Text:  Genesis 2: 24  Marriage Sunday

            The other day I heard this story.  A husband got up to make something special for breakfast.  His wife was still asleep.  He went to heat something up in the frying pan.  It made a little smoke-well that’s what he said.  The smoke detector went off and woke her up.  Good morning, honey!  Marriage is like that.

I was sitting with a couple married for years.  I was listening to them, when I realized.  They could complete each other’s sentences, if they wanted to.  And sometimes they did.  They knew each other that well.  Marriage can be like that

The young couple had their first child.  They’re listening to friends speak of their baby. Our little one sleeps right through the night.  They look at each other with bleary eyes, both thinking the same thing.  Must be nice!  Marriage is sometimes like that.

But what is marriage?  Our nation, many people in our country have chosen a new definition.  Some say it’s the right thing to do, even the loving thing to do.  But what is marriage?  Is it whatever someone says it is or wants it to be?  Is it just one kind of social arrangement subject to change.  What is marriage?  If we take God at his Word, we know.

Marriage is…
I.  Simply, what God designed it to be
II.  Designed for blessing
III.  Inhabited by sinners
IV.  In need of Jesus

            It’s a troubling time for Bible believing Christians.  But come to think of it, what time isn’t?  The prince of this world is always busy ruining hearts and lives.  Now he has found another way that our country has given him.  Marriage.  And that’s troubling, sad to see.  Yet one thing has not changed.  The truth.  The truth that stands firm in the kingdom of God.  Marriage is …. simply what the Lord designed it to be.

We just heard Moses tell us about the first marriage when God created Eve and brought her to Adam.  Then Moses tell us the significance of what God did there.  He established something for all people.  We call it marriage.

A man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife and the two will  become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)  Here we find the basic ingredients of a marriage.  And unlike those many recipes in our kitchen, there are no substitutions in God’s design.  First, notice he speaks of two.  Not three or four.  Marriage consists of two.  Two what?  Again God spells it out.  He mentions a mother and a father.  A man leaves them to be married to his wife.  So marriage is a man and a woman.

You might think that would be self evident.  He made them male and female, for each other.  Human anatomy speaks God’s design loud and clear.  Marriage is about a man and a woman.

But not just any man and woman.  A man will leave his parents and be united to his wife.  The word united speaks of that man and woman’s commitment to each another.  Marriage is a man and a woman  able to make that commitment for a lifetime. To stick together in good times and in bad.  To stick together for a lifetime.

And whether we got married in a church or in a courthouse it’s important to remember.  When we marry it’s so much more than our promise to one another.  Someone else is very much involved.  And I’m not talking about our mom or the busy photographer.

Think of Adam and Eve.  God first made Adam realize there was no one for him.  Then he created Eve and what do you hear in his words.  He was more than ready to receive her as his wife.  God clearly brought them together.

But our Lord Jesus says their wedding day was not unique.  For He says the same about our marriages.  What God has joined together, let no one separate. We heard the prophet Malachi say the same: ¹⁵ Has not the Lord made them one?

You see, in a real way our marriage is God’s doing.  It’s not something to discard when things don’t live up to my expectations.  No marriage is God’s doing and therefore something to be honored, respected and worked at.  For God designed marriage to last.

God’s Word says in the book of Proverbs:  He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.  (18:22) I was trying to find a verse that said the same about us husbands.  I’m still looking.  But maybe it goes without saying.  For God has designed this special relationship called marriage with purpose.  Marriage is designed for blessing.

What did the Lord say?  It is not good for the man to be alone.  We might like to hang out with the guys or the gals, but in marriage God has designed something unique and very special.  The two will become one flesh.  There is a special oneness to be found and shared with your husband or wife.  It doesn’t come automatically. It takes effort on our part. But when it comes, our marriage can be the safest place on earth.  I know it is for me.

And that oneness goes even further.  Marriage is that place, that one relationship that God has designed for a man and his wife to love one another sexually.  Read the Song of songs.  It’s very sensual.  A man and his bride.  For sex is a gift of God, not something dirty.  It only becomes dirty when we pervert it.  No sex is a gift of God  for a man and his wife to enjoy their oneness and express it to one another.

And God has designed that special act of love to bring another blessing on the scene.  If it be God’s will, children.  Solomon wrote in Psalm 127:  Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. (3)  Of course, I realize that  children can at times fill our hearts with worry.  They can even break our hearts.  But there is something a child brings to a husband and wife that is hard for me to express.  The joy of a mother.  The responsibility of being a father.  We grow as they grow.  We learn to keep one step ahead of them.

For marriage is designed to also be a blessing to our children.  There they see how husband and wife should treat each other.  There they learn responsibility and respect for others.  And there they learn of a God who loved them so much that he sent his one and only Son to be their Savior.  And yes they may walk away from their Lord.  But we give them a Lord to come back to.  Marriage is designed to be that kind of blessing.

We know those blessings.  We‘ve experienced them.  But we also know something else when we look at our own marriages.  Marriage is inhabited by sinners.

In Genesis 3, we read what happened to that first marriage which knew such perfect love.  Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and something terrible took root in their hearts.  Sin.  That three letter word with a big I in the middle.

Right away we see how sin affected their relationship.   Adam points an accusing finger at his wife, instead of himself.  He calls her the woman you gave me.  And Eve.  She had gotten her husband to join in her sin.  So now marriage was inhabited by two sinners.

And nothing has changed.  Now every person who marries has a heart infected with sin. So marriage is designed for blessing.  But every one of us can make our marriage a not very blessed place to be for the one we promised to love.

Think of the man with roving eyes who leaves his wife feeling insecure.  Or the wife so prone to argue and disrespect her husband.  Or the couple so caught up in their own lives that they have little time for each other.  Or maybe there’s that pent up bitterness that a husband or wife refuse to let go.  None of our marriages are immune to such things.  For our marriages are inhabited by sinners.  And because they are, marriage is… in need of Jesus.

God’s word commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Yet each Sunday, we must confess our sinful failures to do just that.  And too often those sins have been against our closest neighbor.  My spouse who I promised to love.

We need Jesus.  We need his committed love that brought him to this world from God’s heaven.  He became our brother, lived as one of us, and then he went the way of the cross.  And there God put our guilt on him so we could be forgiven.  And that we are.  What committed love!

That love changes us.  It moves us.  First of all to reach across the divide sin can cause in our marriage and forgive.  Jesus’ love gives us the heart to forgive as we have been forgiven.

And Jesus’ love gives us the power to change.  Every one of us can look at our life and see things we do or fail to do that can trouble our marriage. To know Christ’s love brings a power to change, to be different, to be more the husband or wife that your Savior calls you to be.

And then there are those times when our marriage is not a blessed place to be.  We might prefer to be out of it.  To know Christ’s love is to know better than that.  To know Christ’s love is to rise above those feelings and say:  No, this is not what you want me to do Jesus.  Lord help us through this time.  And he will.  He will .  Yes, marriage is in need of Jesus.

But that brings me back to that couple who knew each other so well.  They were married over 60 years when we had our conversation.  They had lived what marriage IS.  A man and his wife truly committed to each other.  A marriage of highs and lows, of joys and sorrows.  But together.  They faced it together.  They lived it together with Jesus and the love he brings.   Amen.