A Match Made in Heaven
Notes
Transcript
Genesis 2:24-25 ESV
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
As I was preparing to write our message for today, I recalled a situation that I had experienced as a very young man that I had never really thought too much about until I sat down to write this message.
I had a buddy in high school who started dating a girl towards the end of his senior year. Now, this buddy and I were always hanging around one another, but not long after he started dating this girl, we weren’t hanging around each other nearly as much.
Now, I didn’t think a whole lot about it because he was out of school now, so it made sense that I wouldn’t see him as much.
Well, about a year after he and his girlfriend started dating, they got married. I remember going to his wedding and celebrating with him and after that was said and done, we of course went our separate ways.
But then probably about six months after their wedding, I got to thinking and I realized that my buddy and I would still talk occasionally, but I hadn’t hardly seen him at all since his wedding. I asked some of my other friends, “Hey, whatever happened to that guy? I don’t ever see him anymore.” And they said, “What happened to him? he got married. That’s what!”.
Something that is overwhelmingly true is that people in general have a natural longing to want to be around other people. And while that may hold true in varying degrees from person to person, still the fact remains that because man is a social creature, he naturally longs for a sort of human companionship.
And this human-to-human companionship that man longs for finds its fulfillment in the God-ordained institute of marriage. Now, the reason as to why a truly God-centered marriage fulfills this social longing in man is because in a truly God-centered marriage both husband and wife simultaneously focus on honoring God and serving one another.
And until that comes to be, until someone obtains that for him or herself, their social longing remains unfulfilled.
I can speak for myself when I say that as a married man, I am happy and content. But that was not always the case for me. For before I was married, I experienced this longing that I just spoke of.
I always felt the need to be around new and more people. I never really felt as though I had enough friends or maybe that the friends that I had weren’t good enough friends. It seemed as though I could never become truly content, socially speaking.
But when God blessed me with my wife, I had found my person. I no longer sought out new people to be around. I felt and continue to feel that she is my very best friend. That social longing has now ceased.
And the reason why this is, is because I now experience what God has ordained for man to experience in order to have this longing fulfilled. While others may have served well as friends, she is my helper, my other half, the one who makes me complete.
Indeed, a God-ordained, God-honoring marriage is without a doubt the most enjoyable, the most satisfying, the most blessed social relation that a man and a woman can experience this side of heaven.
And as we continue today in this series of messages from the second and third chapters of the book of Genesis we read of this blessed union and the extraordinary reality that it represents.
We read first in the first half of verse 24:
Genesis 2:24a ESV
24a Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
Now, we begin this verse with the word “therefore” and you know what that means… I’m going to do my lame joke when I say that anytime you come across the word “therefore” it’s there for a reason.
But when we see the word “therefore” it means that we need to look at what comes before the word in order to fully understand what comes after the word.
Now, as we have read and spoke of in previous sermons, man had a natural longing when he was created, though he knew not what the longing was for, then, in the fullness of time, God revealed to the man that which he was longing for.
What God revealed to the man is that unlike all of the rest of creation, he was without one like him, he had for himself no helper. Thus, it was at that point which God revealed to the man that he was without a helper that the man then desired a helper.
And once this desire was present, God provided the man with a helper. Out of the man’s side, his helper was formed. She is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, taken out of him, and because this is the case, it is only natural for a man, when he becomes older to desire to be joined with that which was taken out of him to be his helper.
As a small child, a boy, who is yet to be a man thinks only of being under the authority of his parents. But then there comes a day when the boy becomes a man, and his thoughts now move to obtaining for himself a helper, a bride.
Thus, the man reaches a point when he is no longer content to remain under the authority of his father and mother and thus leaves them that he may be joined to his wife, that he may give his wife the higher standing as they serve as a mutual help to one another.
And when the man leaves his father and mother, our text continues by telling us that he is to:
Genesis 2:24b ESV
24b hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Here we find how the man and his wife serve as a mutual help; by holding fast to one another. Now, to hold fast to something speaks of clinging, sticking, bonding to something.
Now, when you think about that, the obvious becomes apparent, you take two things and merge them together into one thing. So, if the woman was originally taken out of the man, it is then the man’s natural desire to be rejoined to what was taken out of him, and it is also the woman’s natural desire to be rejoined with that which she was taken out of.
