Well, now I invite you to turn to our second scripture reading for this morning, the sermon text for this morning. Genesis chapter two, verses eight. Oh, that's not correct. Genesis chapter two, I believe we're starting with verse 18. On page two of your Pew Bible. I invite you to stand out of respect for the reading of God's word. Genesis chapter two, I'll read verses 18 through 25. 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, 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. 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. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Amen. You may be seated. Friends, this morning I need to proclaim to you boldly the beauty of marriage. And one of the clear reasons is because that's exactly what our text is showing us. Another reason why we would need to hear about the beauty of marriage is, of course, because marriages are tremendously broken today. Broken all around us. Broken in our churches. Marriage is indeed broken today, neglected, redefined, reduced to a social contract. You'll pick up books today about marriage and you'll notice that there's this introductory section in almost all of them for the modern man to convince them that marriage is even worth thinking about, that it's not some selling your soul for life to an infinite prison. There's a need today to talk about the beauty of marriage because marriage is broken in the eyes of the world. And guess what? Statistics show that broken marriages are not just out there, they're actually in the church. A study of serious Christian colleges, a study of churches today has shown that the rates of broken marriages in the world around us and in the church are basically equivalent. Basically equivalent. You hear that, you say, wow, How did we get there? And let me remind you, it didn't start yesterday. It started a long, long, long, long time ago. I'll give you an example. We visited Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. That's one of my favorite vacation spots with family. And I remember we went there and we found this one tip of the island where there are houses falling into the ocean You look at that and you say Why on earth did these foolish people build their beach houses? right on the water and You know the answer of course they they didn't It was they built far enough back that that the waters wouldn't reach, but erosion of the seashore happened over decades to the point where now their houses are crumbling into the water forever to be washed away. And the story of how we went from beautiful marriage to broken marriages follows that same trajectory. It didn't happen overnight. In fact, it began long, long, long, long, long, long time ago when we started to believe a lie. You ready? Do you know what the lie is? that marriage isn't beautiful, that it's not beautiful in the way that God made it to be, and that we can somehow do better on our own apart from his institution. It all started with that, and then it went to greater and greater extents of brokenness, decades eroding the shoreline of Christian marriages. And God calls us in this passage once more, once more to return to the garden, to go back to that first wedding service. And when he shows us that once again, we can start to rebuild marriage in our communities, in our own households, so that our marriages portray what? A better story to a watching world. A better story. than the narrative of this present age. The narrative that says we can do better apart from God and God says, no, show them that's not true. Here's what I want you to see this morning, that God calls you to pursue godly marriages which point beyond Eden to the glorious reality of Christ and his church. There's no way I'm going to cover Genesis chapter two, 18 through 25 in just one week. If I'm gonna do proper justice to this, it's gonna take at least two weeks to unfold marriage. In fact, today you're going to hear about the beauty of marriage. I'm going to exhort on that topic, that theme that we see in here. And then next week I need to speak, I need to preach to the work, the hard work that's involved in marriage. And together with those two, exhortations combined, I believe we'll have this full picture of a better narrative to which you're called. Listen in, listen in married couples, listen in single persons in our church. There is something here for all of you. Well, first of all, what is marriage? We need to define it. And yes, even a sermon amongst Christian persons needs to affirm what marriage is. And all we have to do is listen to Jesus. He's our guide. Matthew 19, four through five, Jesus is asked a question about marriage. And guess what? Jesus says, did not God in the beginning, make them male and female. What is Jesus doing? He's hearkening back to Genesis chapter two. He's drawing us back to the beginning. He says, if you want to understand marriage, if you want to really get what it's about, you got to go back to the beginning. That's all you really need. And you can almost hear in those words, the wedding chorus, right? Drawing you back to Genesis chapter 2 where you see there the first wedding service in the garden there it is and In Genesis chapter 2 it's it's it's it's a lot like what we see in modern wedding ceremonies where there are flowers everywhere, right? It's a garden Flowers, it's it's the