Marriage as a Covenant Relationship: Wisdom from Proverbs

In our Bible study earlier this morning, we were focused on next steps for new believers. And one of the things we were talking about in our Bible study is how important it is to get into the Word of God. We know that God has given us the Bible, which is His inspired Word of God. That is the written Word. And Jesus is the living Word. And Jesus taught us if we want to walk with Him, if we want to grow as a Christian, we have to abide, we have to remain in Him. And one of the foundational ways we do that is getting into the Word, spending time in the Word of God. That’s how we know who God is and His plans and His promises and His purposes for us. And so as we begin the message this morning, I want to encourage you to spend time in the Word of God. If you don’t have a Bible, we can get you a Bible. But I want to encourage you, get a Bible and maybe begin reading the book of Genesis, maybe begin reading the Gospel of John, but get into the Bible and begin having an experience with God. Because I know this is what God did in my life. When I was just a boy or a teenager, I’d read a chapter a night and what would begin to happen is it started to be more than just ink and paper. God’s Word started speaking to me, like God started talking to me as I was reading the Word of God. So I want to encourage you to get a Bible and get into the Word of God. Will you stand with me this morning? And as we continue our series out of Proverbs, this morning the message is entitled Marriage in the Bible, a Covenant Relationship. And I want to read this morning from Genesis chapter 2, verse 18 through 25. This is kind of the classic Christian or biblical explanation of marriage, okay? So you might go to a lot of churches and go through a whole year of sermons and never hear a basic message on marriage. But this morning, that’s what we’re going to get. We’re going to get just a basic understanding from God’s Word of marriage. Let me read starting in verse 18. This should be Genesis, Genesis chapter 2, verse 18. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. Verse 25, Adam and Eve, Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for the beautiful picture of marriage that we have in the book of Genesis and throughout the Bible. Lord, I pray today that you would restore in our own hearts and our own minds the reality and the possibility that you have instituted in marriage. Lord, there’s a special relationship that you have designed called marriage. It’s like no other relationship on the planet. When a man and a woman come together and make a covenant before God, they become a power couple and together they can do anything, but divided they fall. Lord, I pray in Jesus name that you would give us a, just a new hope in marriage. Lord, we’re living in a culture that doesn’t believe in marriage anymore. We’re living in a, in a world that has given up on the covenant relationship of marriage and I pray, pray this morning for, for young and old alike that we would have your heart and we would see your heart for marriage in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Lord bless you as you’re seated. I want to begin just having some fun. So I found this document called the 25 fun facts about what, what makes men and women different and I’ll just get it out there. Yes, I do believe that men and women are different. Have you noticed? But when I shared with someone earlier this week that I was going to share 25 fun facts about what makes men and women different, uh, after a little bit of laughter, I decided to reduce it to just the top five or just some of the five. Okay. So I’m just going to share five differences. Well, number one, men typically have thicker skin by about 25%. Who would have guessed that? Secondly, here’s another difference. Men have denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments than women. Uh, third on average, men typically have more muscle mass than women, but women’s muscles more readily resist fatigue and are faster to recover. That’s pretty cool. Here was an interesting one. The second longest finger for most women is the index finger next to the thumb. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t, but men usually have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger. So everybody needs to just take a look at that. Okay. So most men, your, your ring finger is longer than your index finger anyways. And then of course, brain differences, male and female brains are structured differently. And if you’ve been married, if any of you are married and willing to admit it this morning, you know that that’s true. Men and women think differently. Women generally have stronger side to side inner hemispheric connections. Men show stronger front to back connectivity, optimizing them for task focused projects and action oriented thinking. That’s also why when you try to get a man to do more than one thing at once, he really can’t do it. He might tell you, I can do this and listen, but it’s really, really difficult. Well, I hope you think that’s fun. I thought it was fun. And I just wanted to emphasize that God has created men and women differently. And in marriage that doesn’t have to compete, but it can compliment that when we both man and woman come under the authority of Jesus, we can compliment one another and work together and we become a power couple for the Lord and we don’t have to live in division or competition with one another. And we’ll come back to that. Relationships are important to God. Malachi chapter two, verse 14 reads like this, the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. She is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. And we know that Jesus also affirmed this idea that marriage is between a man and a woman for life. In Matthew chapter 19, verse six, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Here’s Malachi chapter two, verse four. And as you’re looking at that, I just want to remind us that in the new Testament, there are 59 times when we read about a one another. In other words, be at peace with one another, wash one another’s feet, love one another, outdo one another in showing honor, live in harmony with one another, let us not pass judgment on one another, welcome one another, instruct one another, greet one another, have the same concern for one another, and on and on and on. You see, God is a God of relationships. If you’ve ever considered the Trinity, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he’s one, but he’s three in one. If you’ve ever thought