Thus, when the man and the woman are joined in marriage, the two then go back to being one as they originally were. No longer do they work individually, but rather, they now work mutually, each one receiving the blessing of being helped and also of helping the other.
And in holding fast to one another, the beautiful thing that is accomplished as the marriage is prolonged is the man and the woman, the husband and the wife grow into one another. Thus, the two who are now one continue to grow in their oneness. Their innate identity as individuals is continuously swallowed up in their union.
And as the two hold fast to one another, what it is to signify is a lasting commitment to one another and a determination to not dissolve the union which God has brought together.
If this joining together, the holding fast to one another is that which man naturally desires, then it goes without saying that both husband and wife are to look to God for the strength, will, and determination to make your marriage last.
If it is our natural desire to be joined to our husband or wife and hold fast to them, then we should work hard to ensure that our union is not broken.
The husband needs to lead his wife and his family in the ways of God, be the steady spiritual leader of his household. He needs to sacrifice for his family, being willing to even die for his wife just as Christ was willing to die for the Church, His Bride.
And the wife needs to submit to her husband faithfully and humbly. As the Church is to humbly, faithfully submit to Christ Jesus, her Groom, so is a man’s wife to submit to her husband when he faithfully leads his family.
Do you know what makes us as the Church so special, so unique? Do you know what sets us apart and makes us unlike any other? Our union with Christ Jesus. And that which makes an individual married couple unlike any other is the union which they share.
And the union between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife is to ever model, mimic, and magnify the mystical union between Christ and His Church.
Because this is the case, because of the amazing reality which a marriage between a man and a woman represents, it is imperative that a couple seek God for the maintaining, the wellbeing, and the perseverance of their marriage.
And thus, we see the amazing reality which marriage is. It is the fulfillment of the social relation which man naturally longs for, and most importantly, it represents the very real union between Christ and His Bride, His Church.
This is very serious stuff; therefore, it is beyond disappointing that marriage is treated so superficially in the day in which we live.
The majority of marriages end in separation rather than in death. But what may be even worst than this is that there are a great many who think so little, so light of this God-ordained institute that they forego marriage altogether while still taking advantage of what they deem to be the benefits of a marriage.
The overwhelming vast majority of couples in our nation are those who live together and who partake in sexual relations with one another either before marriage or in lieu of marriage.
What this shows us is that we live in a society that woefully disregards or perverts this God-ordained institute to such an extent that it has deemed it inadequate, unnecessary, and has replaced it with a worthless counterfeit.
But though this sin-infested world has taken such an immensely holy institute and has sought to replace it with corruption and perversion, it was not originally so.
We see this in the last verse of our reading, verse 25:
Genesis 2:25 ESV
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Now, you might read that and wonder “How in the world does that have anything to do with the purity and efficacy of the original marital union?!” but in all reality, it says everything about it.
That the man and woman were both naked reveals that this was a pure marriage. What I mean by that is that the man and his wife were naked, and furthermore, they felt no shame about their nakedness because they lived in a world that had not yet been stained with sin.
They needed no clothing for defense against cold or heat for neither could harm them in a sinless world. They needed no clothing for adornment, for they had no need of being adorned in a sinless world.
Indeed, they had no reason to be ashamed of anything in a sinless state for they knew not what sin was. All they knew is that they were in a perpetual state of bliss and that this bliss was owing only to God.
As man is created with this longing for social companionship which then manifests itself in the desire for a helper, so is man, now in a sinful state, born with a lack of righteousness. And because man is born with this lack of righteousness, it is then man’s longing to have this righteousness supplemented to him.
And as the reprobate, those not chosen to salvation seek to forego the correct way to righteousness through various futile means such as trying to earn their way to righteousness through futile attempts at inner peace and outward pleasure, though this is the case, God is pleased to manifest the Object of this righteousness to the elect as He reveals to them that Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life.
The Father has been pleased to reveal this to those whom He has chosen to salvation, and now that He has revealed this to us, now that He has revealed that Christ Jesus is the Object of the longing of the elect, we as the elect now earnestly desire Him just as Adam earnestly desired a helper once it was revealed to him.
And as we now proceed to the partaking of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, we receive the visible reminders of that which Christ Jesus has accomplished on behalf of His elect people to purify us, His Bride, that at the last day we may be properly adorned for our marriage to the Lamb of God.
*Communion
