Worshiping God in Marriage Pt. 2

About this sermon

Introduction: How should we live in response to the DOCTRINAL truths that we learn about marriage? If we respond RIGHTLY to the truth that we learn, we respond with worship. We learn about marriage to WORSHIP GOD, and we worship God by the way that we live in marriage. This morning we began looking at this passage again for that very purpose. How should the doctrinal truths we have learned about marriage change the way that we live in marriage? REVIEW: • THE WORSHIPFUL MARRIAGE SEES GOD AS ITS AUTHOR • GOD AS THE AUTHOR OF MARRIAGE IS ONLY RESPECTED AFTER THE NEW BIRTH • GOD AS THE AUTHOR OF MARRIAGE WON’T BE AGREED UPON APART FROM THE NEW BIRTH • AGREEING THAT GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF MARRIAGE WILL RESULT IN MARRIAGE BEING PROTECTED IN HONOR LESSON: Tonight, we begin with a second observation about a worshipful marriage. • THE WORSHIPFUL MARRIAGE SUBMITS TO GOD AS ITS ARCHITECT In other words, we don’t just acknowledge that God ordained marriage, (that He is giver of the good gift of marriage, and we are the stewards) we also now look to God for how we LIVE in marriage (HOW CAN WE BE FAITHFUL STEWARDS?). What is God’s design for marriage? What is God’s purpose for it? And especially what we are thinking about tonight, is why are the HUMAN benefits of marriage? In our text there are two reasons that stand out. • GOD DESIGNED MARRIAGE FOR COMPANIONSHIP God made Eve so that Adam would not be alone. He made Eve so that Adam would have a helper that corresponded to him. But, as we noted last week, we must not psychologize that. It wasn’t that Adam was feeling lonely. It isn’t that God’s will today is that everyone gets married. The New Testament makes clear that a single person can live for God’s glory. Gordan Wenham — “Man’s aloneness in the context of Genesis 1 and 2 does not refer to his need for self-actualizing companionship but to his need for assistance in the accomplishment of the tasks that God has given the human race. Man’s aloneness in Genesis 2:18 is not his loneliness but his helplessness — his inability apart from the woman to carry out God’s creation directives to perpetuate and multiply the race and to cultivate and govern the earth. Any notion of companionship here should be restricted to mutual assistance in the broad sense, namely, living together and helping one another as a married team. Marriage certainly involved companionship, but the essence of marriage is not companionship in the modern sense of the term.” He’s right. We’ve taken this emotion centered, psychologized, culturized, thinking and read it into the Bible. We think that Adam’s true need was an emotional one. But that’s not what the text is focused on. Question: If the chief idea is to simply give him someone to help him, assist him, then can we glorify God in a marriage devoid of genuine affection — care, concern, devotion, empathy? And I’m not talking about a marriage where something out of the ordinary has happened, like a disease that takes someone’s mind, or something like that. I’m saying you have two people capable of loving each other. Well, the answer would be no. We are COMMANDED to love each other. But even that command needs to be better understood by believers because the primary meaning of love is not romance but commitment. We must genuinely CARE for each other, if we are going to honor God, but the idea that we must always have overwhelming, powerful feelings has done as much damage to marriages as anything else. Praise the Lord that there is romantic love in marriage. Praise God there is satisfying friendship in marriage. Praise God for the feelings that we can have toward the person we have married. But if that is what you think love in marriage is PRIMARILY about, then what are you going to do on the day when you wake up and those feelings aren’t there? This is something that people often say when they want to escape their marriage. “I just don’t have feelings for this person anymore.” “I don’t feel like we’re close to each other.”

Topics

• Marriage
• Worship