about that or considered the concept of the Trinity, the Trinity helps us understand that God in his nature is a God of relationship. And he’s created us for relationship. You were designed for relationship. So this morning, whether you’re married, or you’ve been married, or you hope to be married, all of us are relational creatures. And there’s something that you can learn this morning, even as I’m talking about marriage, there’s something that you can learn and take away just about relationship, because God has designed you to be a relational person, to love others, to consider others more important than yourself. And I want to say, I’m on that journey. I’m still learning how to relate with others, and how to love others, how to care for others. And that’s one of the beautiful aspects of growing in Christ. And so I hope you’re there with me this morning. We can all learn to value what God values. He’s a God of relationship, and he values relationship, and he values covenant. Now what is a covenant? A covenant is more than a contract. In fact, when the Bible speaks of a covenant, it’s usually a blood covenant. Now there were some other kinds of covenants in the Old Testament. There was a salt covenant. Have you ever read the story of the book of Ruth, and right at the end when someone takes off a shoe to make a covenant? Well there’s also what’s called a shoe covenant. Like if you were going to make a real estate deal in the ancient Near East, you would take your shoe off, and the shoe would be some type of sign. I need to go study that out some more, because I’m not really sure what the shoe symbolized. But it was a shoe covenant. Well there’s also a salt covenant in the Old Testament. And a salt covenant, the idea was if we made a deal, you would carry a little package, a little bit of salt, and you would put some of your salt in my salt, and you would put some of your salt in mine. And it was this idea that once you mix the salt, you can’t break it apart. Well a blood covenant is very much like that also, because if you go back and study the covenant, for example, that God made with Abraham in Genesis 15, and then repeated in chapter 17 of Genesis, God put Abraham to sleep, and before he put him to sleep, he had him cut animals in half. And then the Bible tells us that God walked between those animals and basically made a covenant with himself saying, I’m going to do this. But the implication and the actual word, the Hebrew word for covenant, is to cut a covenant. So it’s this idea that if you break the covenant, the same thing is going to happen to you that just happened to these animals. In other words, it’s a blood covenant. You can’t break it. If you try to break it, it’s going to destroy you. Friends, that’s marriage. That’s God’s idea of marriage, that when God brings you together, Matthew chapter 19, verse 6, what God has put together, let no man separate. The idea of marriage is so much more than just living together, right? It’s so much more than just having a friend. It’s so much more than just two guys having some experiences at war, and they come home from war, and now they’re a band of brothers because they’ve shared those experiences, or they’ve been on a football team together, or the girlfriend’s having a special relationship. The relationship of marriage is different. Why? Because it’s a blood covenant that was made before God. And when you come together and you make that covenant, you can’t break it without there being significant damage. And we know that as a nation. And many of you, you know that this morning. And I say that with great compassion because many of us here in this room or in our city or in our state, we’ve gone through the process of getting married, going through a divorce. We’ve suffered those emotional hurts and wounds. I just want to say to all of us, even as I preach on God’s ideal for marriage, I want to remind you this morning, God loves you wherever you’re at. He has compassion for what you’re going through, for what you’ve been through. And at any moment that you want to turn your situation in your life over to the Lord, He will help you right where you’re at. So this morning, I’m going to be preaching out of Genesis 2 and looking at God’s ideal for marriage. But I want you to know that I’m aware we don’t always experience the ideal in life. In fact, you may be here this morning going, Pastor, I know you’re going to talk on marriage, but I’m married and things aren’t going that great. And I’m not really experiencing the ideal that’s in scripture. And so I would just prefer if we talked about something else, right? I can tell you as well as a pastor, I’ve always had this experience that as soon as you start preparing a message on marriage, you know what happens? The enemy starts coming and riling up your marriage. And I usually, whenever I’m going to preach on marriage, I have to say, honey, will you pray for me? Will you pray for me? Because it’s just like, you start getting ready to preach on marriage and before you know it, something’s going on in your life that’s bringing out some issue or challenge or problem. And you’re like, yeah, I don’t think I’m qualified. I don’t think I’m qualified to preach on marriage. Because marriage takes work, doesn’t it? It takes God’s help and it takes work. But I just want you to know wherever you are this morning in this relationship journey, turn it over to the Lord, invite Jesus to come into your relationships, to your marriage, and he will help you. So this morning, we’re going to look at some general truths about marriage in the Bible. But specifically today, we’re in Genesis chapter two. Next week, we’ll probably be in Ephesians five or some other places. But this morning, we’re in Genesis chapter two, verse 18 through 25. And I want to talk to us about God’s purpose for marriage, God’s purpose for marriage. Number one, God’s purpose for marriage is companionship. God designed, God has given us the gift of marriage, because he knows that we need friendship, companionship, togetherness. Look with me at verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. That’s the New Living Translation. And of course, we know that most, if you look at your translation, most of the time, it’s translated helper suitable or helper comparable, and I’ll come back to that. But let me just emphasize that the first time in the creation narrative, Genesis one through three, the first time anything was noticed that it wasn’t good is right here in verse 18. So as you flip back in your Bible to Genesis chapter one, verse 31, in