Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love, Part 2

would you pray with me Father judging by my mail and conversations many many marriages are fragile that's not news to me nor to anyone but they are precious in your sight those have believers and unbelievers are precious and God I pray that the effect of last week and this week and whatever weeks you lead forward in would be powerful in the transformation and preservation of marriage I ask that you would help me that there would be an anointing upon this word so that it would have an effect way beyond anything I could do or dream for the glory of Christ which is why marriage exists so father come and give us ears to hear hearts to embrace and me mouth to speak truth in humility guard me from error keep me faithful to your word and do a mighty work I pray in Jesus name Amen marriage is more wonderful than anybody on earth knows and in order to see it you have to see it through the revelation of God in the Bible and in order to cherish it when you see it you have to have the help of the Holy Spirit enabling you to behold and embrace the glory of God in it the reason I say that the Holy Spirit is so necessary for seeing the glory of marriage is because marriage according to the Bible is woven into the fabric of the gospel and the Bible says that to the natural man the gospel is foolishness therefore marriage deriving its meaning from the gospel is foolishness to the natural man for example Richard Dawkins getting a lot of press these days atheist wrote in Time magazine last August I have provided cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer but it does seem to me to be a worthy idea refutable but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the cross as worthy of that grandeur they strike me as parochial that is quintessential natural man so neither Richard Dawkins nor anybody in this room without the Holy Spirit can see and savour the glory of marriage woven into the fabric of Christ crucified for sinners marriage does not have its divine meaning except in connection with the New Covenant blood bought by Jesus Christ as he purchases his bride to be displayed in marriage last week I said that the most fundamental thing that you can say about marriage is that it is the doing of God and that the most ultimate thing you can say about marriage is that it is the display of God and the reason we said it was the display of God is because God in Christ he's revealing his covenant love as he sends his son to purchase a bride for him and then he designs marriage from the beginning to be a reflection in an echo of that therefore marriage has its deepest most significant most ultimate meaning as the display of covenant-keeping love Jesus Christ dying for his bride the bride cleaving to her husband Jesus that's the meaning of marriage most deeply so I concluded staying married is not about staying in love it's about covenant keeping and I am deeply thankful for what God did with that message 31 years now we've been married I entered it understanding covenant but the past few years have felt pressure to look for an elusive satisfaction instead your word is very encouraging to me to do what is right and to keep my hand to the plow Germany your last sermon about Genesis 2:18 225 confirmed me not to separate temporarily from my spouse we said that one of the perfectly legitimate responses of an aggrieved spouse to a spouse who says I have fallen in love with another person one of the legitimate responses of the church and of the spouse grieved is so what this is about covenant keeping had a man walk up to me last week and with the most quizzical look on his face said you mean God might want me to be unhappy I said number one God's wants you to be faithful and then in faithfulness measures of happiness that you never dreamed Gethsemane like will be found now to help us go deeper into what covenant-keeping looks like we're going to finish the text then I'll tell you ahead of time those worshiping downtown Sunday morning and South Campus as well as here I've changed my whole plan for the spring the elder said let's do a series on regeneration and let's do a series on marriage singleness family sex a cold cluster of ideas and because I asked what they thought about those and several other ideas and and my mind was I will build a foundation with the doctrine of regeneration and then we will do we will do this well I'm turning it around so this is this here this is this has just become a series I have at least four sermons in my mind after this one so just if you don't like marriage talk then go somewhere else for a while because we're here and I'm just filled with things I want to say so we're staying with the text verse 25 of chapter 2 in Genesis have written wrong in my notes here a man and his wife were both a man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed now what's the point of that I want to consider two possibilities in them in a vote for the second one two possible reasons why a man and a woman might be naked and not ashamed the first is they got perfect bodies which is true of course they're not ashamed goodness gracious there's not a flaw not a single flaw in these two people so they have zero fear that the other person is going to spot any flaw and point it out or roller eyes or cluck their tongue or walk away or say something demeaning it's not going to happen they're perfect and so there's no shame because there's nothing to be ashamed of is that the point I don't think so it's true I just don't think it's the point for three reasons number one no matter how beautiful or handsome you are it takes more than that to feel safe and free from any shaming you not only have to be that way but that other person has to be morally upright and gracious because you know well that no matter how good you are know how to beautiful you are a shaming kind of person a blaming kind of person will kick you verbally they will get at you another way it's not enough for you to present yourself flawlessly that that will not make you free from being shamed and you all know it if you had any experience in life so even though they're both perfect here I