So Ephesians chapter 5, and reading from verse 21. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. His body, of which he is the Saviour. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle, or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church. for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respond her husband. One of the most important questions for any society is this. What do they think marriage is? What is marriage? Cultures across the world and down the centuries have always had some form of marriage. And studies consistently show that marriage is good for people who are married, and children of those who are married do significantly better in life than those whose parents were not married. But what should marriage look like? What part do cultural and personal preferences play in what a marriage looks like? Actually, in the Western world, many people have quite a negative view of marriage. In a previous generation, there was maybe an overly rosy view of what marriage would be. And so this question of, what really is marriage? What are we to make of it? If you’re married, what are you aiming for in your marriage? If you’re engaged, what should you expect when you get married? If you would like to be married one day, what should you be looking for in a potential husband or wife? And equally important, what should you be like if you want to be a husband or wife? And thinking more widely, how can we support and encourage marriages to be better? Well, if we’re going to answer those sort of questions we we need to have a good grasp of what marriage actually is. Old films often portrayed marriage as the happily ever after that love would would, according to the films, inevitably blossom into. There might be a stormy path to that great day, but once you reach there, then everything is rosy. Well, the pendulum of how people view marriage has rather swung to the other extreme. People are much more cynical. They’ve moved from the unrealistic to the negative. Fewer people get married these days, and they wait longer, apparently in Spain, the average age at which she mar is 40. After all, why commit yourself to a life of boredom? If you do marry, well, we’re told, at least make it what you want it to be. And frankly, if it doesn’t work, you can always get divorced. That’s our culture’s view of marriage on the whole these days. So should we see marriage as maybe somewhere between that rather unrealistic, rosy view and the very negative cynical view of today? Is marriage really kind of a middle way between those two, a bit more realistic, but a bit more positive? No. Marriage is designed by God, is rather different to what the world has ever seen marriage to be. As someone put it, “You cannot really understand marriage unless you’re a Christian. That may seem a really stark statement, but I hope, as we go through what Paul says in Ephesians 5, that we’ll begin to see that actually, a true and full understanding of marriage is only possible for those who know Christ. Now, of course, there are many benefits, as I’ve already said, for those who do not know God and get married. Marriage is for all. It’s something that came at the beginning. It is for all people, of all times, of all cultures, not that everyone has to marry,, but marriage is not just for Christians, that’s my point. There are benefits in marriage for those who don’t know God. But you know, it’s more like eating the leftover food when the party’s finished. I hope we can be those who enjoy the food in the party. So.. firstly, my first heading, marriage was designed, was given and designed by God. Marriage was given and designed by God. If we want to know what marriage is, we need to ask where it came from. One view is that marriage arose as a legal way to pass on your property to your children. You would know who your legitimate children were, everyone would understand that they can then inherit your property. That’s one view. Another view is that marriage was really kind of developed in societies as a way of regulating reproduction and assigning responsibility for the raising of children. Still, others say that marriage may have started as a way of creating alliancesces between families and tribes. You know, rather than two different plans forever, fighting each other, well, make an alliance. And one of their sons can marry one of the other’s daughters, and so there’ll be peace. Now, there is no doubt that marriage has been used in all of those ways, but that is not actually how marriage started. And in teaching about marriage here in Ephesians chapter 5, Paul takes us back to the very origin of marriage. He goes back to that passage in Genesis chapter 2 that we read earlier. And he quotes in verse 31 here, from Genesis chapter 2. Let me just read verse 31 in Ephesians 5. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. God created mankind. God created mankind as male and female. And he made them to rule over the animals, but also to increase in number and fill the earth. God doesn’t like empty spaces. The earth was empty and without form, and he filled it. He filled it with plants, he filled it with animals, and he says to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply.Fill the earth.” But God had only made Adam at first. And God said, it’s not good for the man to be alone. This isn’t just talking about loneliness. This is also talking about a man on his own cannot fill the earth. How could he possibly increase? And so God made a woman, the first anaesthesia in human history, God caused the man to sleep, and did a little operation, took his rib out, noticed, closed the flesh again, and out of that rib God created Eve. And then we read that God brought her to the man to be his wife. That incidentally is why, at a wedding service, typically, the father will bring his daughter to the man who’s to marry her. This was the first marriage. And it was a wonderful moment. You know, Adam had just spent a long time naming all the animals. I don’t mean calling this one Bob and that one Sally, but he would have classified them, he would have seen what they were like, and he would have seen that each of them was male and female. And at the end of that we read, but for Adam, no suitable helper was found. And it’s a very poignant statement, and so