the first chapter of Genesis, we have a creation story that in some ways, let me say it like this, Genesis one is more of like an airplane flying at 50,000 feet looking down and saying this is what God created. But as you turn over to Genesis chapter two, the name for God changes and the verbs for create change. And now in Genesis chapter two, it’s not just Elohim. It’s not just Elohim. That’s God. It’s Yahweh Elohim. It’s the personal name of God. So it’s not just chapter one is God did this. God said, God said chapter two is the Lord God. And now when he creates, it’s a different verb. It’s a Hebrew verb that means to fashion, to form. And so now with a picture we have in Genesis two is God is very involved creating his special creation, mankind, male and female. He’s forming them with his own hands. And again, it’s not just Elohim. It’s Yahweh Elohim. The Yahweh is the personal name for God that Jewish people won’t even pronounce. Like they won’t even if they’re writing it, they won’t write out the whole because it is so sacred. They won’t write out the whole word. And so in chapter two, we have this personal God who’s coming down to form into fashion mankind, male and female. But at the end of chapter one in Genesis chapter one, the last thing we hear is it’s very good. So God has created the whole world. He’s created the whole universe, light and day and plants and animals. And Genesis one says God looked at all that he made and it was not just good, but very good. You know, sometimes when I’m out camping or fishing or just enjoying the outdoors, something deep within me just echoes that theological truth. This is very good. This world is beautiful. If you’ve ever gone on vacation and been to the Grand Canyon or to the mountains or to the ocean, there’s just something that echoes in all of us because, you know, this is a beautiful place. And again, as Artemis two has just recently gone to the moon and back as I followed a little bit of that, I was again just amazed at how God has placed the stars and the sun, the moon, the earth in its perfect place and all the orbits. And it’s amazing that if anything was just a little off, there’d be no life on this planet. But God has just created this beautiful, you know, Psalms eight talks about this, how beautiful creation is. And it’s just a reflection of the goodness of God and the beauty of God. But the first time in Scripture that we read that something wasn’t good, it’s when Adam was alone. God said, that’s not that’s not good. And if you’ve ever felt the sting like I have of loneliness. Again, I just want to say to you this morning, turn that over to the Lord. Don’t don’t if you’re lonely today or you’re going through a lonely season in your life. God understands and he wants to help you through it. When I go through lonely seasons in my own life, one of the first things I do is I I reach out to the Lord and then I reach out to somebody else. And if you’re feeling lonely today or you’re going through a season where you wish you had a someone in your life or you wish you were married or whatever it may be, or perhaps you just buried someone that you love. And it’s it’s creating you’re having memories of them that remind you how much you love them. But still, it’s leaving you with this feeling of loneliness. God understands your loneliness. And he wants to help fill that gap, he wants to help fill that sense of loneliness. And this is marriage, marriage is given to us because God said to be alone. For Adam was not good. Then God said, it is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper who is just right for him, I liked the New Living translation. But again, the Hebrew here is this idea of helper compatible. There’s two Hebrew words here. And it’s interesting if you go through the Bible and I’m just going to thumb over to Exodus chapter 18, verse four in the Bible, God is also called a helper and the Holy Spirit is called a helper in John chapter 14, John chapter 16. And so if if in your mind you kind of have the idea that the woman is in some way now physically, we might say, yes, weaker. But but the the the idea here of helper is someone who brings strength, someone who brings a lot of strength to the man. And so it’s not it’s not a picture, it’s not a word picture of someone who is weak, but it’s a word picture of someone who’s strong. So I want every woman in the place say, I am strong. Right, because that’s that’s what this word is saying. So it’s easier or easier, it’s easier in the Hebrew. And it’s this idea that the woman comes and brings aid, the woman comes and brings companionship and and counsel and help and support. And so that’s who the woman is when she becomes a wife to the to the man who’s a husband is the woman comes alongside and brings strength, just like the God of Israel. Look at Exodus chapter 18, verse four. And this is where Moses, I’m going to start in verse two, Moses is naming a couple of his kids, it says in verse two, Exodus 18, after Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her and her two sons. One son was named Gershom for Moses said, I have become a foreigner in a foreign land. And the other was named Eliezer. Now, do you see the last four letters E-Z-E-R? That’s the Hebrew for helper, Eliezer, for he said, my father’s God was my helper. So here is Moses referring to God in the same way Moses, when he was writing the narrative, the creation story is referring to Eve. Wow. And we know that in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is the paraclete. The Holy Spirit is a helper. And I want to turn over to one other place. Second Corinthians chapter seven. Second, I’m sorry, second Corinthians chapter one, verse three through five, and here’s the apostle Paul and he’s calling God the God of all comfort. Now, what’s unique here is that the word for comfort is paracletus, which is connected to the word helper, paraclete. So now Paul in the New Testament, second Corinthians chapter one is referring to God as a comforter. And we know that’s what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit comforts and helps and guides and counsel and provides aid. So look with me at verse three. Praise be to the Lord or praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort. He’s he’s the God of all paracletus. He comes alongside you, not just to sympathize with you. Although if I can take this back to marriage, sometimes, honey, I just need you to sympathize with me. Isn’t that true? If you’ve got a good friend, isn’t that what a good friend does? Sometimes you just they just give you