understanding of marriage. What's being taught in our schools? How can we think about the work of abstinence and purity to be manifest and encouraged there? The desire of the homosexual is that the state would interfere with the beliefs of the Christian, so much so that the opinions of faith would be subject to the state, so that there would be the loss of legal rights. We must fight against this, not thinking that this sort of work will ultimately bring true reformation, but rather will protect us for the opportunity to bring the gospel to make the effect to call sinners unto saving faith in Jesus Christ. It's our desire that that would be brought to them. So that even as little Heather, in her family with two moms, desires to understand love being present there, that as we see the life of Christ offered for us in His sacrifice on the cross, and verified for us in His resurrection, that true understanding of real love will be brought forward. as the symbol of the relationship is manifest through Christ and His church.