Happy the Home | Week 4

It's good to be with you guys today.

My name is Kyle. I serve as lead Pastor.

So if you're visiting with us today, thank you for being here.

I'm glad that you've chosen to worship with us.

Today we are continuing a series called Happy the Home, which is

exploring God's design for families that titles taken from

an old hymn called Happy the Home When God Is There.

And so that's the, that's the intent, right.

We want to, we want to establish homes where God is present.

And so if you have your body, you can turn to Genesis Chapter

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

2, Genesis Chapter 2. We're just kind of we've been

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

following the storyline of creation.

And so we're going to continue with that today as your turn

there, I want to give you a brief updates on Winnie Kate's

kids. So Winnie Kate's kids was

founded in honor of Mina Patricia's daughter who passed

last September, so a year ago. And it was founded with the the

gifts that were given in her memory to disciple the nations.

And so with those initial gifts which were somewhere around 22

grand. Is that right?

If I remember right. OK we.

Well, Dustin, for the from the disciple, the nations, there's

pastors that we've that disciple nations has been training in

Malawi. Dustin's been getting with them

and other missionaries have been helping train these pastors in

Malawi for, gosh, about three years now.

I guess it's been a while and I've had a chance to sit in on

those a couple times. Anyway, these pastors have

daughters who needed to be able to go to secondary school,

secondary schools, essentially junior high, high school.

But you have to pay for it. It's, it's really a privilege

and Malawi to be able to do this.

It's not granted to children like it is here to just be able

to go to school. And so it had to be paid for.

And so with that initial money, we were able to cover the cost

for these four daughters of these different pastors that are

being trained to go for their first semester.

And so quickly we were able to then commit to helping the girls

finish school because of all the funds that had come in.

And so one of the girls just finished, I forget what it's

called, it's, it's the end of secondary school, but it's the

final installment of that, the final semester of that.

And so she's looking at being able to go to university, which

is just another great help, especially to women in this

culture. And so, so we're looking at

being able to pay for that, which I think the Lord has

provided the funds to be able to do that.

And so praise the Lord that will be able to do that, I believe.

But also I want to make you aware that there was a cholera

outbreak recently in which one of the pastors, his niece, lost

both her parents to cholera. So she is now in his home and

living with them and he was asking on Thursday if it would

be possible for Winnie Kates kids to help send her to

secondary school. And I just need you guys to say

yes or no to that. Yes.

All right. So we're excited to be able to

help with that. But there's another issue as

well. Malawi was hit with a cyclone

earlier this year. DTN had come alongside these

fasters and had helped provide resources to plant crops.

Crops they they plant normally, but to to be able to help in a

way that could get them ahead to where they could have bumper

crops, crops that they could then sell and make some funds

off of and they were about two weeks away from them to harvest

those crops when the cyclone hit and wiped out everything and

it's been a really devastating time.

And so each of these pastors have orphanages within their

churches where they're taking care of children.

And so the the food they're raising and preparing and

growing and harvesting is also used to help take care of people

in the church, help take care of children.

And so that Winnie Kate's kids is also going to come alongside

and just help provide food as well.

Now you can feed each of these pastors and their churches for

about two weeks on about $100 per pastor, I think, if I'm

remembering the the numbers correctly.

So really cheap. But Duncan, the kind of the lead

guy here, the guy that that all of this has been operating

through over the last three years and he's been getting

these other pastors to come together and he is working on

preparing crops currently. Right.

But you can't. It's not like going to the

grocery store where you prepare a crop and then it's, you know,

the next morning you can pick it, you can harvest.

So he's having to wait. But.

So I'm just asking you to pray. Pray for Malawi.

Pray for these pastors there in Malawi.

Pray for the people under their care.

Pray that when he gets kids disciple, the nations will be

able to provide funds. If you're interested in being

able to help with that, you can go to either disciple

thenations.org or Winnie Kates kids.org and give through those

those links there to help do those things.

But so I'm coming to you with pray request updates, but also

just the ability to praise the Lord that Winnie Kate's kids is

already in a place to be able to help.

And that's in large part due to the faithful giving of you all

just through our church. And that's not counting whatever

you give outside of it running through the church accounts.

But you've given a little over $22,000 just this year to Winnie

Kate's kids. Winnie Kate's kids?

Yeah, praise the Lloyd praise from the end and the account for

Winnie Kate's kids, which has done a lot already in a year's

time, less than a year's time it was founded in October, but in a

year's time, there's $47,000 sitting in that account

currently, which is incredible what the Lord's done.

And that's that's really without, I mean, very much

effort at all on our end. And so there's much to do.

There's requests from missionaries through DTN

currently. There's ways we can can help in

other parts of the world as well and and also locally we're

examining things as well. So please continue to pray for

Winnie Kate's kids. I thank you for your continued

support of it, that your love for our family, your love for

Winnie, your love for the Lord and and helping take care of

those things. If you've stumbled into this

today, you're like what in the world is he talking about?