somebody to talk to and they can just sympathize with you. But that’s not actually what this word means. When Paul in second Corinthians chapter one is saying, God of all comfort, who comforts us and all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. What Paul is actually saying is that God, like the Holy Spirit, comes alongside of us, not just to sympathize and leave us in our troubles, but he comes alongside us and strengthens us in the midst of trouble to help us overcome. He gives us aid. And that is a similar word going back to Exodus 18 for and Genesis chapter two, verse 18. That is this helper that is suitable. And so there’s the word helper and then there’s this Hebrew word that can be translated suitable or compatible. And it really means one who is opposite, but one who is comparable. What a beautiful picture of Adam and Eve, man and woman, as they come together to be husband and wife. And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there are other ancient Near Eastern creation myths. There’s at least three that I was reading about this week, Babylonian, Mesopotamian creation myths, stories that in some way scholars will say, oh, there’s some similarities. But as you read through them, the differences are glaring. So, in other words, in these other ancient Near Eastern myths about creation, they’re all polytheistic. And really, the focus of the story is not about mankind. It’s about gods, many gods fighting each other for trying to see who’s the greatest god. That’s what those stories. So they’re polytheistic, not monotheistic. The beauty of the Genesis record is Moses tells us that there is one God who’s creator of heaven and earth. There’s not many gods. There’s one God. And we know that this is continued as a theme throughout scripture. When you get to the Hebrew Shema, hear, oh, Israel, the Lord, your God is one. He’s one God. He’s the God of the universe. He’s the true God. He’s a living God. He’s not a God you’ve made with your own hands. He’s not a God that you’ve built some idol and then named him and said, OK, that’s going to be my God. No, even though we today in our culture, we try to do that, don’t we? We try to create our own gods. We want God to meet our needs and we want God to be the God we want. And we don’t want God to tell us anything that we don’t want to hear. You see, but if God’s really the living God, he’s going to tell you some things you don’t want to hear. If he’s the God of the Bible, he’s the living and true God. He’s the king of kings. He’s the Lord of Lords. And he’s going to tell you some things that are going to prick your conscience. He’s going to tell you some things that that you’re going to go away and go, I don’t know if I like that. That’s the God of the Bible. But in these ancient Near Eastern myth or stories, another thing that is so remarkable as I’ve looked through them and read about them is they don’t particularly have a high view of mankind, not like Genesis. Genesis is remarkable in that as you read through the creation story, it’s clear that God gives special attention to humanity. He’s created you, Genesis 1, 27 and 28, in the image of God. You are an image bearer with the ability to represent him on the planet, to reflect his goodness and his holiness. You have been created in the image of God. And I love it there in verse 28, that he created them male and female. It wasn’t just the male that was created in the image of God. I mean, friends, this is an ancient book. Wouldn’t you expect with all the paternalism and all of this ancient writing and how old it is, wouldn’t you have expected that it would have said something like, well, Adam was created in the image of God, but maybe not Eve. It’s not there. Eve is elevated to the same status. She is an equal partaker in dominion, in rule, in being fruitful, in taking dominion over the planet. That’s the the God of the Bible. That’s what he tells us, that he has given special attention to humanity, both male and female. And let me just add, there’s nowhere in the Bible that it talks about any other gender. It’s male and it’s female. There’s nowhere else in the Bible that you can discover that truth. And in fact, let me just underline that to say in our current culture, there’s a lot of effort and a lot of teaching and trying to get people somehow to be OK with that other relationships can be equal to marriage. But there is nowhere in scripture that any other relationship is elevated to the level of marriage, like one man and one woman coming together for life, forming a family. That’s marriage, that’s biblical marriage, there is no you can have a special relationship with your girlfriend, you can have a special relationship on a ball team with a bunch of guys and have memories that maybe you don’t have with your spouse. But there is no relationship like the marriage relationship in God’s eyes. And so marriage is given to us. I’ll keep moving. Marriage is given to us for companionship and we need companionship. It’s how we’re designed. It was not good for the man to be alone. Secondly, marriage is designed for leaving. And here’s I’m just going to very quickly work through leaving and cleaving and weaving a life together and then receiving. So marriage is designed for for leaving. Look with me, verse 24, for this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother. And this is so important, if we’re going to experience what God has for us in marriage, is that marriage, the the the spousal relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, is more important than their relationship with their children. It’s more important than the relationship with their friends. Early on as a pastor, when I would help couples in marriage, they would come in and I would listen. And as soon as I started hearing that a young couple was not changing their habits, in other words, he still wanted to go out on Friday night with his guy friends and she still wanted to go do all her things with her girlfriends. And I knew, oh, something didn’t shift. They’re still prioritizing their friends over their marriage. And other times you hear of people who just can’t let go of the strings of of the in-laws, right, you know, and and it is important to recognize that when you get married, the person you marry is coming from another background. They have parents and you need to try to honor that and respect that and build that up. That’s important in marriage. But what Genesis 2, 24 is helping us understand is that if you want to experience the covenant marriage that God has called you to, you have to leave