first wedding service in the garden in there. You see even back then a father-son bringing a woman to a man to be pledged for lifelong loving commitment and covenantal union. There we have it in Genesis chapter two, the template for Christian marriage, for all marriage. And we have there at the very end of Genesis chapter two, a definition of marriage, which by the way, is repeated five times in the scriptures. It's that important. The Bible just keeps going back. So you need to get this. One man and one woman joined in total commitment for their total lives. A new priority relationship established. What happens? The man leaves his father and mother and he claims to his wife. new priority relationship so that there you have it in the garden. God did not start off with a relationship of a, you know, a mother and a daughter or a mother and a son or a father and a son. He didn't put that in the garden. First of all, he put a husband and a wife. Why? Because that is the foundational structural priority relationship in human human culture building, that's what God gave. A father, not a father and a son, Noah, he put a husband and a wife. And that says something to us about marriage, doesn't it? And they are pledged together in lifelong loving commitment. There's nothing quite like this, is there? You can look around, try to find other human relationships that mirror this, but there's nothing that gets there to the same degree. Not in human relationships, that is. Now, what you need to know about marriage, there's, I already offered the definition from Genesis 1.25, from Genesis 1.24. One woman, one man pledged in loving lifelong commitment, total commitment, total pledge. And you need to know that marriage is a given thing. And I mean two things by that. Marriage is a given thing. First of all, marriage is a given in that it is stable, unchanging as the evening star. Of course, there are different cultural ceremonies. I'm preparing for a wedding service outside of the country, and there are subtle differences in ceremonies. But when you really get down to it, weddings in the United States, weddings in other countries, are fundamentally the same in that the thing that God instituted here at the dawn of creation cannot be changed. You cannot, you can, you know, you can have a bride wearing a certain kind of dress in one country and a different one in another, but you cannot change what is fundamentally here. You cannot switch out one man and one woman coming together for life, for homosexuality. You cannot switch it out for polygamy. And man has tried to do both, hasn't he? You can't do that. Man cannot substitute God's good design and expect that he's making it somehow better. No, he's going to make it not just worse. He's going to deteriorate. He's going to destroy it. Marriage is a good and a stable institution. And the reason why is because it's a given in another sense. It's a given in that it is God's generous gift, given to humanity, given to us. Think about it for a second. The Lord builds someone for us. That's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful gift. It's a gift to society. The blessings that marriage brings when it is fully embraced for all that it can be and owned for what it was designed to be. It is a beauty. It is a stable point for society. It is a gift of God to humanity. It shows that in the beginning, God wasn't setting us up for failure. He was setting us up for success. He loves us that much that he built someone for Adam, for the first man and said, go ahead, look at your bride. Go ahead, take her for yourself. Go ahead, build the garden with her. Well, that's marriage. Marriage is a covenantal commitment. It's a given stable institution from God. It is a gift from God to society. So what's it for? What is marriage for? That's the second thing I wanna talk about. What is marriage? We've defined it. Now, what is marriage for? And here, I want to bring out all the different intricacies of what the purpose of marriage is. We can talk about what's hard about marriage next week. Today, let's stay focused on what the purpose of marriage is. And what we see in the garden is that marriage is first for companionship. You see it, don't you? In the words that God said to Adam, God looks at this. He looks at the situation he's made, man. He's made him out of the dust. He's breathed the breath of life into him. He's given him work. He's given him responsibilities and he's created all the beasts. And then he looks at Adam and he says, for the first time, guess what? God says, not good. Up to this point, he says, oh, it's good. Good, good, good, good, good, good. Very good. But he looks at Adam. He sees his aloneness and he says, not good. It is not good that Adam should be alone. Not good that the man should be alone. There's something missing. And you see this really drawn out, don't you? As Adam spends the whole day meeting the animals, naming them, and as he's doing that, he's kind of testing out whether any of them could be his companion. You could almost imagine Adam getting down, looking at a dog, and say, oh, you're so cute, aren't you? And then he says, but you're not for me. And so none of the animals really work out. Something's still missing. In fact, what does it take? It takes God putting Adam to sleep. Forming from taking a rib from Adam's side. Now