Worshiping God In Marriage Pt. 1

About this sermon

Introduction: The ultimate goal of learning the truth is worship. We preach God’s Word so that God will be made known to us, and then we respond to that knowledge with loving worship — with submissive devotion. In the case of the lost, the goal is the beginning of submission and worship. The desire and goal is the rescuing of a life that finds forgiveness and freedom in Christ as Savior. In the case of the church, the goal is an ongoing submission and worship that continues the pathway that began at salvation. We don’t engage in a study like this one to simply make doctrinal points. There are people who approach the Bible that way. It is intellectually stimulating. It represents a kind of competition — material for intellectual jousting. That is not our goal here and should never be our goal. The goal is not polemical, it is pastoral. And specifically in this case — the goal of our study is that we would please God in marriage. We want to glorify God in the way that we THINK about marriage. We want to glorify God in the things that we BELIEVE AND TEACH AND MODEL about marriage. We want to glorify God in the way that we all LIVE in marriage. ESV 1 Timothy 1:5 The aim of our charge is love athat issues from a pure heart and ba good conscience and ca sincere faith. We have covered some significant doctrinal ground in this study. We have seen that marriage is a covenant relationship (“cleave to his wife”), it involves a one flesh bond — God joins two people together in marriage. God pronounces and witnesses the formation of a new family unit. God defines the good and our role is to embrace what is good. If we have a view of marriage that agrees with what God has revealed, we will have a high view of marriage. It isn’t love that sustains our marriage, it is a right view of marriage that sustains our love. We must see that marriage was designed from the very beginning to say something about God, and if we care for the glory of God we want our marriage to testify to what is true about God. Christ took the church as His bride, and it is a lifelong relationship. THIS IS THE POINT, that we must grasp these things devotionally — worshipfully. We must grasp these things in such a way that the implications of these truths change us. We must grasp these things in a way that we live out the effects of these doctrines. So, we will spend one more day in Genesis chapter 2 and focus on a very important and practical question. What difference should these doctrines make in our marriages? How do we LIVE in light of these truths? We will consider those questions by taking a big-picture-view of this passage under three main points. • The Worshipful Marriage Sees God as its Author. • The Worshipful Marriage Submits to God as its Architect. • The Worshipful Marriage Seeks God as its Approver. Today we learn about worshiping God in our marriages. • THE WORSHIPFUL MARRIAGE SEES GOD AS ITS AUTHOR If there’s nothing else that we can see from this passage, isn’t it clear that marriage originated with God? God is the one who said in verse 18, It is not good for the man to be alone. God is the one who created the woman out of the side of the man (Genesis 2:21). God is the one who presented the woman to the man (Gen 2:22). God is the one who pronounced this relationship as a perpetual institution. ESV Matthew 19:4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? Most of this world refuses to acknowledge that. Most of this world sees marriage as a human invention, a cultural institution. But the church has received the truth in Scripture, and acknowledges, that marriage is God’s doing. And this understanding is a foundational part of having a joyful, God-honoring marriage. This is something we must INTENTIONALLY keep before our mind’s eye. We don’t just give lip service to the idea that God created marriage, but really live in the light of that. Why is this a key to a worshipful marriage? Well, let me illustrate by our understanding of Scripture. If God is the author of Scripture (and He is), then what I have in my hand did not originate with me, does not (in the final sense) belong to me, my being entrusted with it has imparted a stewardship. This is God’s book; I’m responsible for what He created in terms of how I handle it. I don’t have a right to do just anything with this book that I please, because I’m not its author — God is. The way I handle it ought to honor Him because it’s His Word. In the same way, God is the author of marriage. We don’t have a right to come up with our own ideas about marriage, and handle marriage any way we want to.

Topics

• Marriage
• Worship