before you can cleave. Right. You’ve got to leave your father and mother. So you have to leave their traditions. You have to leave their influence. It doesn’t mean you have to move hundreds of miles away. It just means you have a new relationship called marriage and you have to prioritize that relationship over all other relationships. Yes, I remember early on in marriage, just to share a quick illustration, I brought my back in those days, we didn’t have a computer. I’m sorry. Yeah, we didn’t have a computer or TV. And I think we were married five years before we got a TV. But I remember I brought a computer home from work one day and Jenny said, you can take that back to work. We were married about two or three years, maybe the first year. I don’t know. And of course, I was always anxious to work and this and that. But she rightly so said, no, at home we’re focused on us. We’re focused on us. We’re going to prioritize our relationship. And friends, let me just say, I know I know what the Bible says is talking about leaving your father and mother. And I think we get that. But some of us need to lay down our mobile phones. Some of us need to leave the technology alone for a little while so that we can actually focus on the relationship. You know, it’s amazing how challenging even without technology getting in the way, how challenging sometimes just building a relationship and sustaining that relationship can be if you’re busy and if you have financial stress and you got dishes to do and you got kids to take care of and you got responsibilities before long, you’re hollering at each other in each room. You’re not even coming into the same room to talk. And one person sitting at the kitchen table trying to talk and the other person has got their back to you while they’re doing dishes. Friends, that’s no way to have a relationship or many of us, many of us, we are struggling to put our phones down. Right, we’re like we’re like trying to have an important conversation. I remember when I was a kid, the joke was, is somebody having the newspaper, you know, and you’re sitting in your chair with a newspaper and then maybe the husband or wife, maybe usually the wife is trying to talk to you. Yes, honey. Yes, dear. Well, that’s that’s no way to have a healthy communication. You got to put the you got to put the newspaper down. And so what what God’s word is teaching us here in Genesis chapter two, verse 24, is that if we want to have a healthy marriage, the marriage God has designed for us, if we want to have healthy relationships, there’s some things we’ve got to leave behind. And so marriage is designed for leaving. If you want to learn in your relationship how to cleave and how to weave a life together and how to actually receive one from another, you’ve got to be willing to leave your parents behind. And no, that doesn’t mean dishonor them or forget them. It just means that your marriage has to take priority. Your marriage has to be the priority. And then you look for ways together to build new traditions that are just unique to you and you look for ways to honor your siblings and honor your your parents. But they don’t take priority. Another truth is marriage is designed for cleaving. Genesis, look with me there, chapter two, verse 24, it goes on to talk about being united. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife. That’s the idea of cleaving. And this Hebrew word for cleaving is to cling. I mean, it’s really a it’s not a word we even like, you know, this idea of we tend to use that negatively. Well, that’s kind of a clingy person. Well, guess what? If you’re married to that clingy person, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re supposed to be clinging to each other. You you have come together and you have united in your emotions, in your mind, in your finances. Everything in your life is about one another and you’re clinging to one another. You’re cleaving. You’re coming together to experience the new life that God has provided you. The Hebrew word here is actually dabak, and it can be translated to cling, to cleave, adhere, stick, join. And so what is marriage in a biblical perspective? Well, it’s a new union. You grew up in the home you grew up. She grew up in the home she grew up in. But when you come together, you leave that behind and you create a new world. You create a new family. You create a new household and a new relationship. And so cleaving is all about unity. I want to just challenge you if you’re married either one year or 50 years, 60 years. Unity is what God has intended for your relationship. Unity is a real possibility. You can experience unity in your relationship. Gary Chapman, he suggests five categories of true intimacy in his book. Five signs of a functional. Where to go, five signs of a functional family. And here they are. So if you want to have unity in your marriage, you need to develop intimacy. What’s intimacy? Well, another way to say it is intimacy, right? Think about that. So intimacy is this idea. It’s actually comes from, I think, the Latin word that means intimus or is the Latin word intimus. And it’s this idea of transparency. So when you have unity in your marriage, you don’t have to hide. You know, you can be transparent, you can be real. In fact, one of the great things about marriage is you’re able to say to that person that is clinging to you, they’re committed to you, is that you know me, but you still love me. Right, it’s like, you know, me, like, you know, my strengths, my weaknesses, all of my rough edges, my tendencies, you’ve seen me get upset. You’ve seen me be so passive. I have nothing to say. And you wonder why, you know, you’ve seen all that, but you still are committed to me. That’s biblical marriage. That’s the unity that God wants for our marriages. Gary Chapman in his book talks about five different ways we can build intimacy. One is intellectual intimacy. When you share your thoughts with me, I feel close to you. Emotional intimacy. When we discuss our feelings, we feel close to each other. Social intimacy. When we spend time together and discuss time we have spent apart, I feel close to you. Let me just give you a word of wisdom here, a word of caution, perhaps as well. It’s not abnormal. It’s not abnormal if you go spend time with your sister or your brother for your spouse to say, how’d it go? That’s normal that you shouldn’t feel like that’s prying. That’s what’s called social intimacy. Now, if your spouse says, well, we talked about some things that I want to just leave between you and I, you should respect