You can go to those links as well and learn more.

So anyway, let's get into the sermon.

Now, surely you've had enough time to find Genesis 2 at this

point, right? So you're like, no, I got

distracted. So Genesis 2, we'll be in verse

21 here in just a moment. But just want to recap a little

bit what we've done the last few weeks.

So in week one, we looked at how God created this male and female

for his own glory, all right, He he created us male and female,

that we might bear his image on the earth.

He created us in his image and his likeness for his glory, male

and female. And so we talked just just a

high view of creation there. What does it mean that God

created us, male and female? We just looked at a few of those

things, But largely we were just saying mankind is the crown

jewel of creation, and it's meant to bring God the utmost

glory. All right.

And so we looked at those things and then, excuse me, as we got

into chapter 2, that was from chapter one.

As we got into chapter two, we looked specifically at how God

created man. I created him from the dust of

the ground. He placed him in the Garden of

Eden and instructed him to work it and keep it.

And so we said that God created the man to bear his image by

working and keeping all that God grants to him.

And then we looked at last week the creation of woman and her

purpose. And we saw there that God looked

at Adam and said it's not good for the man to be alone.

I'm going to create a helper fit for him.

Or as the King James says, that a help meets right is maybe the

word you've heard through the years.

And so God created a helper fit for Adam.

Now this helper was to bear the image of God by nourishing and

cherishing all that God grants to her.

And so we see more today or in the sermon today, we're going to

see more about how the man and the woman come together under

this covenant of marriage. It's an institution, A prefall

institution in command from the Lord.

And the only other one we have is to keep the Sabbath to rest,

right? We have that one instituted as

well. And so you might say that the

Sabbath was given to us for the preservation of the church, that

we would worship God on the Sabbath, that we would seek the

Lord on the Sabbath, that we would spend our day praising God

on the Sabbath. It would be a break from work

and a time to come together with God's people.

So it's for the preservation of the church.

Marriage is instituted for the The way I want to word it for

you today is this is a God created marriage for the godly

progression of the man and the woman and the godly preservation

of societies. Marriage is instituted for the

help, the maturation, the growth of the man and the woman.

But it's also instituted for the preservation of societies.

It's, you know, God created the man and the woman, then he gave

them a command. He blessed them and said be

fruitful and multiply, right, subdue the earth, exercise

dominion. So it was for the the

preservation of societies. But I think what we'll see too,

especially as the series goes on, you'll see that God intends

for marriage to be one of the great sanctifying efforts of the

Spirit in your life. And all the husbands and wives

said Amen, right? Because it is.

And sometimes that's in heartache, Sometimes that's in

hardship, Sometimes that's in difficulty or strife among the

man and the woman. But in most cases it's through

the help of one another. And so they're coming alongside,

being near to each other, the man working and keeping the

woman nourishing and cherishing, and all of that together, being

fruitful and multiplying. Amen.

So God created marriage for the godly progression of the man and

woman and the godly preservation of society.

Would you stand to your feet? I'm going to read Genesis 221

through 25. We're going to stand in honor of

the reading of God's Word. When I'm finished, I'll say this

is the word of the Lord and you will reply, thanks be to God,

let's read. So the Lord God caused the deep

sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept he 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 the I'm sorry. And the man and his wife were

both naked and were not ashamed. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you

for your word. We ask, Lord, that you would

help us to hear it, to believe it.

Lord, help us today to have hearts that are quick to obey

you, that are quick to repent of our sins and eager Lord, to

abide in Christ. This morning, Lord, we thank you

that your word does not go out and return void, but that it

goes out, and it bears much fruits.

And so we ask that you would prepare our hearts by your

spirits to be good soil, that the Lord, that the word of the

Lord would land on our heart today, and that it would bear

fruit. Fruit that multiplies.

Lord, we thank you for the institution of marriage.

We thank you, Lord, that despite any efforts by man to destroy

it, it will last, it will stand, and it will prove always to be

the God ordained way for societies to flourish.

We love you in Christ and we pray.

Amen. Amen.

You can be seated. I'm struggling with some

drainage this morning. All right, so over the last 50

years, the marriage rate in the US has dropped nearly 60%, is

nearly 60%. Less adults are getting married

now than they were 50 years ago. This is a problem.

There was another staggering thing I saw as well that the

number of women. Women entering their first

marriage between the ages of 40 to 59, first marriage after 40,

has jumped 75% since 1990. And before you read that or hear

that rather as an indictment on women, I think it's an

indictment on men, most, one secular sociologist quipped.

It used to be a basic institution, he says, that

everyone had to buy into an early adulthood talking about

marriage. You got married, then you moved

in together and then you got a job.