he really does have something missing. And then he creates the woman. And he brings her to Adam. And what does Adam say? At last, you say, come on, man. It's just been not even 24 hours. But he's saying after that whole process of looking at all these different animals, I finally found her. She matches, she completes me, she fits. to have and to hold from this day forward until death do us part. Matthew Henry has a beautiful way of putting this. I've always loved this quote. Matthew Henry said that woman was not made out of man's head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved. See, at the time of the Reformation, marriage was thought almost exclusively to be about procreation. But the reformers recaptured a vision that marriage could be about more. And when they really arrived at it, John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, they all were saying the same thing. Guys, we've forgotten that marriage is about friendship, about companionship. We've lost track of that. Let's get that back. You know, I know many. Let me put it this way. I don't know any solid marriages that were built on the on the foundation of romantic love. But I know many solid marriages that have been built on a foundation of friendship. Best friendship. And when God says to Adam, it is not good for you to be alone. He's recognizing that man is not designed to be some lone ranger pursuing his task all on his lonesome. He needs a friend. He needs a companion. He needs woman. Now consider this, two quick applications. First, to married couples. Is there trouble in paradise? Is there brokenness? Is there a strain in your relationship? I would counsel you quickly and then I'll move on. I want you to consider to get back to the basics of companionship, to foster a friendship with your spouse to to enjoy sharing life with one another. So often spouses live, they get into this rut of thinking about what if what if I should have been with someone else? What if? But, you know, the Lord gave you her. The Lord gave you him and no one else. And God doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't mess up. So what do you need to do to once again be two companions journeying together toward the same horizon, which is glorification, sanctification and glorification? What do you need to do to get side by side, walking together in that direction? Might start with a Friday night date, going out together, rekindling that companionship. Maybe it starts somewhere else, but this is something to consider. Spouse seekers. Some of you are saying, I'm not married, but I'm looking. And the scriptures, of course, say that's a good thing. It's a good thing to desire marriage, because God made it very good. One of the things that you need to ask about your potential spouse, someone that you're considering to marry, is this. Is this man, is this woman going to be my lifelong friend? Do we share friendship? I'm not saying that's all you ask about marriage. Trust me, that's not all. But that's a good place to start. Companionship. And of course, this companionship has another purpose. It flows into intimacy, intimacy. Adam's song, at last, it's a love song. Essentially, he sees woman and he goes, wow. And the scriptures go on to say this beautiful thing in verse 25, the man and the woman were naked and were not ashamed. And it says that when they come together, they become one flesh. These are intimate phrases, intimate words, loving companionship that, yes, involves the beauty of the marriage bed. You see, in a world of distorted intimacy, in a world of such twisted, twisted sexuality, God calls us to pursue a higher view of all of this. He says it in Hebrews chapter 13 verse four, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled. You see the pure intimacy between a husband and a wife is a beautiful thing. It's our culture that tells us it's not. It's our culture that brings shame and stains into the picture that we have to do battle with. And we have to constantly remind ourselves this thing, this two becoming one flesh coming together and their bodies coming together. This is something that God made. Reformed churches should not be squeamish about this. We should embrace it and seek to help married couples excel in this and delight in it. Because we don't want to leave this to the world around us and let the world dictate how the marriage bed is to be used. Because guess what? The world's getting it dreadfully, dreadfully, dreadfully, dreadfully wrong. companionship. Leading to, obviously, more than friendship. Lovers. But is this the full picture? No. Because marriage is also for partnership. Partnership. See, the problem with man's aloneness is not just loneliness. Oh, who can I Finds to be a friend who can I find to have to be as have as a lover? No, it's fundamentally That the task given to humanity is too great a task to handle by a man alone What has man been told to do take dominion be fruitful and multiply you think he's gonna do that all on his own. No Man needs a friend and a lover, but if he's going to tend the garden then he needs a Helper helper. And the scripture says that, doesn't it? It says, the Lord God made, verse 18, a helper fit for man. And you need to understand, first of all, that that word, that name helper, is not some lower or undignifying thing. God himself is called a