that. But here’s what’s abnormal. Here’s what’s unhealthy. You’re married, but you want to have whole portions of your life that he or she has nothing to do with. Friends, that is not marriage. I’m married, but my finances are my finances. That’s not marriage. I’m married, but what I do on Friday night with the boys has nothing to do with you, friends, that’s not Christian marriage, right? It’s going to lead to trouble. Marriage is when two people come together and they’re leaving friends behind. They’re leaving parents behind. They’re leaving work behind. Even they’re leaving all these other commitments and saying those are less important than my marriage. You are the most important person in my life. My commitment under God with you is more important than anything else. Then you can begin to cleave, you can begin to cling to one another and build that unity that you want, that will bless you and that honors God. So I want to just share a couple of thoughts. How do you speak unity into your marriage? Because I think the things we say has a lot to do this. Number one, you can speak truthful words with love. Ephesians chapter four, verse 15, speak truthful words with love. And this is also in Proverbs, Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And so Proverbs teaches us again and again that the things you say and we need to are important and they can bless or they can curse. And we all need to learn how to speak truth in love. Sometimes we’re quicker just to compromise, accommodate. Oh, I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Well, it’s going to be worse five years from now if you don’t actually tell them what you’re thinking or feeling. We’ve got to learn how to speak truth and love. We can also speak calm words with patience, especially if they’re getting riled up. Come on. You know, one of the hardest things in marriage is if you have two volatile people, it goes like this very quickly. So in those relationships, you have to learn how when my spouse gets upset, I’ve got to talk more quietly, not she’s upset. I’m upset. He’s upset. I’m upset because that can get out of control very quickly. So speak calm words with patience. Proverbs 51, a gentle answer turns away wrath of Ephesians 426 and your anger do not sin. We can also speak encouraging words with wisdom. Isn’t it amazing that in the power of the tongue, you can just by the things you say either build up or tear down the one you love? And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely learned in marriage and in all relationships, once you say some things, you can’t take them back, you can try, you can say, I’m sorry, I wish I wouldn’t have said that, but the wound is there, especially when we’re labeling or name calling or saying you’re just like that person or you always do. Very difficult to take that back. And so it’s much better just to speak calm words with patience, to speak encouraging words with wisdom. And fourth, we can speak grace, feel filled words with humility. Look at Proverbs 12, verse 18. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrust, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. So I want to encourage you, if you want to cleave in your marriage, ask God to help you in the things you’re speaking. Ask God to help you in the things that you’re saying to your spouse, because if you can learn to speak words of truth with love and calm words with patience and encouraging words with wisdom and grace filled words with humility, you’re going to experience better outcomes in your marriage. You’re going to experience a true intimacy and a true unity. And cleaving, and I want you to notice this morning as we move now to weaving a life together, marriage is designed for weaving and Genesis 2, 24 says, and they will become one flesh that I didn’t wait here until this part of Genesis two to talk about intimacy. Because contrary to our culture, intimacy is a lot more about emotional and spiritual issues that are going on in your life and your relationship and your marriage than physical intimacy. The truth is getting physical is not a problem for most people. I’m just going to be honest. And if there’s a health issue, then we need to go see the doctor. But most of the time for the average person, being physically intimate is not a challenge. In fact, that’s why in our world today, the general thinking is, yeah, just go out and experiment. Just try things out sexually and be physical with other people. It’s no big deal. It won’t harm you in any way. We know from scripture that’s not true. We know from scripture that intimacy has a lot more to do with emotions and your spirit. And the Bible is clear that when you send sexually and you put yourself out there, Paul says you’re actually sinning against yourself. You’re not only harming other people, you’re you’re harming yourself. Why is that? How could that be? Well, it’s because the Bible teaches us that we are one person. We’re not just physical, separated from our spirit and our emotions are separate from our spiritual aspect. No, we’re all one. It’s all the same. And so what we do physically is going to affect our spirit and our emotions. And so when we talk about intimacy and being close with one another, here’s what I believe. As a married couple, if you are close to one another emotionally, if you are close to one another spiritually, if you pray together, if you go out of your way to show emotional concern for your spouse, physical intimacy isn’t going to be a challenge. Now, you may be sitting out there this morning and go, well, Pastor, oh, yeah, it is. And I understand that. I understand that we go through seasons or have difficulties. But here’s what I’m trying to communicate this morning. Marriage is designed for weaving a life together. How do we do that? We leave, we cleave and then we begin to weave. And yes, the physical relationship is like the fire. And if you think of a family room, I’m going to share this illustration that I heard from James Dobson. If you think of a fireplace in the middle of a family room. And it’s cold outside and it’s snowing and and or even just at a campsite, have you ever been at a campsite and seen how everybody just kind of gathers around the fire? That is a picture of emotional and spiritual and yes, physical intimacy that God has given to marriage. It causes everybody some joy. Everybody just wants to kind of gather on the fire. But if you took some and going back to the house, if you took in that family room some coals from that fire and began to throw it around the family room, what’s going