Marriage is now becoming the last step into adulthood, the

last step into adulthood. Well, if you ask that

sociologist, what's the blame, he said that it's due to a

reduction in tax benefits and there's some other legal

structures he mentioned, but ultimately it's about the laws

of the land. That's why there's a reduction

in marriage. He also mentioned that the

societal pressure to get married is eroding.

I agree with that. I will say that about what he

said, that this is like diagnosing and treating a brain

tumor is simply a headache. It's it's really all he's doing

is looking at the fruit of what, which is typically what

sociologists do. They're just looking at the

study of humanity and what's come from it.

What what can we observe about it without really diagnosing the

issues or the problems. They leave that up to

psychologist, which is another problem.

But this is not a sermon about those things.

So but the issue is, is that this is like scratching the

surface to to see what the problem below might be without

really doing any digging into what it might be, right.

It's just, well, it's tax benefits, it's the laws of the

land, right. They they've changed and so

marriage has changed. So I would ask you, you know, to

consider what's changed in the last 50 years.

If we want to ask these like we want to observe these things, we

need to know, right? We need to understand what's

taking place in the last 50 years.

And a whole lot has happened in the last 50 years, right

Inception of the Internet, the cell phones you now carry, you

know, a very powerful computer in your pocket everywhere you

go. I mean those are some

technological advances we've, we've seen what the world

causes. Relationship advances too.

Although I would say they're not advances at all, they're the

degradation of relationship. It's degrading.

So what we had within the last within post World War 2 anyway,

probably a little longer than 50 years now since we're in the

2000 twenties. You had the rise of feminism,

which we dealt with a little bit last week, but post World War 2,

rise of feminism, I think that helped lead into.

I'm not saying it's the cause of it, but there's been a grotesque

sexualization of society because of those computers in your

pockets. The ease and the ease of access

and then the subsequent addiction to things like

pornography has risen incredibly quickly.

The The rise of pornography has led to men who are enslaved by

pixels on the screen rather than committed to a wife in front of

them. And so that brings on the rise

of things like adultery, fornication, the inception of no

fault divorces, the celebration of sexual perversion within the

legalization of what I think we should call gay mirage, not gay

marriage in 2015 That has set us on a self destruction course at

lightspeed, really, and and so much more.

But all of this has led to a low view of marriage and that's

really what we're dealing with today.

It's led to a low view of marriage and and a low view of

the necessity of men and women to mature and for societies to

flourish. It's it's godless and it's one

of the great works of Satan in our day, these things that the

destruction of marriage. So the question then comes down

to us as Christians, what must we do?

What? What are, what are the responses

to this? How do we live?

How do we respond? How do we act?

What do we say? What do we believe?

And this matters a great deal for society.

You know that, right? You can you can feel the

pressure of such things I think first, just like we talked about

in week 1 how we must recover a high view of male and

femaleness. We must also recover a high view

of marriage. How has God created marriage.

What is the purpose of marriage? And so I don't look into the

darkness and and see this dimness.

And, you know, at times it feels like there's no light at all.

I don't think we look into that and we we become a people with

no hope. I don't think we look into it

and we begin to think, my goodness, there's no answer to

this. I don't think we look into it

and we think that there's nothing we can do either.

I I think that as Christians, what we ought to understand.

I mean, we, if you're in home groups with us, just two weeks

ago we were studying how Christ is the light and the light has

come into the world. So the world's always been dark,

is what I'm saying. But the hope of Christ is the

light, right? And so there there is light.

And I think that the fact that the the darkness seems to be

gaining ground. Is all the more reason for for

hope because light shines brightest in the darkness,

right? The the reformers back in the

1500s had a a phrase they used post Tenibrous Lux.

It was after darkness comes light.

They believed that they were living in a very dark time as

well, but celebrated that by saying that after darkness comes

light. And I think we live in the same

We need a reformation of marriage.

We need a reformation of relationships in our societies.

Yes, even in the church. And so again, I'm laying before

you today that God has created marriage for the godly

progression of the man and woman and the godly preservation of

societies. Evangelicals across the West has

begun to soften their message on marriage over the last two

decades or so. You see, there's never a

shortage. You can see it in the New

Testament that there's never a shortage of selfproclaimed or

even at times affirmed teachers of God's Word.

Who will not, or who will, sorry, change their perspective

or their stance when the winds blow the right way?

There's no shortage of that, even in the New Testament.

And so it shouldn't shock us that today, among our own ranks

have gone out those who seek to change the message on marriage.

Because the world likes a different message now, and their

purpose is to gain a great following and to make more

money. Follow the dollars, always.

And so they'll make apologies for what scripture says about

marriage. Well that's you know, God's

commands about homosexuality are only in the Old Testament.