helper throughout scripture. This is a dignified, significant role. But more than that, he is, a woman is to be a helper Unto him and in literally the Hebrew of this passage brings out a a helper like opposite to him a Helper like opposite to him like a mirror image, but but not but fitting and complimenting man You see there's harmony in the differences. There's a reason why God didn't make a Duplicate of Adam. There's a reason why there's not man and man in the garden. I There's man and woman. It's because masculinity and femininity compliment one another wonderfully. Let's just start with the basic facts that a woman's body is built differently than man's for bearing children, for nurturing children. It's not the only thing woman's body is made for, but that is a basic biological fact. It's different than man. A man's body can't do that. It's not possible. And there are other ways as well that woman compliments man, the way she thinks. And of course, here we start to move into some area that it looks different for different couples. But there's this basic fact, husbands, you know this quite well, that your wife doesn't think the way that you do. And sometimes that really bothers you. And you say, I need to do some fixing. She needs to think more like me. And what you really probably need to do is embrace the fact that God made her differently. And that's great. because she's going to compliment you and bring out things in the family, in your relationship that you wouldn't see if you just had a mere image of yourself. It's very good. Point of sanctification here is to stop stifling that in her. Of course, you can call her to change from God's word as she should do to you when it's proper, but There are things that you should not seek to change in your wife to make her just like you. It's quite good that she is not just like you. Very good. Don't stifle it. Embrace it. Allow the femininity that God made to serve as a helper to the masculinity that he created in its fundamental integrity and its variations across billions of individuals. Are we to billions yet? Yes, we are. Now, two points of application. Once again, I want you to understand that this point, that man and woman, that woman is made for man, that marriage is designed for the purpose of partnership in the cultural mandate, this actually really helps some of you who are looking for a spouse. Because and this was true for me Many of us are brought up just wondering, you know, am I ready is is this the person? Am I making the right decision and in we waffle as to whether this is the person we should marry and you know, what really helps So one of my friends said this he said it really clicked for me when when this thought crossed my mind He was thinking of marrying this wonderful girl But he just didn't quite understand yet that he was ready to be married. He didn't understand that she really was a great catch. But it clicked for him when he said, I realized that we are better together than the best of what we could be on our own. We're better together than the best of what we could be on our own. So those who are seeking a spouse, you're never going to find a perfect person, right? But if you find someone who compliments you in such a way that you are better at the cultural mandate, better at the Great Commission, better at glorifying God together with this person, balance you in holy matrimony than what you would be apart from them. Well, then perhaps you ought to be married. What's holding you back at that point? Another application for spouse seekers is this. All of this means that you ought to only marry in the Lord. You ought to marry Christians. Why? Because marriage is for the purpose of partnership. And first Corinthians warns about being unequally yoked. It means essentially this. If you intentionally marry yourself to an unbeliever and they're pulling this way and you're pulling that way, it's going to be very, very hard. to get the work done together. In fact, there's going to be some major tension and traction. And so it is a sin, in fact, to willfully enter into such a union. Now, Paul says, if you find yourself in such a union after becoming a Christian, you ought not to divorce. You ought to remain married for it is good. But you ought to not willfully enter into a union, Christians, with someone who does not share your Christian commitments, your faith in the Lord Jesus, your commitment to the Great Commission, your commitment to the cultural mandate. One more insight here, this time for all of us, for married couples especially. Marriage is not just about what pleases us. Many couples have been very much harmed by the endless introspection of which I would call coupledom, right? Just, Oh, she doesn't, she's not who I want her to be today. Oh, look who she's become. I wish she would pay more attention to me. Or maybe why she said, Oh, I just wish she would praise me for this work that I've done. Why doesn't he see it? Why, why doesn't he love me more? And you're just wrapped up in this infinite introspection of coupledom. But God's not calling you to coupled home. He's calling you to kingdom work He's calling you to see your spouse not as just someone to complete you or say nice things to you They should do that by the way But God is creating giving someone to you first and foremost in in a companionship