Jeff Schreve - Marriage and Family
Summary:
This sermon explores the biblical foundations of marriage and family from Genesis 1-2, emphasizing that God designed them for human good, for oneness between man and woman, and as a picture of Christ’s relationship with the church. The preacher stresses that marriage is exclusively between one man and one woman, created differently yet complementary, and warns against modern redefinitions that deviate from God’s plan. Ultimately, strong marriages and families built on God’s design provide the stable foundation for society and reflect the gospel, while rejecting it leads to eventual collapse.
Introduction: Foundations of Marriage and Family
We’re in a series called Foundations, and we’re looking at the foundations that God has set up, which He has used to establish life and that uphold life and make life work. Today, we want to look at the foundations of marriage and family. I heard about a couple who were celebrating 50 years of marriage—that’s a big milestone. Fifty years of marriage, and the wife had become pretty deaf over the years and was very hard of hearing. They were having a big 50th celebration—I say big; just friends and family were there—and the husband made a toast to his wife. He said, «Over these 50 years, I have found you to be tried and true.» She said, «What?» He repeated, «Over these 50 years, I have found you to be tried and true.» She said, «Huh?» He insisted, «After 50 years, I’ve found you to be tried and true.» She replied, «Well, after 50 years, I’m tired of you too.» Not what he wanted.
Marriage and family are so important to God. He designed marriage and family and set them up in the first chapter of the Bible, on the sixth day of creation—the day when He made Adam and Eve. He established marriage and family. It’s more important than government; it’s more important than schools; it’s more important than even the church in terms of first things because God established that first marriage and then the marriage that produces children and creates a family.
I think we would all agree that marriage and family are being attacked today—there is a severe attack on marriage. People in our world today want to redefine marriage; they want to redesign marriage. Many in our world today say, «Who needs marriage? I’m just going to live with my girlfriend or boyfriend. If we have kids, we have kids; we don’t need marriage; it’s just a piece of paper.» But there’s a reason why God set it up the way He did, and there’s so much that we can learn from the creation story about marriage and family, the structure of marriage and family, how God designed them, and how He wants us to operate in the world He created.
Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:26–28
Genesis chapter 1—I’ll begin reading in verse 26. God is creating. He has created everything except man, and it says in verse 26, «Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'» And God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female, He created them. God blessed them and said to them, «Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.»
What do we learn about marriage and family from creation? I want you to notice with me three insights from Genesis chapter one and then from Genesis chapter two. Genesis chapter one is a big scope, a 30,000-foot view of creation. It tells us what happened on every day; God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, He rested. Genesis chapter two really zeroes in on day six of creation as God created Adam and then created Eve.
Insight 1: Designed for Good
So, what do we learn? What are the insights? Insight number one: God designed marriage and family for good. God is a good God, and everything the Lord does is good. Marriage and family are good; they are not designed to be something horrible; they are not meant to be something like a life sentence. You know, «I got married; she’s my ball and chain.» Adam never said that about Eve. The Lord designed it for good.
Now, we read in Genesis one, very interestingly, when God creates, He says something that is used over and over—five times, actually—in Genesis chapter 1 as He creates things: «And God saw that it was good.» Then, when we look more closely in Genesis chapter 2, when it zeroes in on what happened on the sixth day when God created Adam and then created Eve, we read these words. He creates Adam; He forms him from the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man becomes a living soul. Then, what’s the first thing God does with Adam? He gives him a job—work is not a bad thing; sweat is the bad thing—that’s part of the curse. Work is not bad. So, He gives him a job; He puts him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. Then in verse 18, it says, «Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'»
Now, if God saw that it was good every time until now, why does He suddenly say, «It is not good»? «Wait, what? How? I don’t understand. God, how could this not be good? It’s not good that the man should be alone.» Well, God, He’s a perfect man, and He’s in a perfect garden, in a perfect environment, and He has a relationship with a perfect God—everything is perfect. But God says it’s not good for the man to be alone; God didn’t want Adam to be alone. He created him with an unmet need.
Very interesting that God did this. When He tells Adam it’s not good for him to be alone, He says, «I’ll make a helper suitable for him.» That word «suitable» means corresponding to him, parallel to him, as somebody that is in concert with him. You would think, «Okay, then He’s going to create this helper suitable for him,» but He doesn’t do that right away. He has Adam name the animals, and it says in verse 19, «Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper for him.»