Well that's not true. But even if it were, it's still

God's commands. Just because it was in the Old

Testament doesn't it doesn't abolish it.

Christ said as much. I didn't come to abolish the law

came to fulfill it. Christians have made apologies

for the God ordained roles of man and woman in the home and in

the church and in society. You know that that that was a

different way back then. Well the problem is, is that

much in those arguments it's tied to creation.

God created the man and the woman and we come back to that

always. That was Paul's reasoning in

First Timothy 2 as he says that the church should not have women

pastors. This is not how God has ordered

his church. Doesn't mean that women can't

teach, doesn't mean that they can't.

They they're called and taught us too, to teach other women.

Older women are to train younger women to be lovers of husbands

and children and to take care of their homes and to be self

controlled and respectable. And there's a whole list there

of what older women are to train younger women at.

And so there is teaching that goes on.

And so we we must not ever stoop so low as to think that

softening God's work as if we're more knowledgeable than he is,

or more wise than he is, or if we think that his his book is a

bit outdated and so it needs some updating, right?

We can't stoop so low as to think that if we'll do that,

we'll gain more followers. Now maybe you will gain more

followers, but what's the issue there?

Those followers are not drawn to what the God.

They're not drawn to the God of the Bible.

Nor are they drawn to what the God of the Bible has instructed

us to do. Rather, they're drawn to the

teachings of a man who has deemed the Bible and the God of

the Bible unfit for teaching. They've made gods of themselves

and for themselves. Again, we see this in the New

Testament. Solomon really was right and

writing Ecclesiastes when he said there's nothing new under

the sun. Even evils repeat themselves.

The devil may be cunning, but he's not real creative.

It's the same thing always. And so I think we have to work

on that which we're sobered a bit here.

I think we have to work on recovering a high view of

marriage, a godward view of marriage.

What does marriage exist for? And so as we do that I want you

to remember in the text that we've read, this is after the

man was asked to help God or I got gave him a task.

He told him to name all of the creatures which he had created.

And it says that all of the creatures that God brought

before him, and whatever Adam called them, that was his name.

And then at the end of that, it was it said there that Adam did

not find a helper fit for himself.

He was alone. God helped him come to this

realization. God knew it already because

before you read any of that, it says God looked at the man and

saw that he was alone and said this is not good.

And then in chapter one we read that after God created the man

and the woman, he called it very good.

So there was a moment in that where God looks and says this

isn't good, right? And he wants the man to

understand this. And so, as we look at marriage

from creation, God has given the man a purpose.

His purpose is to work and keep, and so he's working and keeping

in this moment by naming the animals.

And he finds out that it's not good for him to be alone.

So it's not good for him to even work and keep alone.

Working and keeping should involve the help of another,

namely, a wise He needs a helper fit for him.

He needs a wife who will nourish and cherish all that God gives

to them, right He He works it and keep it, keeps it.

She nourishes and cherishes. We use the example last week

that the man may be in the field plowing and planting and

harvesting, but he brings the goods into the to his wife, who

then prepares those raw materials into food and keeps a

home and a table, right? Feeds children, constructs them,

and how to to eat or to cook and eat and take care of a home, so

that they work and keep together, they nourish and

cherish together. These things work side by side.

And so look at verses 21 through 23 again.

So the Lord God caused the deep sleep to fall upon the man, and

while he slept he 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 men 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. You got to imagine the scene

with me just a little bit. It's not good for you to be

alone, Adam. Adam gets to the end of this.

He sees that he's alone. He feels the weight of that

there's not a helper fit for him.

And so God causes him to sleep. One of the things that's worth

pointing out there is as you trust in the Lord, you can rest

as he brings provision. All right.

He not going to apply to anything, but especially to

praying for a spouse. Men trusting the Lord to provide

a wife for you. Ladies, trusting the Lord to

provide a husband for you, God creates the woman from the rib

of the man. He closes up the flesh.

And then what does he do? Well, it says that he brought

her to the man. And I don't know how the scene

actually played out, but I'll I'll tell you what it looks

like. It looks like when a father

walks his daughter down the aisle, it says the the Lord God

brought her to the man. He ushers her into him and it's

like a father walking his daughter down the aisle.

The Lord God brings this woman to the man.

And I can. I can remember that day in my

life where Patricia's dad brought her to me.

There's a real blessing in that, right?

A father's entrusting one of his maybe the most prized

possession. So the most prized thing in his

life, his daughter to you. And here we see that you must

trust the Lord in this way. So are you single?

If so, are you pray? Are you preparing yourself for

marriage by living a godly, upright life?

Now you know. Are you asking God for something

you're not yet fit to to take on?

Matthew Henry said this. He said those are likely to

settle to their comfort, meaning they're marry.

