Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Genesis

Genesis 2:24-25 11/18/01

Review: I have been away for two weeks so I want to review where we have been. In  Genesis 2:4-23 we looked at a list of love's first, a testimony of God's great love for humanity.

 In verses 4-7 we saw God's gift of love in the forming of the first man.
 In verses 8-17 we saw God's gift of love in providing man with his first home, his first job and his first command.
 In verses 18-23 we saw God's gift of love in forming the first woman.
 Today in verses 24-25 we will look at God's gift of love in uniting the first man and the first woman in the first marriage.

Introduction: Marriage...do you realize that some people spend more time planning a wedding than they do preparing for a marriage? They spend more time thinking about what they will wear for a 30-45 minute ceremony than what they will do to build a strong and healthy marriage that should last the rest of their lives. Many invest more effort into financing their dream house, than in building their Christian home.

 Strong and healthy marriages take the effort of both spouses and is the direct result of their obedience to God and to His Word.  For me, apart from the gift of salvation, the gift of marriage is the most fulfilling and wonderful thing I know.
Trans: If your marriage is not the most fulfilling and wonderful thing you know, then perhaps you need to hear what God has to say in the Book of Genesis about marriage? Turn to Genesis 2:24 where we will find...

I. The Principals of Marriage. (Gen. 2:24-25)
     As sure as God has built physical laws into the universe from the very beginning, He has also incorporated moral and social laws as well. Marriage is one of the social laws first instituted by God at creation. Just as we can't ignore physical laws without serious consequences, we can't disregard the societal laws without great damage to our society. What are some of the laws we must obey if we are to have strong and healthy marriages?

Read: Gen. 2:24-25

    A. Leaving
         For marriages to be strong and healthy, both the man and woman must leave father and mother and cleave to one another, they must establish a new home.

     Marriage begins with a leaving of all other relationships. This means we must give other relationships (parent, friends) a lesser degree of importance.

     Marriage also begins with a leaving of all other activities. This means we give all other activities (business, career, hobbies even church ministry) a lesser priority.

Note: In vs 24 God uses the closest of all relationships, that between a father and his child. In essence, God is implying that if it's necessary to leave your father and mother, then certainly all lesser ties must be broken or reprioritized.

     The husband and wife's primary commitment and relationship must be to each other. Each must still honor their parents, maintain friendships with others, but a leaving must take place, a conscious decision to place all other relationships and activities a distant second place to that of husband and wife.

    B. Cleaving
         It is no use leaving to get married if you are not willing to spend a lifetime cleaving to that marriage.

         To cleave, means to adhere to , to stick, to be attached by a strong tie. The verb suggests a determined action. In other words, we cleave, hang on to, stick with the marriage, because we deliberately choose to do so.   Although there is no indication here in the text of separation (sin had not happened yet) the term 'shall cleave, strongly implies that this union is to be permanent.

     In reality, cleaving is a commitment that goes beyond just sticking together. It involves intimacy. Intimacy is being that one person the other can always count on, it is being best friends, sharing life on the deepest most personal levels. And this is a process that takes a lifetime to fulfill.
 And cleaving, intimacy also involves sex.

    C. One Flesh
     A husband and wife are to become one flesh. This may sound very restrictive in our day and age of sexual promiscuity but God's Law is just and  still relevant. But how does one become one flesh? I bet I have  your complete attention now! Without going into detail, becoming one flesh involves passion, sexual passion. God designed us to experience a unique oneness through sexual union. It is with God's blessing that husband and wife can pursue becoming passionate lovers.

     Unlike intimacy which develops over a long time in marriage, sexual passion develops quickly. However, sexual passion tends to level off. It does not mean it is no longer there but that it may need to be cultivated. (date nights, sending the kids to grandma's, scented candles, soft music, and no conversations about work, church or going on diets)

     No matter how long you have been married, God intends you to enjoy sexual passion and intimacy.

    D. No Shame
     Marriage involves one man and one woman who become one flesh through sexual intimacy and passion. Which kind of requires they both to some degree be naked. God intended sex between husband and wife to be an exciting and beautiful thing. One in which there is no shame or guilt.

     Being naked and not ashamed meant Adam and Eve were innocent and uninhibited in their sexual relations. They literally had nothing to hide. They had no secrets, nothing they didn't share with each other. They joyfully served God and loved each other...they were happy and could be naked before one another and not be ashamed.

     But this sense of innocence, this lack of shame was destroyed with sin, as we will see in the coming weeks in Genesis 3. We sin against God and our spouses; we lie and hid things from them. It is only through a right relationship with Jesus Christ that a husband and wife can attempt to regain a bit of that innocence and complete acceptance God intended them to share.

 I want you to think for a moment.

1. Are there any relationships or activities in your life right now that are putting distance between you and your spouse?
2. Are your current relationship and activities building up your relationship with your spouse or tearing it down?
3. Are you and your spouse leaving and cleaving and maintaining the one flesh as God intended? In other words,
    are you keeping the fires of passion burning in your marriage?