to happen? It’s going to burn the house down. You see, that’s what happens in people’s life today when we try to express ourself physically, sexually, but we don’t do it God’s way. We bring destruction on ourselves rather than the blessings and the joy of God. Marriage is designed for companionship, is designed for leaving and cleaving. It’s also designed for weaving a life together. And this will take your whole life. It seems like in verse 23, Adam gets a picture of what this is going to be like when he says this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. You can almost sense the joy and the excitement that Adam’s feeling as he has gone from being all alone to now God has created Eve and here’s someone just like me. She can help me. She can be my companion, my friend, my confidant. She can give me counsel. She can bring strength to my life. She can help me as I go through this journey of life. There’s no longer two. Now there’s just one. You know, if you think about relationships and how they work at first, there’s two people in a crowd not noticing each other. And then there’s two people in a crowd who notice one another. And before long, they’re interacting, but they’re still kind of just side by side. Jenny, would you come up here? This is really off the cuff here, but I kind of want to demonstrate this, OK? So here’s here’s how I see relationships. I’m putting you on the spot here, OK? So but at first we’re just two people. We don’t really notice each other. Yeah, that’s how it was. I’m telling you, I had to work very hard. We were just two Hickman High School students and just minding our business. We had a few classes together, right? You need a microphone. Let’s make this more fun. No, you know, because she doesn’t know what I’m even doing, OK? So at first you’re just two people in a crowd, you don’t. But then you kind of notice each other. Yeah. Hey, look, look, you there. And before long, before long, you know, you’ve come a little closer and there’s still the crowd. Right. But you’ve kind of become closer. And then before long, you’re kind of deciding we want to have a relationship with each other. And then before long, it’s like I don’t even notice that the crowd is there. And then life becomes this, oh, made him happy, at least. But life then becomes this leaving. Cleaving, but now there’s the weaving of life together. And here’s what I wanted to illustrate. Jenny and I used to do this now. I hope this won’t cause anybody to leave the church. But at home, Jenny and I used to like to dance together. So we would at home and I find when we would dance and when our kids were very little, I’ve, you know, two to five, six. And, you know, we had diapers for 15 years and but when the kids were very little and they would see us do that, you know what they would do, they would form a circle hug around us. Right. Because they would see that joy. Right. And before you know it, you’ve got two kids on your legs and you’re trying to dance around. Right. Have fun. But that’s what I’m trying to illustrate here this morning. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Jenny. So when we read those words and they will become one flesh, all we’re thinking, all sex, come on, pastor, let’s move on. That’s not really all that that is. Yes, our sexuality, I’m going to preach at least one message on that, come on up here real soon, sexuality and identity. Because the Bible’s perspective on your sexuality is that it is not just a physical expression. It is a part of your inner person. It’s who you are. And so when you begin to express yourself sexually, you need to use the wisdom of God. You need to make sure you’re doing it in a way that God will bless so that you don’t bring harm on another person or on yourself. But this picture of emotional and spiritual intimacy. Is like that fire in a fireplace that can warm a family room and keep everyone joyful and happy to be there. But if you start throwing that around, it just brings destruction. But when you’re able to live out that sense of closeness with one another, it brings joy to children, to grandchildren, to friends. And, you know, last Sunday we preached on faithfulness. That’s all a part of it as well. When you’re faithful to one another, God can can bring that joy. So it takes a lifetime. I believe. To weave, you’re constantly weaving this life together, you’re leaving, you’re cleaving, but your whole life, you are weaving a life together. And then the fifth truth is this that we’ll end with this morning is that marriage is designed for receiving the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. What a beautiful statement. Last night, as again, we were celebrating a son-in-law’s birthday at our house and privilege that he came over and. We were talking about the innocence of a child and this idea of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree and and how that, you know, being ignorant is bliss. And so one of as we were talking, I think it was Jessica, one of my daughter, my daughter was saying just that one was was saying, you know, I think maybe that comes from this this maybe that is biblical, that ignorance is bliss. There’s no scripture that says that. But it’s like, well, maybe that is biblical because being ignorant of some things is really pretty cool. You know, like you’re innocent, you know, you’ve never experienced guilt or shame, and that that’s the picture here that that when a man and a woman come together and and they’ve come together under the blessing of God. There there there is a sense of blessing and innocence and and there’s there’s no shame, there’s no guilt, there’s just freedom and transparency and trust and closeness and companionship. That’s the picture of what we have here in verse twenty five. Marriage is designed for receiving. So so when there isn’t any shame or guilt and there’s just joy and there’s trust, that’s when as you’re weaving your life together, you can begin to give and receive from each other. You can begin to give and receive joy. And that’s when you’re able to experience the life that God is calling you to live as a marriage couple. I’d like to have someone just to slip to the piano and I want to just mention a couple of thoughts as we begin to close. There’s so many wonderful truths in the Bible about marriage, and I’m going to continue this theme next week, so if if you were intrigued by this message on marriage, I hope you’ll come next week. But the Bible is so clear that marriage is good and it’s blessed by God. Proverbs 18, 22, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Marriage