They marry to their comfort, who by faith and prayer and the

humble dependence upon Providence put themselves under

a divine conduct. That wife, he goes on, that is

of God's making by special grace and of God's bringing by special

Providence, is likely to prove a help meet for a man.

Amen. Amen.

And then, if you're married already, you can.

You can settle your comfort in marriage by faith and prayer.

Still you don't get to outgrow faith and prayer.

It's trusting depending upon the Lord and praying for His help.

His guidance in in your marriage that trust that faith and prayer

informs then your works and your words within your marriage,

right? It's it's part of God's work and

maturing you by His spirits as you depend on Christ.

Christ helps you by His spirits as you trust in Christ for the

help of your spouse. Christ helps your spouse by His

spirit and maybe even through you.

We'll talk a bit more in a moment on what it looks like for

God to use marriages in this way to sanctify us.

But for now we must see the gracious generosity of God who

created all things, including marriage, right?

The man gains a help meet, the woman gains a husband who was to

be her head. And we talked again.

She was created from the side of man, not from his head that she

would be over him and not from his feet, that she would be

trampled on him, but from his side, that they would be near to

one another and walking together in marriage.

And so I ask you it in the text, is he thrilled by God's

generosity, or is he a little sad about it?

Well, he's thrilled he's thrilled.

He he speaks in poetic terms, like only a rough, gruff man can

speak in poetic terms, right. I mean, it's this at last is

bone of my bones. I tried that on Patricia once.

I didn't get an all. How sweet.

It's just this flesh of my flesh.

Oh, babe, you're so kind. No, not at all.

Right. Like she shall be called woman

because she was taken out of man.

That was an old joke. It's really kind of crass.

So I'll just. I want to correct it this way.

Got Adam did not name the woman the woman, because he said whoa,

man, when he first saw her. It's it's far deeper than

outward attraction. It's far deeper than that.

He declares the power of their union.

He declares the with great with the greatest intimacy he can

muster. He He declares in poetic terms,

no less, what it means for him to have gained a help, meet one

who is like him in nature. She is human.

We read in the New Testament that man was made in the image

of God, a woman was made in the image of man, that that both

were made in the image of God in that way.

And So what he's saying is, is this at last is bone of my

bones. This is last is flesh of my

flesh. He had just gone through all the

other creatures on the earth, right, and did not find one who

was like him. I don't know how many that was

at creation. You know, I'm sure we've gotten

many different kinds over the years, but he named every

animal, every creature flu on the above the earth, every

creature and beast that roam the earth.

And he names them all and he finds that there's not one fit

for him. So what does he do now that he

finds one who's fit for him? Well, he names her.

He says she shall be called woman, which in the in the

Hebrew is Isha. And the reason that's important

is because in the Hebrew, man is ish.

So you see the intimacy at play here.

You see what's going on. He is restating his own name and

her name, declaring the greatest intimacy possible.

I mean that these two were literally, God intends for them

to become one flesh in this marriage union, right?

But he's literally stating right out of the gate we are one.

This is my wife. I think it's beautiful.

That doesn't sound like it. When you read Bone of My Bones

and Flesh of My Flesh, it's kind of like that.

Oh no, it's kind of sounds Halloweenish, you know, But it's

it's deeper than that. He's rejoicing in what God has

done, which is the good and right response, right?

When a when a man gets married, he should rejoice.

When we receive good gifts from the Lord, should we not rejoice?

We rejoice in the Lord always, right.

And so God's Matthew Henry says that God's gives to us are to be

received with a humble, thankful acknowledgement of His wisdom

and suiting them to us and His favor and bestowing them on us.

So we receive it with thankfulness that why in the

world would God give such an amazing gift to me?

This is prefall Adams saying this.

How much more can sinful Adams say this?

Sinful sons and daughters of Adam and Eve as we are.

But God created marriage for the godly progression of the man and

woman and the godly preservation of societies.

He brings them together for this purpose to be fruitful and

multiply, as you see in Genesis chapter one, verse 28.

And God bless them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply

and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the

fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over

every living thing that rules and moves on earth.

Sorry, that moves on the earth. All of those creatures you just

named Adam, you and your wife are to go and exercise dominion

over them. You are my vice regions on the

earth. You do you Lord.

Over them and my stead. I'm your Lord.

You are there, Lord right. But you do it together.

You rule together. And we see this as the two

become one flesh. In verse 24 here we read

therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and holds

fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And so this is what I mean by marriage is meant to preserve

societies. The man and the woman come from

who? I mean, here they're coming from

God, but every man and woman after that come from who?

Their mother and father. Right.

You men, you have a mother and a father.

Now, whether or not they were good or not, that's we're not

discussing those things yet, right?

We're just saying you have a mother and father and who of

whom you come from. And ladies, you do as well.

And so here we read that they leave mother and father.

The man leaves his mother and father, he leaves his home.