Now, why did God say, «I’m going to make you a helper» and then have him name all the animals? God knew the helper wasn’t in the animals, but Adam didn’t. The Bible says that the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and God performed the first surgery in Genesis chapter 2 on day six of creation. God took from Adam a rib from his side, opened up that place, took the rib, closed that place up, then fashioned this beautiful creature, and brought her to the man. It’s a picture of marriage—God Himself is walking Eve down the aisle to Adam, and Adam was excited. He was «flipped out»! He was like «Wow!»
There’s a note in the Living Bible that said Adam began to sing, «Let my love come along, my lonely days are over, and life is like a song.» I know what you’re thinking: «Jeff, why are you not on the praise team?» But Adam was excited! «This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.» But that’s kind of a Hebrew idiom. All that he’s saying is really, «Wow! Thank you, God! That’s the one that’s suitable to me; she corresponds to me.» It was not good for Adam to be alone, but it was very good for Adam to have Eve.
In Genesis chapter 1, when God puts His final say on creation, He says in verse 31, «And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.» There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. God was done with His creation—after the sixth day, on the seventh day, He rested. So, marriage is designed by God for our good because He is a good God and wants to bless us with marriage and family. «Be fruitful and multiply,» He told Adam and Eve, and «fill the earth.» The family comes on the platform of marriage.
So, that’s the first insight: God designed marriage and family for good.
Insight 2: Designed for Oneness
The second insight: God designed marriage and family for oneness. In verse 24, we kind of step away a little bit from what is going on where Adam says his things, and then he says, «This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she has been taken out of man.» Then Moses, who was the writer of the first five books of the Old Testament—God gave him instruction while wandering the wilderness for 40 years—writes by inspiration of the Spirit, «For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.»
One flesh. She was taken out of him, and then they come back together, and they become one flesh. Now remember this about the one flesh of marriage as it relates to Adam and Eve: both Adam and Eve were made in God’s image. They were both created by God in God’s image. Verse 26 states, «Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.» The other things that God had made were not in God’s image, according to God’s likeness, and He says, «Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.»
God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female, He created them. Very emphatic and specific that both Adam and Eve were made in the image of God. Now, what exactly does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, God is a triune God. For centuries, people have argued and said, «No, God is not Trinity,» but it’s in the first chapter that God is Trinity: «Let us make man in our image.» God is speaking in the plural. If God were just not a Trinity but just one in the sense of there being no Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, He wouldn’t say «us.» But God exists as one God in Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
God makes man in His image, a triune man: man is body, soul, and spirit. When God made plants, plants and trees have a body but that’s it; they don’t have a soul. They don’t have awareness of what’s going on around them. There’s not like the Wizard of Oz where you pick an apple off a tree, and it gets mad and starts throwing apples at you. Plants and trees don’t have awareness; there’s no consciousness of life. Now, animals have a body and a very elementary rudimentary soul because they do have awareness of things going on around them. Bulls are aware of what’s going around. If you don’t realize that, go flash your red pinky in front of a bull; he knows what’s going on around.
But animals don’t have a sense of God, so God creates man in His image: man has a body, a soul, and understands and interacts with others of his own species. He also has a spirit, which communes with God and understands the things of God. See, the scripture says in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul says, «I pray that your spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.» Three parts of man: the spirit, the soul, and the body. Animals don’t have a sense of God; they don’t have morality like we do. You know, there’s not a lion today on the Serengeti licking antelope blood off his claws saying, «I did it again; I told myself I wasn’t going to kill again, and here I am. I killed again; I feel terrible. Be merciful to me, oh God!» They don’t do that.
If you go up against a wild animal, he doesn’t care that you say, «Hey! I have kids at home!» He’s going to eat you because that’s just what he does. There is no moral compass or sense of right and wrong. We have that because we’re made in the image of God. That was true for both Adam and Eve. But when Adam and Eve were both made in God’s image, they were made different from each other.
We realize that when we read the story. How did God make Adam? The Lord formed man from the dust of the earth; he’s made from dirt. The name Adam literally means «red dirt,» so his name means Adama—red dirt. He formed him from the dirt. The word «formed» means to squeeze into a mold; it’s kind of a manufacturing term. Adam was manufactured from dirt. Eve is taken from Adam’s side; she’s taken from bone, from a place where there is blood flow. God doesn’t manufacture her—He fashions her. That word means to build or to construct.
