Marriage By Design

Wes Terry

The Beginning • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

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Lead Pastor Wes Terry preaches on God's design for love and marriage out of Genesis 2:24-25. This message is part of the series "The Beginning" out of Genesis 1-2. The sermon was preached on February 19, 2021.

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INTRODUCTION:

Marriage has fallen out of favor in our culture. In 1990 nine out of every 1,000 people in our country were married. Today it’s fallen to six in 1,000.

The average age of those who get marriage is going UP instead of down.

In the 1970’s it was common to get married in your low twenties. Today it’s right at or over 30 years old.

Marriage has transitioned from being a “corner stone” (first thing you do) of young adulthood to a “cap stone. (last thing you do)”

The general attitude towards marriage has turned negative.

A growing number of young people grew up in single parent or divorced homes and saw the pain that marriage can cause if it doesn’t last.

They end up saying and feeling things like...

“Love is blind. Marriage is an eye opener.”

“There’s the engagement ring, wedding ring, then suffering!”

“A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then it’s too late.” Frank Sinatra.

We call marriage the “ball and chain...” Or make jokes about “Weddings and funerals… what’s the difference?’

Our culture doesn’t place a high value on marriage. It’s a tragic but obvious fact. It it’s also a unique opportunity for us to show them something better!

A Better Alternative

In a culture where marriage is in decline and people’s expectations for marriage is very low - wouldn’t it be great for us to show how GOD’S DESIGN produces marital FLOURISHING?!

Just as we’ve seen with every other topic we’ve looked at in this study of Genesis, God has a design for marriage and his design is GOOD.

When we embrace God’s design for marriage then we put ourselves in a position to flourish as he originally intended.

Our text today is Genesis 2:23-25. The context for these verses - if you weren’t here last week, was God’s creation of Eve to come alongside of Adam to partner with him the creation mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

Well in Genesis 2:23 when Eve is presented to Adam he breaks out into song with a little happy dance:

Genesis 2:23–25 (ESV)

23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 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.

Birds Eye View

There are many interesting things about this passage.

Before we begin to analyze the words inside of our passage I first want to point out where our passage is placed.

Whether it’s Genesis 1 in the general sense or Genesis 2 in the specific sense, God’s gift of marriage is placed at the very end of the narrative.

You’ve heard the phrase “save the best for last? ” In Genesis 2 that’s what God does with marriage. It’s not accidental. It’s on purpose.

Crown and Core

It suggests that marriage - and family built around it - serves as a crown and core for God’s purpose in creation.

They are the crown in that everything else in creation was in service to that goal.

They are the core in that God’s future plan for creation - civilizations, societies, and technological advance - all depend on this foundational building block.

There’s a famous quote by John Paul II that says, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”

Thats’ exactly what Genesis 2 is saying.

Healthy Marriages are foundational to a thriving civilization. Thriving cities, counties, and countries require the essential building block of a thriving home.

It’s not a sub-point. It’s not a take it or leave it kind of institution. It’s central and core to the building of a world that glorifies and honors God.

That’s why Hebrews 13:4 exhorts us “Let marriage be held in honor by all...”

Satan’s Attack Vector

If this is true of God’s purpose and design in marriage then it would also be true that marriage is a chief vector for Satan’s attack on our life and our culture.

Think about it. Marriage and family act as a building block for civilization. And as a building block it’s the most foundational and most important institution in our culture.

Well if it’s the crown and core of God’s purpose in creation then it would also become an obvious attack vector for anyone who wanted to disrupt and destroy God’s purpose in creation.

You may ask, “What in the world is an attack vector?”

The word comes from the world of “cyber security.” The attack vector is the path or vehicle a hacker uses to illegally access a protected network.

Think of things like malware or virus that infect your computer through an email attachment or webpage pop up. That’s “an attack vector.”

You don’t have to look far to see how Satan’s attack on the family has produced brokenness in our culture.

We’ve drifted so far from God’s original design for the family that our very social fabric in this country is starting to tear.

The redefinition and degradation of marriage are like a trojan horse by our enemy to disrupt God’s original design and destroy God’s purpose in Creation.

So it’s of upmost importance that we KNOW what God’s design for marriage IS so we can receive what God designed marriage to GIVE.

And that’s what we’re going to do this morning with our passage: what marriage IS, what marriage GIVES, and why marriage MATTERS.