He leaves his kindred and he joins.

He holds fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So the man and the woman leave. Father and mother hold fast to

one another, which perpetuates and preserves societies in godly

fruitfulness. To become one flesh means the

marriage was to be consummated. It's the reason you shouldn't

live a life of fornication. You become one flesh with

everyone you sleep with and so a piece of you is is a part of

them. This is This is why fornication

leads to the degradation of societies.

And I'm not going to travel so far down that road as to say

that God doesn't heal and that God can't restore or redeem.

Absolutely he does. In Christ Jesus, all of our sins

forgiven, healed of all of those things.

Amen. We praise God for that.

But it's why bragging about things like body counts is

utterly stupid. It's foolish and and it's not

doing anything for you. In fact, it's destroying you.

So. So we must be smart here and

understand that, you know, as a as a man becomes more hard after

years of pornography abuse, years of fornication, as his

heart becomes hard, and as he decides that marriage is not for

me. That is not a blessing of God.

That's that's a hardening of his heart towards the things of God

because of his sinfulness. And This is why marriage rates

are on the decline. Least one reason.

Again, I submit that there's many, but this is 1 sober reason

why men, you're called to leave mother and father and to be

joined to your wife. Not to be joined to pixels on

the screen or to many women, but to your wife.

And a lifelong monogamous relationship lived unto God

Almighty. And this is where you'll find

the blessing of God. This is where you'll find true

joy and true happiness that lasts a lifetime.

It's in the hard work of building a home with your wife.

It's worth every effort. You can see how great the bond

here is because they're called to leave mother and father be

joined to their wife, right? The the two are called to leave

what is natural to them, and to be joined to something which is

supernatural, and acted upon them by God through the two

becoming one flesh. I mean naturally, to whom can

you be more firmly bound together with than your Father's

and your mother's who brought you into this world?

Yet you must leave them to be joined to your wife.

The daughter must forget them to be joined to her husband.

Scripture elsewhere. The reason we're no, we're not

supposed to take multiple wives just because Scripture elsewhere

makes that explicit. See how firm the bond of

marriage is here? It's not to be divided or

weakened. Christ goes on to say that as he

expounds upon this text later in the gospels, he's being asked

about marriage and the difficulty of it and and the

likes. He he says that have he says,

Have you not read that the man shall leave his mother and

father, be joined to his wife, the two shall become one flesh.

And what God has joined together, Christ the heads let

not men separate. So this marriage union is not to

be divided or weakened or broken.

You can see how dear the affection here is between the

couple, right? That they would leave mother and

father, be joined to their husband or their wife, such as

they become 22. Flesh has become one flesh.

And so then they are they act as though they are one soul, even

they're that near to one another, that close to one

another. You know, there's so many

naysayers about marriage that it really is disheartening.

It's disheartening for a young couple like every.

And I can remember this being the case for me.

I worked in an office on my way to marriage, was engaged to be

married in just a couple of months and took a job in an

office working alongside. I think there's one other male

in the office and a bunch of other ladies and I just remember

how awful marriage was talked about.

It was even from women. It was like don't do it, you

know, it's terrible. You know, the first year is the

hardest. Watch out for the seven-year

itch. Like it's all these different

warnings and like, my gosh, who wants to be married?

And then ultimately, it would just go back to Patricia and

have conversations with her. And I would think, praise God,

I'm not married to one of those women, of marrying this woman.

This is different. And so you kind of kind of about

you a holy rebellion, right? It's a, it's a rebelling against

what society thinks is good and right to live unto the the thing

that God calls holy. But I remember those days well,

and I remember now, even like as you do marriage counseling with

young couples, I hear much of the same thing like this, This

is perpetuated. This is how we're discipling

people to think about marriage, and often times it comes from

people who are Christians. This is terrible.

This is not how we perpetuate societies.

This is how we got into the mess we're in now.

Is Christians beginning to say marriage ain't worth it?

Yes, it is. It's good and right said so by

God, it was. It was ordained before it was

ordained, at the beginning of world history.

In fact, it's how world history was to come about.

Was a married man and woman carrying out the acts of God in

society, right? Building homes and helping those

homes be fruitful, multiply and then so on and so forth.

And so Patricia and I'll be married in for 15 years in on

December 6th of this year. Four children gone through the

death of a child together. We've gone through heartaches

early in marriage, dealing with with my failures and handling

pornography, meeting the pains of that on her face and in her

voice, and then receiving grace that only the Lord could supply.

That has a way to strengthen a man, is what I'm saying this

this is what God means when when you're giving a help meet at the

beginning of creation, it's easy to think, well this was prefall

world, how hard could it be? But the problem was is marriage

doesn't end in Genesis 3 when the fall happens, in fact

they're still to go and be married and to be fruitful and

multiply. We still get those same commands

through the scriptures. So you have to learn now in a

postfall world, how are we going to be fruitful and multiply?