     If you are not living up to God original design for husbands and wives, take steps now to change the direction of your marriage.  To help you I have put a laminated sheet in your bulletins for you to place on your fridge or wherever you both will see it. Read it every day and choose to do what it says.

II. The Problem in Marriages
     But, the reality is, many of you will take that laminated sheet and put it in a drawer, in the trash or worse yet, place it on the chair next to you when you leave this morning. And that is the sad reality of married life, most people , including Christians as we will soon see, don't want to work at improving their marriage. No wonder we find the following:

     The Barna Research Group released the results of a poll about divorce on 1999-DEC-21. They had interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 contiguous states  Barna's research found:

 -Christians are more likely than non-Christians to experience divorce.
 -Baptists have the highest likelihood of divorce, the study found, with Catholics and Lutherans among the lowest numbers of
  divorced adults.
 -Further, according to Barna research director David Kinnaman, nine out of 10 divorced born-again Christians went through
   their split-up after they accepted Jesus Christ.

     What are some of the causes of these staggering statistics? According to the late James M. Boice there are 3 factors.

1. Rampant hedonism
     Hedonism says that the chief goal in life is pleasure. Sex is for fun and the more sex with different partners the more fun. Hollywood, advertising and the internet have helped to perpetuate this philosophy and Christians are buying in.

2. Widespread acceptance of adultery
     Boice believes it is worse than acceptance, he believes there is a sophisticated justification for it in that sex outside of marriage is thought to help a boring marriage. But what we see is that adultery only destroys marriages.

3.  Ease of divorce
     Our changing social laws and morality have made divorce as easy as signing papers and waiting a few months...no fault divorce with irreconcilable differences the chief excuse.

From my counseling experience, I have added two more contributing factors.

4.  Men abdicating their family responsibilities
     This is especially true for Christian men. We are not being the spiritual leaders in our homes, we are leaving our wives to raise our children alone, we are refusing to be fathers to our children and husbands to our wives, except when it benefits us in some way.

5. Selfishness
     Society encourages us to abandon our responsibilities and commitments in order to 'find ourselves' and to satisfy our own desires. Self, my needs, my wants, my, my, my is all we hear. Concepts like 'sacrifice, selflessness and keeping one's commitment are rarely heard today, even among Christians.

     As Christians we must abandon these worldly and destructive ways of thinking. God has called us to a different and higher standard, a higher level of living within marriage. We must be people of our word but that means acting upon our word.

III. The Practice of Marriage

ILL: In the play, My Fair Lady, Eliza is being courted by Freddy, who writes to her daily of his love for her. Eliza's response to his notes is to cry out in frustration:  Words! Words I am so sick of words. Don't talk of stars burning above, if you're in love,Show me! Don't talk of love lasting through time. Make me no undying vow. Show me now!'

    We need more than words to experience a strong, healthy marriage. We need to be act. We need to let our love be seen.
How? In this last section on the Practice of Marriage, I want to look at one final text that I share with all the Christian couples I marry and counsel. If they follow what this text says, they will have a strong and healthy marriage. And by he way, it is never too late in your marriage to begin.

 Open you Bibles to Col. 3:12-17

     This text is essential to all Christian marriages because it looks beyond the marriage vows, the license and the ceremony and cuts straight to the heart, to the central issue that Christian couples often forget.

 'Not only is the married couple husband and wife, they are first brother and sister in the Lord who now choose to walk together the road to Christlikeness.'

     It is the husbands and wife's primary goal in the marriage to encourage the other to grow in their desire to reflect the image of Christ in their lives and in their marriage.Listen again to what Paul has to say about how the husband and wife ought to treat each other in marriage.

Read: Col. 3:12-17

     How do I know Paul is speaking to Christian husbands and wifes...because he says so in the following verses.

Read: Col. 3:18-19

     I believe Paul is saying that whatever relationship we may  find ourselves in, we are as Christian, first and foremost Children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ and must treat each other as such.

Conclusion
     Look, there are no quick fixes, no instant success for a strong and healthy marriage. It is only when we learn to love our spouses as the gift God gave them to be, it is only when we live under the lordship of Christ as a couple that we can hope to experience joy and strength in our marriages.

     I realize there are many factors that could contribute to difficulty in marriages, even Christian marriages, especially if you are married to someone who refuses to cooperate. But being obedient is your responsibility before God, regardless of what your spouse does or doesn't do. God will honor your obedience.Look daily at the laminated sheet I put in the bulletin, choose to love your spouse every day and God will honor your effort.

 Let me leave you with this one final illustration.

ILL: A German group of psychologists, physicians and insurance companies who cooperated on a research project designed to find the secret to long life made a surprising discovery. the secret? Kiss you wife each morning when you leave for work! the meticulous German researchers discovered that men who kiss their wives every morning have fewer automobile accidents on their way to work than men who omit the morning kiss. the good morning kissers miss less work because of sickness and earn 20-30% more money than non kissers. How do they explain their findings? According to West Germany's Dr. Arthur Szabo 'A husband who kisses his wife every morning begins the day with a positive attitude'

 Sounds like good advise to me.