WHAT MARRIAGE IS:

So what is God’s design for a healthy marriage? According to v 24 it’s at least three things.

I love how the KJV translates this verse.

Genesis 2:24 (KJV)

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Marriage requires a man and a woman to do three key things: leave, cleave and weave.

Leaving - Principle of Priority

First, the two people in a marriage need to “leave” their Father & Mother. The word (עזב - a.zav) means to “leave behind / forsake” intentionally, unintentionally or because you forgot.

It’s the principle of PRIORITY.

In this context it means the intentional choice to prioritize your SPOUSE as the number one most important person in your life no matter what. (up to your wedding day it might’ve been your mom and dad - and in that culture it would have - but after it becomes your spouse. Hand down. No exceptions.) LEAVE!

This concept is even built in to most modern day wedding ceremonies. The Bride and Father stand there in front of the officiant who asks, “who gives this woman to be married to this man?” There’s a release! It’s not just symbolic. It’s God’s design.

Specifically Men

Notice also that this command is given specifically to the MAN. That’s not to say that females don’t need to prioritize their husband as number one.

It does, however, suggest that men often have a harder time making this transition. Especially if there was a prior commitment to their family to lead, love serve and protect.

Genesis is saying you gotta make that switch, make it clean and make it FAST!

I can’t tell you how many marriage problems I’ve seen that stem from this one issue right here. It doesn’t matter who you marry, when you marry, or how much you love the person you marry - there will come a day of testing to determine whether or not you did or did not make this decision to prioritize your spouse above all else.

Meaning you defend them instead of letting others take shots at them.

Meaning you protect them instead of exposing their weaknesses.

Meaning you advocate and fight for them even when the people you’re having to fight are the people who used to fight for you.

Healthy marriages require both parties to “leave.” It’s the principle of PRIORITY.

Cleaving - Principle of Pursuit

The second action is to cleave. This word (דָּבַק - da.vaq) conveys the idea of sticking firmly, being glued together, following at a close distance, etc.

I’m going to call this the principle of PURSUIT. Certainly the word includes the idea of being glued together but the only way to stayed glued together in marriage is to intentionally pursue each other every day of your married life.

The idea is a permanent stickiness. Pursue and treasure each other as that which is most fulfilling and stabilizing in your life.

When you sense that attachment beginning to wane or that glue starting to come apart then it’s a red flag that your marriage is drifting from God’s original design.

This word “cleave” is also a reminder of why divorce is so painful! When you give yourself to someone in marriage there’s a super glue that gets applied in that union that WILL NOT RELEASE.

RIPPING: What happens when you glue two thing together and the glue and still bonded to each side of the fabric? One side or the other is going to get ripped apart. That’s the kind of viloence divorce does in a marriage.

It so painful because it disrupts God’s design. There’s a profound goodness in marriage that was given as a gift. When that good thing gets taken away the damage inflicted is great.

You can’t cleave and then leave without doing tremendous damage to your spouse and to your family that stems from it.

Weaving

Finally there is “weaving.” This is the idea that two people are to “weave” their lives together so that they become “one flesh.”

Oneness in every respect:

sexual,

spiritual,

social,

emotional,

and every other way.)

I’m going to call this the principle of “partnership.”

The word “become” is actually a preposition in the original Hebrew. It’s certainly not conveying the idea that the act of marriage makes two people one flesh immediately. The idea is that the leaving and cleaving are intended to take you towards the final destination of being “one flesh.”

Anybody who is one year married knows that one flesh don’t easy. You can be physically one easy enough. But oneness in every other respect is more challenging!

That’s why I love the word “weaving.”

I heard somebody say the other day, “marriage isn’t held together by chains. It’s held together by threads.” Little bitty threads that are woven together: every day, every week, every month, every year.

When you weave something together the first few times through might not have too strong a hold. But the longer you weave the tighter that hold gets and the more united those two pieces of fabric become and when they get tight enough you can start to stuff things in there and fill it with meaning and significance.

That’s God’s design for marriage.

You share your bodies. (1 Cor 7:3-4)

You share your finances.

You share your secrets. (passwords, past, location data!)

You share everything.

There’s a quote by Wayne Mack in his book of marriage that says “There ought to be absolutely NOTHING about which one spouse can say to the other, ‘that’s none of your business!’”

It’s ALL their business because the two of you became ONE. Everything ought to be shared.