You get the feeling that with Eve, God is really working on this special creature that He’s bringing to Adam. He squeezed Adam together in a mold, but He fashioned Eve. Men and women are made differently. One way to think about it is that the Bible says in Peter that a woman is a weaker vessel. Some women don’t like that, but here’s the deal: a man is kind of built like a Ford F-150. He’s durable; that’s the way he’s made. He’s just squeezed together, molded together—boom! Here you are; you’re a man. You know, after a few years, he becomes a Ford F-150 King Cab; he puts on a little weight, and that’s the man. The woman is not a Ford F-150; she’s a Ferrari. She is exquisite; she has lines. I mean, she is built and constructed.
But you know what? You can’t take the Ferrari off-road. You don’t say, «Hey, let’s go to the hunting lease. I’ll take my Ferrari.» You don’t do that. You can’t go into the backwoods with it, and any of you that have a Ferrari know that one of the things about a Ferrari is it’s in the shop a lot—you notice that? That thing needs to be tuned up all the time. If you’re not tuning it up, the Ferrari is not going— «I’m not doing it!» Ford is like, «Hey, change the oil in 40,000 miles; it’s still going.»
That’s the difference, and God made us different from one another. Now, one of the things that we see as an issue in today’s world—I’m about to say something very controversial. Get ready to hear something very controversial that shows us how far we have fallen from God’s design. Because 20 years ago, if I had said this, everyone would have said, «Yeah, we all know that!» Here’s what it is: God creates us either male or female. God creates us either male or female; that’s how He created. He created the man, Adam; He created a woman, and He created them differently from one another. They are similar just like Mr. Lion and Mrs. Lion are very similar but different.
God says He was going to make a helper suitable to Adam. That means corresponding to Adam, parallel to Adam—not the same as Adam, but someone who would fit together with Adam. You know when you look at your hand? Your right hand—everybody hold it up and take a look—that’s my right hand. Hold up your left hand; your left hand, you know one thing about your right hand and your left hand? They’re in parallel with one another. On your right hand, your thumb is over here; on your left hand, your thumb is over here. If they were exactly the same, they would be right hand and right hand, but it’s on my left side; that would be weird. That doesn’t parallel; that’s not in concert with one another; that’s odd. God didn’t create us that way.
Now, here I have a pair of scissors. These scissors are two pieces—the two pieces held together with a rivet. The pieces are very similar; they’re made of the same stuff, the same steel material. But this side is different from this side, and if they were exactly the same—if this side was a mirror of it, was exactly the same—you couldn’t cut anything; it wouldn’t work because they don’t go together. But God created so that a husband and wife would fit together, so they could cut it in life.
Now we live in a world where people say there’s no difference between a man and a woman. Well, obviously, to God, there is. He’s the creator; He’s the designer. We ought to listen to what He has to say. We live in a world today where people say, «Well, you know, people should have the right to choose what gender they are, and if their gender doesn’t match up with their biological sex, then we’ll just change their biological sex.»
Because, obviously, God, you got it wrong. That’s the world in which we live today. Twenty years ago, this wasn’t even a question. But now people are talking about it, and kids in high school, in middle school, in grade school are telling their parents, «I really think I’m trapped in a body that’s not in congruence with my gender.» Parents are listening to that, and parents are making terrible decisions that will affect their children for the rest of their lives.
In August of 2016, Johns Hopkins issued a 143-page report to eminent scholars. We’re talking Johns Hopkins University: this isn’t a podunk community college; this is one of the world’s leading research and education facilities in the world. They are leaders in medicine, public health, science, and engineering. Well, two guys—one was named Dr. Lawrence Mayer and the other, Paul McHugh—did a study. These guys are psychiatrists and psychologists and scholars in that field, and at the end of their study, they concluded, «There is no evidence that people are born gay or born transgender.»
No scientific evidence. People always say, «Well, they’re born this way.» Well, according to science, they’re not. True science will always line up with God. The LGBTQ community looked at this report and said to Johns Hopkins, «If you don’t denounce this report, we will penalize you.» This is a scientific report; this is not a political hot potato; this is what the evidence shows.
You say, «It’s false,» or we will penalize you. Those are people who want to gouge out their own eyes; they don’t want to see the truth. They can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman. They can’t find the truth because they don’t want to find the truth; they’ve already said, «This is the truth,» and they don’t care what science says, what the data shows, or what God says. This is what we’re going with.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end is the way of death. You can’t blow up what God says and think that it doesn’t matter. It does matter. And when science really, honestly looks at it, they say what God says; there is no evidence for people being born that way, being born transgendered. God creates us either male or female, and marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. It’s the way it was designed.
God created Eve different from Adam just like these scissors are different. They are different so that they can be one, so that they can be one, so that they can cut it in life. God created a man different from a woman so that together they could come together and be one. «For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.»