doubt that he's drawing attention to the perfection of their bodies second reason Genesis 2:24 2:25 are intended to provide foundational wisdom for marriage after this fall we know that because Jesus quotes this verse it's the foundational verse in the New Testament for talking about Mary so in God's mind as he gives verse 24 and 25 he has Jesus in mind and he has all the use that would be made of it after the fall so if it only had a meaning relevant to perfect bodies wouldn't be much used to us later don't think that's what's going on here third reason verse 24 creates the relationship where verse 25 can happen that's the flow of the verses verse 20 for man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife they become one flesh which creates the situation of security where naked and not a shame can happen it flows out of this covenant keeping I'm cleaving to you I'm one flesh with you I am in this with you forever there is the place where it can happen naked and not ashamed that's the point I think so here's here's possibility number one all that was to say no to option number one maybe the reason it says naked and not ashamed is because they're flawless and have nothing to be ashamed of and I'm saying that's not the point it's true it's just not the point because the point has to do with how it flows out of covenant-keeping leaving cleaving one flesh you're mine I'm yours we're one now that leads to verse 25 and so the point here I think is not that freedom from shame in marriage flows where each can present the other flawless or good as we can do but rather it flows from the nature of covenant love this is the point of marriage on the one hand you can say I'm perfect and have nothing to be ashamed of and on the other you say I'm imperfect but I have no fear of being disapproved by my wife or spouse in the first case you would say we have shame free because we're perfect and the other you would say I'm free from shame based on the gracious nature of the Covenant love that flows in this family in the one case you would say we are free from shame because we're flawless and in the other case you would say there's no shame because covenant love covers a multitude of sins multitude flaws covers it doesn't see it now I know that Genesis 2:25 is before the fall and nothing bad had happened for them to overlook they'd have to overlook anything in verse 25 because then sinned and God made everything good and said it was very good and so I said their bodies were gorgeous and so I'm not saying that this overlooking is happening here I'm saying God this is last week's sermon God planned for verse 24 to be about Jesus and his cross leaving his father cleaving to his bride becoming one spirit with her at the cost of his life that's what verse 24 is pointing toward and marriage isn't an emblem of that a parable of that a drum of that a display of that that's the meaning of marriage and therefore I'm saying that naked and not ashamed gets its deepest grounding from the nature of covenant love which we learn to be I pass over sin and that's how you stay married next week Lord willing I intend to take with all my might the doctrine of justification and show you how it says marriages I don't count sin that's covenant love and it creates yes it can then we'll talk about when it does and when it doesn't it creates a place where it can happen again naked and not ashamed not because we're flawless it's because covenant love can really happen Jesus bride is still the-- he lay down his life for her she backslides continually she's like you in your relation to Jesus and he comes after her again and again and again justification by faith alone creates a vertical peace with God and justification by faith alone at the horizontal level can create an amazing naked and not ashamed an imperfect husband an imperfect wife full of flaws make it it's a miracle marriage is a miracle the world understand marriage they'd have a clue what marriage is about it's about Christ it's about covenant love it's about the display of the glory of God and redeeming a bride that's what marriage is so that's where we're going next week but first we got to finish figuring out naked and not ashamed they got clothed in two stages hmm that's three about that what does that mean for us set it up Genesis 2:17 of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for on the day that you eat of it you shall surely die now I take the knowledge of good and evil to be a phrase that represents a declaration of independence from God so when they eat of this tree they are declaring God is no longer my Lord God doesn't decide what's right and wrong for me I decide good and evil for me that's what the knowledge of good and evil means I eat this and now I'm the decider of good and evil not God so let's read verses 5 and 6 of chapter 3 where the worst thing that's ever happened for the human race happened the tempter says for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God that's a wicked half truth you will be like God knowing good and evil you're not supposed to be like God deciding what's good and evil you're supposed to humble yourself and let God decide what's good and evil but it sounded so convincing be like God what could be wrong with that so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and eight and she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate and the first immediate effect of this rebellion this breaking of the Covenant with God is her seven then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths what does that mean the first effect of declaring independence from God is self-consciousness about our bodies you wonder where eating disorders come from it's not simple it's profound I commend your reflection now their shame evidently it doesn't say shame it just says quo we're naked we could cover ourselves here why well there's zero reason is in this text to think they suddenly became ugly suddenly they're ugly ooh we're ugly now we brew we were beautiful now we're ugly that's not in the text and all there's no there was no that wasn't the thought Beauty wasn't to focus into 25 ugliness is not to focus in 37 that's not what's going on