One Flesh = New Family Unit

This one flesh also includes the idea of procreation.

Physical oneness and sharing your bodies can eventually result in the creation of a new human body called a BABY.

That baby is a “new thing” produced by the “one flesh” union of two people coming together. That baby has a totally new set of genetics that is shaped by the two of you becoming one.

So oneness is a sharing of your children as well.

We’ll talk about this more in a minute but this is why God reserves sex for the marriage bed.

The most suitable context for a child to be raised is a context where in both the Father AND the Mother are totally one. It’s the ideal framework for raising up the next generation.

Single parent homes, troubled marriages, and the many varieties we see today give the children in those homes a hurdle they have to jump that wasn’t originally designed to be there.

That’s not to say they can’t jump those hurdles! By God’s grace anything is possible. But that’s a deviation from God’s original design.

When these three things happen between a man and a woman then it provides the context for a new family unit to be born and for new children to rise up and do the same things again.

WHAT MARRIAGE GIVES:

That leads us to the next thing I’d like us to explore now that we know “what marriage IS and that is the question of what marriage GIVES.”

We’ve already seen ONE thing that marriage can give - specifically sex in marriage - and that’s children.

But that’s not the only thing. In fact, it’s not even the most important thing.

The gift of marriage can be seen in Genesis 2:25

Genesis 2:25 (ESV)

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

If I had to sum it up in a single word, the gift of marriage is the gift of intimacy. We might call this the principle of communion.

This verse is primarily concerned with sexual intimacy. That’s why Moses makes clear Adam and Eve were both naked.

This is physical nakedness. But it actually goes beyond physical nakedness and sexual intimacy to include every other form of intimacy as well.

The presence of sexual intimacy in marriage is so important because it helps promote and facilitate intimacy in every other area.

They call it “making love” for a reason. It actually literally creates love and oneness in other areas that used to not exist prior to that sexual union.

Intimacy Is What Everybody Wants

I’m calling intimacy the “gift” of marriage because it’s what EVERYBODY wants but only a few people find.

Intimacy and communion are the idea that we can be completely known (naked - physically, emotionally, spiritually laid bare) and completely accepted (unashamed - loved warts and all)

Tim Keller has a great quote one this: “To be loved but not known is comforting, but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.” Every human deep down deeply desires BOTH.

This kind of love is supremely experienced in our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

We will see in a minute that one of God’s reasons for creating marriage was to POINT PEOPLE to that love.

But for now let’s just take the gift for what it is. Marriage was meant to give each partner a framework and a context that they could be FULLY SEEN and TRULY LOVED.

Sexual Boundaries

This is why God forbids sexual activity outside of the marriage bed and promotes sexuality activity INSIDE the marriage bed.

FIREPLACE ILLUSTRATION: The Christian view of sex is that it’s a GIFT from God. It’s not God but neither is it gross. It’s a GIFT.

It’s not reserved for marriage because it’s shameful and nasty and needs to be restricted to marriage.

It’s reserved for marriage because it’s a good and precious gift from God that needs boundaries to protect it.

You lock up the valuables in your house? You lock up the valuables in your car? You lock up the valuable in your gun safe? Why would you leave unprotected the one thing that EVERYBODY WANTS but only a few people find?

The idea that you should keep yourself pure for your spouse is not some sexually restrictive burden meant to rob you of pleasure. It’s an important guardrail to preserve the kind of intimacy God DOES want you to enjoy.

Counterfeit Intimacy

What Satan does is he promotes a counterfeit intimacy through a counterfeit sexual expression that falls OUTSIDE of God’s design.

It’s the same lie from the Garden. “Did God REALLY SAY?” And “He just doesn’t want you to have any fun...”

Unfortunately, that message has tremendous traction in our culture and even within the church.

We live in a hook up culture.

There will be people who listen to this message and say, (1) “What an old school way of thinking. It’s restrictive and sexist and foolish.” (2) “You got test drive the car before you buy it!” (3) “God will forgive us so what’s the big harm. We’re already married in our heart!”

Hook up culture promotes sex without intimacy and vulnerability. Sex is cheapened into an animalistic desire that you satisfy however you like. (like eating and drinking or scratching an itch.)

Naked bodies without the naked soul. You’re not sharing your soul you’re just sharing your body. Sex can be guilt free, care free, shame free, it’s just physical.