Insight 3: Designed as an Example
Now, insight number three: God designed marriage and family not only for good and oneness but for an example. It’s an example. He sets it up in Genesis chapter 1, and this is going to picture, coming down the road, Christ and the church. You say, «Where do you get that?» Ephesians chapter 5—the Lord in Ephesians chapter 5 talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and then He goes right into marriage and family. Chapter 5 talks about marriage, and chapter 6 talks about family: how fathers are to train their children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, and how children are to obey their parents in the Lord.
He says this about the marriage relationship: «Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.» Then He says husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself—for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church because we are members of His body. Then He quotes Genesis 2:24, saying, «For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.» This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Marriage is to picture Christ in the church. Now, the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Man, it’s a tall order for a husband to love your wife sacrificially, to love your wife completely, to love her when she’s not very lovable, because that’s how the Lord loves us—when we’re not very lovable, when we’re not doing right, He still loves us. «Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.»
And the wife’s job is to submit herself to the husband; that’s the church’s job to the Lord. We submit ourselves to the Lord, and we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. We yield to Him; we say, «Yes, Lord; you must increase; I must decrease.» That’s the job of a wife to her husband: as he loves her, she submits to him. When he’s not very respectable, she still respects him, and when she’s not very lovable, he still loves her. That’s how marriage works.
The woman pictures the church loving Jesus, and the man pictures or submits to Jesus, and the man pictures the Lord loving us. So, it’s a picture; it’s very, very important. And listen, marriage is also a great picture to show us about our relationship with God because Christianity is not religion; it’s a relationship.
This is totally different than religion. I grew up in a home where I learned religion—go to religion class, everything is religion. Religion is clean yourself up, try harder, just do better. God is always far away, and you’re just trying to do these things that you think God will like; that’s religion. A relationship is talking to God. I know God; He knows me. We go through things together. When I pass through the waters, He says, «I’ll be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.» The Lord is there, and even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Why? Because He’s with me, and His rod and His staff, they comfort me. It’s a relationship.
Now, we know those of us who are married that marriage goes up and down. There are times when it’s going well, and there are times when it’s not going well. It’s dynamic; it’s not just like that—you have a marriage, and I like that. Probably both dead—it is. We have times; Debbie and I have been married for 30 years. There are times when, man, the emotions are just there, and we used to tell each other, «I’m having a big surge of love for you today.» It’s so wonderful to hear that: «Man, that’s great; I’ll come home early!»
You know because this surge of love—I like that; the emotions are in it. There are some other times when she would say to me, «You know what? I love you, but I don’t like you very much. I need to get away from you for a while.» And where it wasn’t going very well. Have you ever noticed in marriage that sometimes it can be going great in the morning and then the bottom drops out in the afternoon? It’s like, «What happened?» It’s a dynamic. The same is true in our relationship with the Lord.
So, the Lord uses marriage as a picture of our relationship with God, a picture of Christ and the church. This is very important. Marriage and family are the foundation of every society; that’s the building block of every society. You can’t have a society that won’t be in total chaos without marriage, and from marriage, build family. It is that important. The foundation for society is marriage and family, and the foundation for family is marriage, where there is a commitment before God between man and woman.
We make the commitment that says, «I will be with you; I’ll be faithful to you, and I will be with you until death.» I asked my girls just this morning, «What would it be like if Mom and Dad got divorced? How would that affect you?» They said, «Well, that would affect us greatly; we would think that there’s nothing to this about love—that it’s just a sham—that there’s nothing solid about that because the people we were looking to as our examples, they couldn’t do it.»
That’s why it’s so important for a pastor. God says, «Look at how he handles his family.» If he can’t handle his marriage well, don’t put him in charge of the Church of God. Now, I have struggles in my life, and Debbie and I have had struggles in our marriage because we’re human, and there are ups and downs. But listen, we made a commitment to one another until death do us part.
When my youngest daughter, Sarah, experienced one of her friends having their parents go through a divorce, Sarah got really nervous. She talked to Debbie and me and said, «Now, Mom and Dad, that would never happen to you, right? Please, please help me and give me comfort that that would never happen to you.» I said, «No, that’s never going to happen to us. I told your mother early on if she ever left me, I’m going with her. I mean, we’re just never going to be apart because I’ve committed, and she’s committed.»