is also designed to make you holy, not just happy. I’m going to preach on that a little bit next Sunday out of Ephesians. Isn’t that an interesting thought that maybe God brings us together in marriage not just to make us happy, although I don’t think anyone gets married to be miserable, right? We get married because we do believe there’s happiness there. But God wants us to grow. He wants us to change. He wants us to mature. And so marriage is designed to make us holy as much as it is to make us happy. And we’ll look at that at Ephesians next week. Another thing that’s important about biblical marriage is marriage is good for children. All this, all the sociological statistics tell us this, a man and a woman who come together in covenant relationship, stay together through thick and thin, through the difficulties of life. This is good for children. Marriage, the New Testament tells us, can be a model for Christ’s love for the church. And so why are we talking about marriage? Some of you are out there going, well, pastor, that’s not really a part of my life right now or I don’t. It doesn’t really impact me. We’re talking about marriage because Jesus said that marriage is a picture of his love for the church. So if we get that wrong, we’re going to get loving Jesus wrong and him loving the church wrong. The last thing I would say just in general about marriage is I want to make sure everyone hears me say living single honors God. Paul, of course, deals with this in first Corinthians chapter seven, but Matthew chapter 19, verse 12, Jesus also dealt with this, saying that some are even called to the life of being single. And so I just want to put that out there, that you can be blessed by God. You can honor God living a single life. You don’t have to be married in order to receive God’s blessings in your life. God has a blessing for you. And more importantly, I believe that if it is in your heart to be married one day, the most important thing you could do is not search for that partner, but become the man or woman of God that God’s called you to be. Walk in the blessing of God as a child of God, become the person that God wants you to be. And God will bring that person into your life at the right time and in the right situation. Marriage is so important for us as Christians, but also in the church. And I think it’s important because in our marriages, we can model the love of Jesus to the world around us. There’s not a single perfect marriage here. And I know that my marriage is not perfect because I’m in it and I’m not perfect and I’ve got to grow and I’ve got to change and I’ve got to learn. But as we model the love of Jesus in our marriages, but as we model the love of Jesus in our marriages, our kids are going to see that our grandkids are going to see that friends, loved ones, acquaintances, they’re going to see that. They’re going to see your commitment. They’re going to see your faithfulness. They’re going to see your effort to love that person who is suitable for you, comparable but opposite. And as you love them, like Jesus loves the church, that’s going to be a witness. It’s like preaching the gospel. Think about that. Have you ever thought about that? Is that as you live a love affair? That’s not the right word. But just as you live out your love relationship with your spouse in covenant relationship, you’re preaching the gospel. You’re sharing the love of Jesus with those around you. But lastly, before we close in prayer, relationships, whether we speak of marriage or just relationships in general, relationships are so important in our lives. God wants to help you in your relationship. So this morning, if you’re feeling a little broken down in your relationships or are you’re willing with me to say, you know, God, I want your help. I want to have good relationships, healthy relationships. I don’t want to live in dysfunctional relationships. Then I want to invite you this morning just to ask Jesus to help you in your relationships. And he’ll do that. If your heart is open to the Savior saying, Lord Jesus, thank you for saving me and now I need some help. You’ve saved me from my sin, but I’ve still got some habits. I’ve still got some areas of my life that aren’t lining up with what you have for me. Will you help me? I want to lead us in that prayer this morning. Will you stand with me? And I’m believing that God is going to help us in our relationships. As we walk with him, will you just bow your heads? And I’m going to lead us in prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you for each person that’s here this morning. And, Lord, we pray that you would help us in our relationships to learn how to love one another, to learn how to consider others more important than ourselves, help us, Lord, with all of our personalities and rough edges, we want to honor you, Lord. Whether we’re in a marriage or whether we’re hoping to be in a marriage or whether we just ended a marriage. Lord, will you help us? In our relationships. As you continue to pray, if you’re here like me this morning and you’re willing to say, Lord Jesus, I need help in my relationships, would you just lift up your hand, say, Pastor, I need help in my relationships. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. We need wisdom, Lord. We need guidance. Thank you, Lord. Lord Jesus, you see each and every hand this morning. We need your help, Lord. We need your guidance. We need your direction. In our relationships, Lord, help us to put you first in our relationships, help us to love like Jesus loves the church, help us to love one another. Teach us, Lord, how to walk as you would have us walk. We give you all the things and all the glory in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. And of course, the greatest relationship that you could ever have is a relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you’ve never committed your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you’ve never submitted and surrendered your heart to him, I want to encourage you today is the day to do that. And so we’re going to let you go this morning. But if you need prayer, if you want to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, would you come to the front and I will pray with you and I will lead you to the Lord. Lord Jesus, we pray for your blessing on each person, each household in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you, Lord. Bless you and keep you and be gracious to you. Amen. Amen. And may his face shine upon you. Have a great have a great Sunday. God bless.