Build Your Family on God's Foundation - October 11th

Message Notes by Pastor Ewings for a sermon based on Genesis 2:18-24

At the end of Genesis chapter one, God said that His creation was very good – that it was perfect.  The second chapter of Genesis details just how God made the perfect marriage. It was the Lord God who said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Creation was almost done, but there was something missing.  It was not good for man to be alone; that is, God’s creation was not perfect yet.  Marriage is the gift of a loving God to supply what was lacking.

Just as “not good” could be misunderstood as an understatement, when God said, “I will make a helper suitable for him,” don’t think God had in mind for Adam someone marginally acceptable.  What do you get for the perfect man?  The perfect woman.  As a suitable helper, Eve wasn’t identical to Adam; she was his complement.  God designed marriage as a beautiful interdependence between husband and wife.   

Our society, stained with sin, doesn’t always see the beautiful relationship that exists between the sexes.  There is a movement to reject any differences between men and women.  We live in a world that rejects God’s plan for everything in life, but especially when it comes to marriage—the foundation of the family. The Bible teaches that our sexuality, the differences and similarities, our spiritual equality and the different roles are gifts from a loving God.  Not only were these are a blessing to the first husband and wife, but they are a blessing to every Christian spouse today.

In these verses we find the definition of marriage: mutually commitment, freely given and freely received.  A man and a woman will leave their parents and cleave to each other.  God calls a married couple one flesh.  The unity is wonderfully expressed in sexual happiness between a husband and wife, but it doesn’t stop there.  There is a unity of life interests, most importantly that the Christian married couple shared a common eternal inheritance.  There is a caring love—Paul describes it like loving your own body—and he quotes Adam’s proposal poem as proof.  When two people have become one flesh, when there has been a mutual commitment, we can say with Christ, “They are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matt 19:6).  Marriage is God’s idea.  Build your family on His foundation.

Lesson One:  Genesis 2:18-24

Lesson Two:  Hebrews 2:9-11

Gospel:          Mark 10:2-16