and intimacy That leads to partnership. We're talking about gospel work The happiest marriages actually look outward beyond the couple Maybe some of you need to hear that this morning. You need to get out of that rut of endless introspection and thinking about, well, is he for me? Is he really, is he really seeing all I do? And you need to just get into this realm of the happiest marriages actually look outward in loving service, sacrificial service beyond the couple. And of course, this leads to a final purpose in marriage. It's fruitfulness, fruitfulness. When couples come together in this way that God designed, fruitfulness ought to unfold. And of course, that draws us back to Genesis 1, 27 to 28, that's where I'm getting this, where God says, man and woman, I've created you to be together, be fruitful and multiply. And here's where, of course, we see the birds and the bees, babies being born, but wider than this, children adopted. Children fostered. A home opens itself in fruitful hospitality. A church comes together to fund struggling families so that fruitfulness unfolds and expands and the end result is what? That more gardeners join in the work. How? Through discipleship of the children that God has given us through procreation and adoption and fostering. And then what else? through the Great Commission, where people hear of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had never believed in him before, and they come into our fold, and the garden expands, because God has created more gardeners to join in the work. That's what marriage is for, companionship, intimacy, partnership, and fruitfulness. But there's one more thing we have to consider. Is this really the full picture? Is this what marriage is really all about? No, there's something we're missing and it is just the most glorious thing about marriage, the most beautiful thing. The better story of marriage is everything I've just described. But now the fact that everything I just described was actually from the very beginning pointing us to the beautiful relationship between Christ and His church. And Ephesians chapter five, verse 32 says, this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Marriage is a mystery with a message, and that message is, look to Jesus. See, marriages in this life can be a glimpse of life in the garden, but the highest purpose of marriage is to prepare us for an eternal relationship with Christ, the Son of God. See, just as God gave the first Adam a bride in the garden, so God gave the second Adam a bride to know and love. Christ received his bride from the Father, and who was that bride? The church. You, you. Adam gained his bride at an expense of what? A rib. He gave up his own rib for her. What did Christ give for his bride to buy her? What was the price of Christ's bride? His precious blood. His life. He laid down his life for her. He laid down his life for you. And now, just as Adam's bride joined him in helping him to pursue the cultural mandate, now Christ's bride is called to help him to complete the cultural mandate by pursuing the Great Commission. You are your husband's helper. All of you. What does this mean? Isn't that wonderful, by the way? Do you believe that? Happily married couples, don't forget, your marriage calls you to pursue together a higher heavenly goal. It is not just about this endless pleasing of one another. It's not just whatever she says, that's the right answer. It is Christ and his church. Your marriage being this big picture of that, that's what it's all for. Remember that. Don't get so lost in your earthly marriages that you forget that. Now, those frustrated by broken marriages, those single and seeking a spouse, all is not lost. What you are pursuing is good. You serve a sovereign God who is loving. But don't forget that if you have Jesus Christ, you have the greatest relationship, even the relationship to which our earthly marriages point. You are not inferior in Christ's church, you are not second rate, second class in Christ's citizenship. You have him as husband, you have him as savior. That is what earthly marriages point to. So if you have Christ, you have everything that you could need. And He calls you to be satisfied and content in Him as you wait to see what He will do in your earthly relationships. Friends, together as a church, we ought to hold marriage in high esteem so that this heavenly gift would once again portray the better story of Christ and His church to a watching world. Are we ready for that? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We need you to work in our marriages. We need you at work to call us to what is truly better. And ultimately that is faith in your son. Help us to be fervent in that. And we pray that earthly marriages, earthly relationships, even the singleness that many inhabit right here and right now, that we would all be bent towards your will, and that marriage would be held in high repute, would keep your church pure, would keep your church unstained by the immorality of this world, and that we would love your structure, your stability that you provide in creation so much, that actually our relationships and our marriages would look beyond Eden to something even better, the Gospel. And the world would see this, and the world would believe. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.