1. COVENANT

LAST WE WE LEARNED THAT MARRIAGE IS:

Marriage is not just a piece of paper it is a covenant.

Why isn’t it ideal just to go to the courthouse and have a judge say a few words over you?

Symbol of Christ love for the church.

Symbol of heaven as a great wedding

Symbol of Christ commitment to us in our commitment to each other.

II. THE FIRST MARRIAGE

GENESIS 1: 27: GOD CREATED HUMAN BEINGS IN HIS OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD HE CREATED THEM; MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM.

Genesis 2: 23 At last the man exclaimed. This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken from man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked but they felt no shame.

Purpose made in the image of God to reflect the glory of God

Lost this through sin, but can still be united with God because of Jesus Christ.

Restored through the death of Jesus Romans 6: 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

Ephesians 5: 31 – 32 As the Scriptures say, ” A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. This is a great mystery but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

The image of a couple becoming one is a mystery of Christ uniting himself to the church.

Mystery = not something that we have to try and figure out, but a great truth revealed. More like WOW. Look at that

III. BECOMING ONE.

Word for two becoming one is actually two words

  1. glued together reflect each other See each other in a mirror
  2. process of coming together. Travel toward a goal.

Example of Christ, we become holy (Justified) when we start a relationship with Jesus. Then we are made holy (Sanctified) as the fruits of the spirit (love joy peace patience) take over our lives.

married we become one during the ceremony, but the process of becoming one takes a lifetime.

First few years of marriage so eye opening, not because I am learning things about my spouse, but because I am learning things about myself.

  1. 24 hour surveillance
  2. My weakness are open to my spouse
  3. EXAMPLE: see myself as patient and forgiving until I see an empty ice tray in the freezer or toothpaste squeezed in the middle instead of the bottom.

Sin of Adam and Eve exposed their nakedness and they no longer liked being exposed in front of their spouse.

They made fig leaves… We…

  1. Criticize instead of praising
  2. We become users instead of servants (What’s on Television? Dust)
  3. We use knowledge of sin to crush and expose our mates weaknesses.

IV OTHER LOVES

2 Corinthians 11: 2b, 3 I promised you as a pure spotless bride to one husband– Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent.

Other loves come into our lives.

1 Corinthians 6; 15 – 20 Not all sin is the same. Sexual sin is against the temple of Christ.

  1. Pornography thought process to take the place of our spouse. (Matthew 5 adultery of mind same thing in God’s view. THE INTIMACY OF SEXUAL UNION IS REPLACED WITH TECHNIQUE MAGAZINES)
  2. Emotional adultery rewrite our situations so we don’t sound so evil person at work understands me. WE CREATE A FANTASY AND TALK ABOUT THINGS I AM INTERESTED IN INSTEAD OF CHILDREN (THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN TOO SO I GUESS YOUR SPOUSE THINKS YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THEM TOO. We love our spouses by listening to them rather than bored
  3. We can cleave to our children instead of our spouse. so many divorces after 25 years of marriage because children are gone.
  4. ALL OF THESE DEAL WITH THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE BETTER THAN WHAT I HAVE HERE. I choose to become one with someone else WHY?

Just a few of things that happen when we are exposed to our spouses and we don’t like what we see.

Key Point: We don’t fall out of love, we fall out of repentance.

V. PERSEVERANCE

HEBREWS 10: 36 We need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

Perseverance in our marriages to become who God intends for us to be

Experts claim 9 – 14 years of marriage before it becomes normal in our lives.

By knowing this union with my wife, I can understand God’s union to me. By serving her I can understand how God served me. By spending time in stores I am not interested in, I can understand how God listens to my ramblings of stupidity

Have to mention one more thing

VI HARDENED HEARTS

Matthew 19 Jesus is asked about marriage in the terms of homosexuality

  1. It is male and female Vs 4 Man joined to his wife
  2. Not split apart what God defined (Divorce)
  3. God permitted divorce because we have hard hearts. Permitting of union of homosexual couples. Maybe financial reasons permitted in constitution, but not the Title Marriage
  4. What if not attracted to the opposite sex? God made some people eunuchs.

Some things taken by force, some others stolen from us, others slip away but the most disgraceful loss is that which arises from our own negligence.