Female empowerment! “THIS is what sexual liberation looks like. THIS is female empowerment.” But the final result isn’t “liberation.” It’s slavery. It’s not empowerment. It’s oppression.

It takes God’s gift and makes it a burden.

Instead of unconditional acceptance you feel pressure to “measure up.” Instead of love and commitment many are left feeling lonely and ashamed.

All of this because Satan “hacked the network.” He took the good gift of God and exploited it so that it might weigh you down instead of filling you up.

You’re left feeling shame and regret instead of love and acceptance.

The Permanent Damage

The worst part about it? That damage leaves a scar. Counterfeit sex leaves a permanent scar. There’s no such thing as “care free” or “meaningless” sex.

ALL SEX outside of God’s design has a lasting impact on our soul. There are scars that manifest at a physical, spiritual and emotional level.

By the way, this isn’t just preacher talk coming from some out of touch old guy. Modern science has actually proven this at a chemical hormonal level.

They’ve discovered that men AND women produce a hormone during sex called “oxytocin.” (there are other sex specific hormones but this one is shared).

The call it the “love” hormone or the “cuddle” hormone. It’s a hormone released by the pituitary gland that creates within a person a desire to “attach themselves.”

It’s the same hormone that gets released in a woman to stimulate breast feeding. So just as a woman is designed by God to attach herself completely to the baby from her womb so also is her body designed to attach itself to the one with whom she becomes sexually intimate.

A Challenge to Men

This is why pornography is so dangerous. There are people ringing the alarm bell on this epidemic even outside of religious spheres!

I just explained why pornography can become so addictive! You add to that the release of dopamine and serotonin in men and it makes breaking free from a pornography all the more difficult.

But you’ve got to kill this sin in your life. Particularly you men. Your addiction to pornography is rewiring your braining and ruining your capacity for true human intimacy. (Loosing your ability to “stick” to another living person)

Every time you interact with porn this hormone is being released and your teaching your brain and soul to attach itself to pixels on a screen instead of a person in marriage.

It’s a MAJOR problem and source of serious sexual dysfunction today.

LET ME CHALLENGE YOU MEN. PROTECT THE PURITY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIPS!

Take responsibility for protecting the purity of your relationships and your soul pre-marriage and post-marriage. You are responsible!

There comes a time when desire will attempt to overtake your integrity. It is your job to show her that you choose integrity. Honor that woman. Honor her father. Honor her heavenly Father. She is a daughter of God first and foremost.

Keep the walls high. Earn her trust. Show her the kind of man you really are.

Sex outside of marriage is an attack vector from the enemy. Whether it’s porn, adultery, premarital sex, or any other deviation - it destroys your capacity to enjoy the GIFT of intimacy.

It’s the one thing we ALL want. But only a few people ever find.

All The Way = All The Way

When I was growing up we talked about sex as “going all the way.” Rounding the plate, getting to home base.

Sadly, the ambition and testosterone level of most teenage boys use this as justification for engaging in premarital sex because it’s seen as some kind of contest of maturity race. (I know I felt that pressure as a young man)

The truth is, “going all the way” requires two people to first “go all the way.”

Going “all the way” with your body through sexual intimacy is only safe in a context where you’ve gone “all the way” with your commitment to one another.

God’s purpose in sex requires the context of a publically professed, life-long promise between two people.

If a person isn’t willing to go “all the way” with you HERE (heart) then they haven’t earn the right to go “all the way” with you there.

I’m not saying they’re bad, not saying their unworthy, not saying you’re bad or unworthy - I’m just saying it’s not God’s design.

It cheapens the sex and cheapens the intimacy God so desperately wants you to enjoy.

Intimacy requires vulnerability. Vulnerability requires a feeling of safety. That kind of safety isn’t possible without a genuine promise.

You want to become spiritually, socially, economically and legally one before you become physically one.

Because the sexual union unleashes a glue that binds to people together in a way that nothing else can.

When that glue gets applied it can’t be unapplied. And if those lives get ripped apart after such a glue then it leaves permanent damage that scars your soul.

WHY MARRIAGE MATTERS:

So what is marriage? It’s leaving, cleaving and weaving. What does it give? Intimacy.

The last thing I want us to see this morning is why God’s design for marriage matters.

There are at least two reasons I can see from Scripture for what God’s design for marriage matters.

One, because God’s design is always GOOD.