You know, in any marriage, if you will complete your wedding vow to be faithful because adultery is like an atomic bomb that blows up in your marriage, you’re going to be faithful until death. You can get through anything by God’s grace, and you can work through anything. I was thinking about a lady whom I know and love. A number of years ago, she was married for ten years with two kids, having difficulty in her marriage. It had been going on; they didn’t get counseling, and finally, she was like a rubber band. You know, if a woman is mistreated repeatedly, eventually she snaps.
She was done and told her husband, «I’m done; I want out. I want to get a divorce.» You know how most guys are; they’re totally oblivious until they hear those words, and they’re like, «What do I need to do? I’ll do anything!» It’s full-court press time because they didn’t know it was that bad. And she’s dying inside. Well, anyway, she went through with the divorce. This was years ago now; her boys have grown up, she’s had a couple of marriages, and she’s single today. I know that if she could go back in time, she’d say, «I wish I had worked it out.»
This is how important marriage and family are. Marriage is the foundation stone for the family. Some of you might be sleeping around and thinking it’s no big deal, living with your girlfriend or boyfriend, thinking it’s no big deal. It’s a big deal because it says in Hebrews, «Let the marriage bed be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.» Don’t tempt God; don’t test Him. Don’t say, «Well, I’m going to do this. What are you going to do about it, God?»
Conclusion: Building on the Rock
I was reading in Matthew chapter 7, the end of the Sermon on the Mount. You know, when Jesus talked about all these different subjects, then He talks about heaven and hell: «Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and perform many miracles in Your name? ’ I’ll declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’» That’s a pretty stern passage there in Matthew 7, and He follows that up with a parable about the wise builder and the foolish builder.
He said, «Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them, puts them into practice, does what I say, is like the wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But the one who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act upon them, let me tell you what he’s like—he’s like a man who built his house on the sand. The rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, and great was its fall.»
Now, I want you to notice something. In our world where we’re redefining and redesigning marriage, we’re saying that marriage can be between a right hand and a right hand or a left hand and a left hand; it’s just whoever loves. That has nothing to do with it! It’s like, «Well, yeah, but the scissors don’t work if you do it that way.» So, we’re going to do it the way we want, and the Supreme Court voted, and that’s fine for us. If you don’t get on the bandwagon, you Christians, well you’re bigots, haters, homophobes—all these names. You’re demeaning and dehumanizing, all the terrible things they say about us.
But it’s simply this: listen, I didn’t invent marriage; God did. I didn’t define marriage; God did. I didn’t design marriage; God did. This is how it works! We would all agree that when God created the first man, if He had created a second man, they couldn’t be fruitful and multiply—that wasn’t going to work! And it’s still that way today—two men can’t be fruitful and multiply; two women can’t be fruitful and multiply. And here’s what people say: «Well, they’re just such good people.» They may be good people; everything may be going well for them.
The guy that built his house on the sand—his house didn’t fall immediately; maybe the house went for months, maybe it went for years and everything looks good. You say, «See, he’s built on the sand, and everything’s fine.» It doesn’t fall immediately; it falls eventually because one day the rains descend, the winds come, and the floods come and blow against that house, and the house on the sand will fall.
Did you know that if you jump out of an airplane at 30,000 feet without a parachute, you will drop about 10,000 feet for every minute? Suppose you are on an airplane, you’re at 30,000 feet, and you’re with a friend who’s so nice and so wonderful, and you just love his company. But he says, «You know what? I’m going to jump out of the airplane.» He says, «Man, you don’t have a parachute.» He replies, «I don’t need a parachute; I’ve redefined the law of gravity! I’m saying the law of gravity doesn’t matter to me! I’m going to do it my way!» And he jumps out.
You know, everything is going good for the first minute or two. He doesn’t hit the ground immediately; he hits the ground eventually. When he hits, it’s too late, and it’s over. Life is destroyed. God doesn’t want anyone to do that. We’re called to speak the truth in love. And just because you tell someone the truth in love, that doesn’t make you a hater.
When someone is trying to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, saying that the law of gravity is not going to apply to me, and you try to hold that person back, that means you love them. It doesn’t mean you hate them. When you tell them, «If you do this, you’re going to hit the ground eventually,» it doesn’t mean you hate them; it means you love them. Those who are patting people on the back as they leave the airplane without a parachute, saying, «Isn’t that wonderful; let’s light up the White House because that’s so wonderful?"-those people are getting ready to hit the ground.
That’s not a good thing; that’s a bad thing. «If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? What can anyone do?» If you build your house on the sand, your house will fall. God’s Word goes out; He’s declaring to all men everywhere that they would repent and build their lives on the rock of Jesus Christ. The question is this: where are you building your life?