here like oh we got to cover ourselves could be we got ugly when we fell so what's the deal they're covering themselves here because the foundation of covenant-keeping love in marriage collapsed and sweet all trusting security of marriage disappeared forever the wording is careful sweet all trusting disappeared forever you don't have marriage we would like to it was gone why was it gone why was marriage the way God set it up with this tremendous sweet all trusting security we're naked and not ashamed was on question why did he disappear immediately reason covenant-keeping with God is the foundation of covenant keeping with spouse and the covenant with God broke and this covenant was immediately corrupted the foundation of covenant keeping between a man and a woman is the unbroken covenant between God and man and what is that covenant god governing us for our good and us enjoying that and relying on him for it now we know through Jesus Christ God governing us for our good and we enjoying him in that and relying on him for it through the mediation of his son's death and resurrection Jesus Christ that's the covenant that God intends for us to have and when it breaks marriage is broken so they experienced immediately the corruption of their of their covenant-keeping love with each other it began to be corrupted and it happened in two ways see if we can unpack these two as we move towards a close two ways that it broke and we experienced them today the same this is not ancient history this is our experience as well and both of them relate to shame in the first way the one viewing my nakedness is no longer trustworthy so I'm afraid that I will be shamed that's the first way the second way I myself I myself am no longer at peace with God because I've sinned whether I'm Adam or Eve I've sinned here and I feel guilty I feel defiled I feel unworthy and that is reflected in how I feel about my body so you got two things that are going on here the one that's watching me is no longer reliable and I myself feel unworthy and when you put those two things together you got a mega breakdown in a relationship where naked and not ashamed can't be happening it's gonna be plenty of shame and plenty of criticism here let's let's take these one at a time just wanna make sure you see how this works because we've all experienced this we're fallin we're in Adam we're fallin we inherit this this is who we are until Christ renovates our hearts and begins to rebuild a place in our hearts and in a relationship we're naked and not ashamed can happen again in the first case I am self-conscious about my body and I feel vulnerable to shame because Eve has chosen to be independent from God that is she has made herself central in the place of God and therefore she's a selfish person and you can't trust a selfish person from that day forward she's gonna put herself first and others last like me she's no longer a servant she wants to be served she's not safe I feel vulnerable around her because she's very likely to put me down she can use her words really well to put herself up and put me down so suddenly my nakedness is precarious and I don't trust her anymore to love me with the pure covenant-keeping love that she once did just a few hours ago that's the first and one source of what happened in verse seven suddenly aware of themselves is naked and covering themselves why not not first because something's happening here because out there she's selfish and a selfish person in the bedroom is dangerous the other reason it happened is because Adam himself let's take out him I could switch it around Adam himself sinned he broke covenant with God if she's rebellious and selfish he's the same I'm not just worried about what she's going to do I feel defiled I feel guilty I feel unworthy I deserve to be shamed it's true before the fall what is and what ought to be were the same after the fall they're broken I no longer am what I ought to be so there's this disjunction in my life I'm broken I'm fractured and now my body doesn't stand for what I really am that clean pure innocent Oh me isn't clean pure innocent open anymore I'm a sinner this this nakedness doesn't feel at home to me anymore it's not what I am I need I need some help I need to be close I need to help my image fixed up here because I'm a sinner and I need protection from that woman she's gonna start looking at me different put herself up by putting me down this is the worst situation you can imagine and it's where we all live apart from Christ both of these sources of shame I can't trust her she's selfish I deserve to be shamed anyway because I failed both of them come from being a breaker of the Covenant with God God's covenant with us is the foundation of our covenant keeping with each other Eve is no longer reliable to cherish me she's become selfish because she broke the covenant I'm no longer worthy of being admired anyway because I'm a sinner because I broke covenant with God and they're both desperately in trouble so what do they do they clothe themselves best they can fig leaves verse seven and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths the last thing said about this is in verse 21 let's get that in and then we can put it all together verse 21 of chapter 3 the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them so what are we to make of this Adam and Eve make an effort to clothe themselves with leaves that's a sinful coping they just see and they're gonna cover they've just broken with God we know this is sinful because they're on their way away from God I'd hide from God there they not only lost relationship they lost their head hide from God that's stupid but they're trying sinful people child kinds of stupid things so we know that they're on the they're on a flight from God and the first manifestation of the flight is full and to cover ourselves here got to improve the situation because we just messed up big time and their first way of improving it is clothing yes they could do any way they're trying to solve the gap between what they are and what they're supposed to be and they've so broken it this this effort on their part was from their standpoint the origin of