How are we going to live for the Lord?

How are we going to submit ourselves to His rule into His

government of our lives, for the good of our children and for the

good of churches and for the good of societies and nations?

Right? Like you have to ask the

question at the heart level. What do I need to change?

How might the Lord rule my heart?

As a husband or as a wife? Where am I missing the mark?

How can I submit to Him? Right.

There's all these different questions you can come to with

the scriptures, and the Lord wants to answer your questions.

Who wants to help you live as a man who loves the Lord with a

wife who loves the Lord so that you raise children who love the

Lord? Happy to home when God is there.

God wants to be in your home and he commands you to make him Lord

of your home. And so if you resist the Lord

and don't make him Lord of your home, well then you're not going

to incur the blessings of God. It's amazing to me how many, how

many of us will pray for God to bless in some way as we're

actively living in disobedience to God.

It's quite an arrogance to think that the blessings I need, or

the things I need him to answer the circumstances I need him to

change. Are they not possibly a result

of my disobedience? Are they not possibly God's way

of chastising those children whom he loves dearly?

As Hebrews tells us? Yeah, it's possible.

They are. And so we must submit ourselves

to him, right. And that that requires a help.

Meet men, ladies. That requires a husband who

loves the Lord. And for you to follow such a

man. God created marriages for the

godly progression of the man and the woman.

You leave mother and father. You're joined to your wife.

You leave mother and father. You're joined to your husband.

God intends for that relationship to mature you in

many of the same way, well, in many ways that build upon how

you were matured as a son or a daughter.

Does that make sense? I kind of confused my wording

there. So as you leave mother and

father, that relationship that you were discipled in and

brought up in and hopefully brought up to love the Lord, and

you're now joined to your husband or your wife for further

discipleship, for further growth and sanctification in Christ

likeness. And that's going to come as you

endure hardships. It's going to come as your

spouse sins against you or you sin against your spouse.

And these things are brought up and now you have to deal with

them. It's going to come in all sorts

of ways, but God is going to bless your home as you submit

yourself to Him and seek kill promise you this.

Not because my promise is any good, but because the Lord has

promised. It's a it's a weird.

The next verse is weird right? Naked and unashamed.

But what I'm telling you is this is describing life in marriage.

Pre fall, the man and his wife were both naked.

And we're not ashamed, and we get in Genesis 3 after the fall

that they were naked and ashamed and so they covered themselves.

It wasn't that they learned they were naked, it was that they

sinned and realized their sinfulness.

But what we have here is an evidence of the purity and the

innocency of of that the the state that Adam and Eve in their

marriage existed in, in which they were created to live in.

They were naked. They didn't need clothes for

defense against colder heat. Nothing could injure them.

They didn't need it for ornaments, all right.

And we're trying to dress up, make themselves look pretty.

They were naked and had no reason to be ashamed.

They they knew. They didn't even know what shame

was. That's the beauty of it.

Now when we we Matthew Henry says that when we blush now,

it's the product of virtue. It's the color of virtue he

calls it. It's an understanding that

that's shameful and we shouldn't do that.

So we we blush. But it was not the color of

innocence he said they did. They didn't know blushing.

Those that had no sin in their conscience might well have no

shame in their faces, he says. Though they had no clothes to

their backs. And so it's a it's a hard text

to preach in the company of children because there's there

is a great restore. There's a restorative nature

about godly marriage that gets you to a place where you can

exist naked and be unashamed with someone again.

So. So here's what I mean.

If if you all knew every sin that I dealt with, if you knew

everything that crossed my mind, if you knew every heart issue

that I possess, I have no doubt some of you think I'm awful,

right? But I'm just kidding.

But but I'm more awful than you can imagine.

And that's not like some piatistic saying like that's

true. I recognize that about my own

heart, that I'm more sinful even than I realize.

But you can exist in marriage and a godly marriage.

There's a restorative nature to where you can exist in all your

sinfulness, naked right before your wife, in the sense of

everything is born before her, in your heart, your mind, and

you. You can live not, You can live

unshamed. She's not going to shame you.

I'm not saying you won't be unashamed for your sinfulness.

Sure you will. That's conscience.

That's God's work in your life to get you back on track and to

help you see true North and to repent and believe right?

But what I'm saying is, is that you can exist as your marriages

grow, you can come to this place where you are glad to be with

your wife and for her to know all of your wrongs and your

faults and your failures. And she's not lording them over

here. And the vice versa is true.

You're not lording them over her, but you're washing one

another with the word is Christ citizen, or as God instructs us

through Ephesians. 5. And so there's a sanctifying

effect, a deep, incredible sanctifying effect to marriage,

Christian marriage. And This is why I say we got to

have a high view of Christian marriage.

