Genesis 2:15-25
Fight for your family.
Not fight against your spouse. Not fight against your kids. Fight for your spouse. Fight for your kids.
“Don’t be afraid of them! Remember that the Lord is great and awesome! Fight for your families, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses!”
— Nehemiah 4:14
AFTER GOD DOES A WEDDING, SATAN STARTS A WAR.
Satan has, from the beginning, focused his energies on cursing the family. God wanted to bless.
Focus: Marriage because a strong marriage is the foundation of a strong family.
You can’t expect the blessing of the LORD on the ways of the WORLD.
The WORLD’S WAYS produce the WORLD’S RESULTS, and the LORD’S WAYS produce the LORD’S RESULTS.
There is BLESSING in God’s BETTER WAY.
Walking verse by verse through Genesis 2.
BETTER WAYS TO DO MARRIAGE
01. THERE'S MEANING BENEATH MARRIAGE
We meet Adam in Genesis 2 and find that he finds meaning in God before ever meeting Eve.
Genesis 2:15–17
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
02. A MAN MUST FOLLOW GOD TO LEAD HIS WIFE
“The LORD God commanded the man.”
Lie of our culture:
“Live for YOURSELF!”
“Follow YOUR HEART!”
The human soul is empty without God.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
— Augustine
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
— C.S. Lewis
“The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
— Westminster Catechism
03. MOST MARRIAGE PROBLEMS ARE REALLY GOD PROBLEMS
It’s most often that one or both spouses aren’t fully and deeply aligning themselves with God.
What marriage problems do you have right now that are really, at bottom, the byproduct of your lack of obedience and nearness to God?
There are a lot of problems in the world. There is only one solution. His name is Jesus.
04. GOD GIVES MEN WORK BEFORE A WIFE
“Work it and keep it.”
THIS IS ABOUT WORK.
The direct application to work is important for men.
“Becoming men of God strong and brave, who pursue, provide, and protect.”
THIS IS ABOUT SERVING GOD’S PURPOSES.
05. PRIOR TO MARRIAGE THE CHRISTIAN PRIORITIZES MISSION
Adam is serving God’s mission and purposes.
Adam’s assignment was to extend God’s beautiful, life-giving Garden, reign, and territory to the ends of the earth.
If you’re looking for a Jesus-serious spouse, start serving! That’s where you’re going to find them!
Two tips for people looking for a solid spouse:
01. Become the kind of person the person you’re looking for is looking for.
02. Serve Jesus with every ounce of who you are, and look around! Chances are you’re going to see someone like you.
If you want to catch SALMON, don’t fish in a BASS POND!
After you get married, it is essential that you keep serving Jesus central!
06. YOUR MARRIAGE IS PART OF GOD'S MISSION
The world says your marriage fundamentally exists to make you happy.
But that’s unbiblical and dangerous!
“The way to have a great marriage is by not focusing on marriage.”
— Francis & Lisa Chan
07. YOUR SPOUSE WASN'T DESIGNED TO BEAR THE WEIGHT OF YOUR SOUL
Don’t make your marriage the primary focus.
Before you get married, you need to be pouring your life out for God’s mission so that when you get married your marriage isn’t the ultimate focus but together you’re focused on God’s mission first.
When two people are after a shared and common mission they become unified because they’re giving their lives to the same thing.
GOD'S DESIGN FOR MARRIAGE
08. MARRIAGE WAS DESIGNED BY GOD
Genesis 2:18–25
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
“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 his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
09. MARRIAGE IS COVENANTAL
Lie in our culture:
“People change, and that's okay.”
“Life’s too short to be unhappy.”
“Sometimes you just outgrow people.”
“We’re not compatible anymore.”
Covenant = Permanent Promise
God establishes this marriage.
It’s not temporary. Eve is not a girlfriend. They aren't married in their hearts.
“The LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”
— Malachi 2:14
We serve a God of covenant.
The WORLD says staying committed is the RESULT of your spouse making you happy.
The WORD says joy in marriage is the RESULT of deep and covenantal commitment.
There is blessing in obedience!
10. THE GOAL OF MARRIAGE IS INTIMACY & UNITY
“Both naked and were not ashamed.”
This is MORE than physical.
Intimacy means “into me see.”
At its core it’s:
Trust
Closeness
Commitment
Friendship
Respect
Love
Care
By far the worst thing you can do in a marriage is erode or undermine trust with your spouse.
This is NOT LESS than physical.
Sex is a beautiful gift from God. Spouses should cultivate physical, sexual intimacy.
11. MARRIAGE REQUIRES LEAVING & CLEAVING
“A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.”
To cling closely or remain fiercely loyal.
When your son or daughter gets married, they’re not joining your family, they're starting a new family.
Two warnings:
01. Each spouse’s job is to be careful not to allow their own parents to in an unhealthy way interfere with the culture, decisions, unity, or authority of the home.
02. Each pair of in-laws needs to resist the serious error of trying to fold your kids' marriage family into your family.
12. THE WOMAN IS A HELPER FIT FOR HER HUSBAND
“I will make him a helper fit for him.”
She was a “helper fit for him.”
“The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near to his heart to be beloved.”
— Matthew Henry
13. THE HUSBAND IS THE HEAD OF THE WIFE
This is UNIVERSALLY REJECTED in our culture!
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
— Leo Tolstoy
“Is the world against Athanasius? Then Athanasius is against the world.”
“You’re trying to take us back to the 1950’s.”
No. I’m not trying to take us back 70 years to the 1950’s but 2000 years to the Bible.
Ephesians 5:22–24
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
3 Things Submission Is NOT
01. NOT: All women submit to all men.
That’s not Christianity. A woman can lead in the office because that’s a business and not a marriage.
02. NOT: Submission to sin or abuse.
Jesus outranks your husband.
03. NOT: No voice and no choice.
Jesus shared his feelings and desire to the Father in Gethsemane.
Husbands, the whole reason God gave her to you is to help you.
DEFINITION OF SUBMISSION
Honoring his role as the loving head of the family and taking a posture that acknowledges, encourages, and follows his leadership in both words and actions as the head of the family.
NOT:
“Submissive to your husband as long as he does everything exactly as I want.”
14. THE HUSBAND IS TO LEAD BY LOVING
Ephesians 5:25–30
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…”
“…husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”
WHAT? — LOVE
Tenderness, self-denying devotion.
WHERE? — SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
Sanctify = spiritual leadership.
Men, you need to be the spiritual leader creating a climate where your wife and kids can grow spiritually through the Word.
HOW? — AS HIMSELF
Nurturing as one’s own body.
Selflessness.
She is your own self.