hypocrisy it was the first attempted and totally unsuccessful snow job toward God so what in the world is God doing to improve on it I mean if if their attempt to fix it is clothing and thus clothing is part and parcel of hypocrisy and concealment what's God doing stepping up and saying I can do better than leaves I'll give you skins what's that is he aiding and abetting their hypocrisy you're firming their pretense and they're posturing their flight from reality is he saying yes yes yes that's a good thing to do clothing conceals the reality let's do that I don't think so so what's he doing the way I would put it is he's doing something that can be expressed negatively and he's doing something that can be expressed positively let me just state each of those and we'll be done negatively there's a chasm here between what you are Adam and Eve and what you ought to be covering yourself with closing clothing is a right response but not to conceal the truth but confess the truth there's the difference they wanted to use clothing to try to conceal like running behind a tree to hide from God they're gonna conceal and God says no no clothing is the right response here because you have lost your innocence but what clothing confess now is the gap between what you were and what you ought to be clothing is a declaration I am NOT what I ought to be I have lost my original glory and clothing doesn't conceal that it confesses that here's a practical implication of that public nudity today is not a return to innocence it's rebellion against moral reality God ordains clothing to witness to the glory that we lost and to take them off in public is added rebellion they take the application just to Ted further I think there's gonna be a sermon on clothing somewhere down the line I can just see it because I've got all kinds of text here like first Timothy 2:9 in first Peter 3 5 the Bible cares about clothing and what they say what they mean what they have to do with God so here's a second application these are like little foretaste of a month out maybe those who keep their clothing on and thus don't rebel in that way but begin to use clothing for the very opposite of what they're meant to do namely witness to a lost glory and begin to use them for power moves and getting people to look at you and like you more are rebelling in the other direction here's that here's a rule of thumb clothing does not exist it should not be worn in order to attract attention to what it covers to be done with look good to go there on the manuscript save it instead positively clothing is meant to attract attention to what is exposed hands that serve each other if you're in a warm climate feet that take the gospel to where it needs to go and in all climates faces that are radiant with the glory of God that you've seen in the gospel if you don't dress to draw attention to your face your hands and your feet I know all you women like to draw attention your feet because you wear red nails but I wonder I'm keep getting ahead of myself here that's the negative thing the positive we've already crossed over into the positive for clothing the positive meaning of clothing is that God had in mind not just to witness with clothing to a lost glory but to witness to the fact that he's going to fix it someday he's going to overcome the chasm someday that exists between what we ought to be and what we are clothing means that it's not only a witness or a confession to our failure it's a testimony to our future glory God rejected their own self clothing and then he clothed them in mercy we know that Mercy's flowing here because in 3:15 the serpent is going to be hammered and so he moves on down to 3:21 and he closes them with skins way better they never even he had no idea to make clothing and he makes them clothing mercy is flowing here mercy that says one day you will find yourself in relationships where naked and not ashamed make sense again one day you will find yourself in relationships with me as your God in which you don't need to be ashamed anymore because of what my son does I won't ever make you feel ashamed for all your sin I will pass over and I will clothe you with my righteousness and I will clothe you with my glory and you will shine like the stars in heaven and like the Sun on a blazing day that's clothing means which is why you keep it simple lest it take the place of his glory so our clothing is a witness to our failure and our future glory they testified to the chasm between what we are and what we ought to be and they testified to God's merciful intention to bridge the chasm through Jesus Christ and his death and that perhaps is why blood had to be shared to make the clothing when the animals were killed he's going to solve the problem of fear and pride and selfishness and shame between a man and a woman with his new blood-bought covenant marriage is meant to be a display of the Covenant and the gospel therefore what we're going to look at next time God willing is how a husband and a wife embody the New Covenant embody the gospel embody justification by faith and so create a new safe sacred place where it can be said again naked and not ashamed marriage is about the gospel if you don't know the gospel if you don't live in the gospel you have not tapped in to the fullness of the resources that God has for your marriage there's so much to say gracious father I ask again that marriages would be saved covenant-keeping would rise and then wonder of wonders against all expectation like Sara having a baby at 90 or Mary having a baby without knowing a man or like the Red Sea splitting or like the Sun stopping in the sky affections are born again in the safe place of the Covenant I asked for this miracles Lord in this room and around the world because a what the gospel to shine off of our marriages for the glory of Christ in his name we pray you

Channel: Desiring God

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Keywords: Sermon, John Piper, Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Christian, Christianity, Church, Bible, Jesus Christ, God, Scripture

Id: boB5kdSouJk

Length: 42min 31sec (2551 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2013