But we've got to restore this view of Christian marriage.

We've got to have God change our minds about marriage if we think

that marriage is not useful, that marriage should not be

pursued, or any of those kinds of things because God wants to

use marriage most often. There are cases of singleness

and celibacy and the like, but they're fringe accounts in

Scripture. Most often, God wants to use

marriages to bring you to a place where you can be naked and

unashamed to get. It's going to sanctify you

through your marriage. It is one of the great benefits

of sexual intercourse, It really is.

And I won't go any further than that because of the the nature

of the congregation this morning.

But that's a part of what God's doing to restore being naked and

unashamed, to bless marriages, to to bring them together that

they would 2 flesh's become one flesh.

And we ought to praise God for this.

And This is why the marriage bed should be undefiled.

This is why you should save yourself for marriage.

This is why you should commit your sexual engagement to your

spouse only forever and if unmarried, to your future

spouse, because God has created marriage for the godly

progression, the maturation of your soul and for the

preservation of societies. And then Paul, examining this

mystery in Ephesians 5, will preach at another day, but has

to be mentioned here. Paul's looking at the mystery of

marriage, this mystery of a man leaving his mother and father

being joined to his wife. And he says, essentially that

the mystery of the marriage union from creation reveals the

union of Christ and the church in the new creation.

As we become in the fall, you become a Sinner.

You are bound to sin, and when Christ saves you, as we see in

the New Testament, you become a new creation.

In Christ Jesus. Old things pass away to hold.

All things become new. You're now able to put off the

old man, to put on the new man. You're able to live in a way

that honors the Lord, right? Once you freely chose sin, now

you can freely choose to live for the Lord because your your

will is not bound to sinfulness anymore.

Paul saying that that all of this that we see in marriage

reveals to us the relationship of Christ in the church.

He says in Ephesians 531 and 32. He says therefore a man shall

leave his father and mother and hold faster his wife and the two

shall become one flesh. So he's just quoting Genesis 224

there verbatim word for word. And then in 32 he says this

mystery is profound. So to marriage is a mystery, was

a mystery. And now he's saying it's being

revealed. He's saying I'm saying this

refers to Christ and the church. And so born again believers, you

have been united fully to Christ Jesus.

He is the head. You are his body.

We are one with him by the power of the Spirit within us.

The same spirit which raised grace Christ from the dead now

lives in us to raise us to new life in Christ.

And then and Paul is saying the mystery of marriage, the fact

that a man leaves his father and mother is joined to his wife.

In this way the two become one flesh.

And that's kind of the mystery, right?

It's like how do they become one flesh?

Paul is saying that that reveals Christ in the church as a as a

as a man and woman, albeit imperfectly, dwell together in

the union of marriage. It reveals to others Christ and

His love for His bride, the Church.

And we'll get into more of that and the weeks to come.

But I want to leave you with that.

And so this is my call to you today.

And that because if you feel the weight of any of the sins we've

named today, and the Lord is acting on you now by His Spirit

through conviction, you need to repent today.

You need to commit yourself to Christ Jesus.

You need to make Him Lord of your life.

If you've never done that before, you need to trust him

fully for the forgiveness of your sins.

He is. He is kind enough to forgive.

He is loving enough to erase the effects of sin on your life.

And so I I beg of you to submit yourself to him if you never

have. If you're here today and you

say, well, I am a believer, but I I'm bound by some of these

things you've mentioned. My marriage isn't happy.

Like, we struggle, we're having issues, we're going through it.

You don't understand, right? Like.

Any of those kinds of things. The Lord is acting on you now as

well, to repent and to believe and to trust in him.

And so I ask you to commit your life to Christ in that way, to

trust him. God created marriage for the

godly progression of the man and the woman, and for the

preservation of societies. We're going to see more of that

as we go through the series. But today we must respond in

obedience. And so let me pray for you and

then I'm going to give you a few moments just with some.

I think the team will play instrumentally during that.

But just a moment for you to pray and to seek the Lord as

well, for you to deal with whatever the Lord's laying on

your heart this morning let me pray for you.

Heavenly Father we thank you for today.

We thank you, Lord, for the love that you've shown us in Christ.

And we ask, Lord, that you would help us to believe in him and to

trust him today. And so, Lord, in whatever ways

you're moving by your spirit on your people today, I pray, Lord,

that you would help them to obey you, to repent and to believe

today, to trust you in whatever ways they need to.

Father, we love you and we thank you that you love us.

Help us to recover a high view of marriage, especially our own

marriages or the pursuit of our own marriages.

Helps to do that hard work of believing in you and trusting

you and prayerfully depending upon you, and then acting in

faith and what we say and then what we do so that our homes

might be fruitful places for your Kingdom.

Lord, we love here. It's in the name of Christ, I

pray. Amen.