Secondly, God’s design in marriage mirrors the GOSPEL.

Both of these points are made explicit in the statement on marriage from the BFM2K.

BFM2K: God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption. Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

One of the reasons I love that statement is because it captures the essence of marriage so well.

Marriage is a foundational institution.

between one man and one woman.

as a life-long covenant.

that mirrors the Gospel and

provides the ultimate context for intimacy, sex and the raising of children.

Holding Fast To God’s Design

We’ve already discussed most of these elements from our passage in Genesis but I want to reiterate them here to make a final point.

We must find the courage necessary to hold fast to God’s design for marriage in the face of culture’s counterfeits.

Every generation must content for the truth in the culture of lies. Our generation is no different.

We must maintain courage in the face of counterfeits.

There’s a difference between “biblical marriage” (God’s design) and “legal marriage” (cultural counterfeits)

If this is what marriage IS there there are certain other things marriage ISN’T.

Same sex marriage is not marriage according to God’s design. (Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9-11) Jesus appeals to Genesis in his discussion on this question and Paul does the same. It’s one man and woman woman by God’s design. Anything that deviates from that design is less than ideal and - to use the language of Paul - unnatural.

Polygamous marriage is not marriage according to God’s design. You say, “yeah but there’s polygamy in the Bible! Indeed there is. There’s also adultery, premarital sex and homosexuality as well. Every mention is “description” of people living in sin and almost always reveal the consequences of doing marriage outside of God’s design.

"Starter marriages” are not marriage according to God’s design. I want to be careful here because MANY of you have been divorce and remarried. I’m not suggesting that your living in sin. There are biblical grounds for divorce (adultery, abuse, abandonment) and acceptable ground for remarriage (death, innocent partner, burning with passion) But these are exceptions to God’s “ideal.”

As we said last week, the reality of special cases don’t undo the reality of God’s design.

It’s going to be tough to be a Christian who believes in and practices God’s design for human sexuality.

We will be mocked hated and ostracized. I might even find myself in legal jeopardy for saying the things I’m saying in this sermon 10-15 years from now.

We need to reach down deep and find clarity and conviction around what God’s Word really says and let God be found true even if every man is a liar.

Holding Fast to Our Hope

Which leads me to the second point of application. We must maintain the grounds for our HOPE in the midst of brokenness.

What sin corrupts, Jesus can restore.

Some of you may find yourself in stuck in a counterfeit to God’s design. Maybe you’re even beginning to see the futility and brokenness of that decision.

Know this: you’re not alone. Genesis 2 is followed by Genesis 3. And the introduction of sin brings about brokenness in our world - including brokenness around God’s design for marriage.

But we have a living hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope in marriage, no matter how broken it may be or how lost you may feel - our hope is in Jesus.

Jesus can restore what the enemy has taken!

God is For Your Marriage

Here’s something else you should know: God is FOR your marriage. He desires for you to have the very best marriage you can possibly have. Why? Because your marriage is ultimately FOR God’s glory.

I wish I had time to develop this further. It really could be an entire sermon on it’s own.

But in Ephesians 5 Paul appeals back to God’s design in Genesis to describe the responsibilities that a man and woman have in marriage.

Husbands are called to love cherish their wives as Christ loved and gave himself up for the Church. (Eph 5:25)

Wives are called to graciously submit themselves to the servant leadership and sacrificial love of their husbands. (Eph 5:24)

After waxing eloquent on these matters Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:31

Ephesians 5:31 (ESV)

31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

and concludes by saying

Ephesians 5:32 (ESV)

32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

The Mystery of Marriage

Remember the word “mystery” means something that was previously hidden but now revealed. Paul is apply that dynamic to the institution of marriage.

Marriage in Genesis 2 anticipates the cross of Jesus Christ!

Marriage anticipates and embodies the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

That’s why marriage is sacred. That’s why God’s design really matters.

Marriage provides that framework wherein we can be fully seen and truly loved. Intimacy and communion as you’re heart has always desired.

But that gift of intimacy - as good as it is - was only ever a sign pointing you to something greater. Someone greater. The love of your heavenly Father demonstrated through Christ.

So enough with the negative comments about marriage. Enough of the cheap shots and degradation.

We, the people of God, have an opportunity to become counter-cultural in our approach to marriage. Through that commitment we can offer something better. It’s not just something different. It’s something better.