God then created Eve. And Adam, who had been alone now rejoices. He wakes up from that sleep that God put him into, and God brings him Eve. And Adam bursts into a poem of wonderful praise. He declares, “This is now bone of my body bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. It’s a wonderful moment. Poetry in that first wedding service., if you want to call it that. Adam, who had had no suitable helper, now has the most suitable helper to be with him. Together, they could fulfil God’s desire to be fruitful and increase in number. Here’s the point. Right from the beginning, marriage was something that was given and designed by God. Adam did not plan it. He did not design it. He was sound asleep while God sorted it all out. It was designed entirely by God. It was God’s idea, marriage was God’s plan. God created Adam and Eve to be married to each other. And together, they could now serve God. Now, if marriage is God’s design, well, then, he alone can tell us what marriage is. That’s our big question. What is marriage? We have to go to the origin. He can tell us. Now, a few years ago, when computers were rather different to today, someone who bought a computer, that they phoned up customer service, please can I have a new cup.older on my computer? It is broken.” And the person said,Well, none of our computers have cupholders. Well, this one does. And you press a button, and it comes and I’m sorry, but it’s broken, and the coffee’s gone all over my keyboard. Ah, that sounds like the CD drive. Oh. You see, if you don’t know what something is for, then it’s likely that you will misuse it and also miss out. Because that person never used the CD drive, at least. Not for the proper purpose. For those of you who don’t know what a CD drive was, look it up later. It does look a bit like a coffee cock holder. Do you know, people can do exactly the same with marriageriage. They don’t really know what it’s for. And so they misuse it. And all too often, it gets broken, and we see that again and again don’t we with broken marriages. We need to hear from God. God who designed marriage is the one we need to listen to, because he alone can tell us what marriage is for, what marriage should be like. Those questions we had at the beginning, what should we expect of marriage? How should we behave within marriage? All those answers must come from God. He has designed it. And if we don’t follow his design, we shouldn’t be surprised if we both miss out and we end up with broken marriages. So that’s the first heading. marriage was given and designed by God. Secondly, God designed marriage to reflect Christ and the church. God designed marriageriage to reflect Christ and the church. After that wonderful poem of praise that Adam utters in praise of his wife, Genesis 2 has this statement on marriage that Paul quotes here in verse 31. “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This verse, not spoken by Adam, but there in God’s word is the summary of what marriage is. This is what God tells us marriage is. Jesus quotes it in Matthew’s gospel, and Paul quotes it here, also in 1 Co 6. And it’s clear that both Jesus and Paul see that this verse and the marriage of Adam and Eve are the pattern for all marriages. Jesus was asked whether it was lawful to divorce someone for any and every reason. And Jesus goes to this verse. In other words, answering this general question for any and every divorce, Jesus goes back to this verse. Genesis 2 is the pattern for all marriages. And what is interesting is what this verse on marriage does say, but also what it doesn’t say. very short verse. The focus isn’t on property. Remember, that was one of the reasons people think marriage started, a way of passing on your property. There’s no mention of property. There’s no real mention of family alliances. Or even raising children. No, it’s not that under the those things. don’t come into marriage. They do, but that’s not what the emphasis is. Instead, it’s on leavingving parents. It’s on a man and a woman. Marriage is for a man and a woman. and it’s on being united as one flesh. Now, families are brought together, of course, you have two people, but actually, the marriage is a new and greater bond. It’s a man leaves his father and mother. So it’s not talking about alliances of families so much as actually leaving a family in order to create this new and greater bond. Of all human relationships, the marriage relationship takes priority. If you go into marriage and you still regard your relationship with your parents as more important, you’re not following God’s pattern. A man leaves his father and mother. The marriage relationship takes priority over the parent child relationship. That’s not just when you’re an adult. It’s also when you have little children. Your husband or wife still takes priority. This is the top most important of human relationships. Being fruitful ending increasing in number. It’s kind of implied. I mean, you know, the parents do have this son who leaves. So there’s kind of obviously an understanding that there will be children. But actually, the emphasis is not so much on increasing in number as, if anything, decreasing, because two become one. The emphasis it’s on one flesh. The man and his wife become one. We’ve got to think a lot about that. Adam was on his own. It was not good. And Eve is God’s answer to Adam being alone. But actually, marriage is more than companionshipship. It’s more than answering loneliness, it’s more than answering the ability to, now go and have children. It’s about being united, becoming one. Now, if you just read Genesis chapter 2, and you read about this marriage, and then you come to verse 24, this verse that Paul quotes, “F this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” You will be left wondering, what exactly does this verse mean? Is it talking about sex becoming one flesh? Is it talking about a new family unit? You know, they’ve left the parents, and is that one flesh now being a new family unit? Is it talking about you might call it total partnership. You know, business partners, well, they’re partners in their business, but they don’t share the same home, they don’t go on holiday together necessarily. There’s a limit to their partnership, but one flesh, well, this total partnership. You know, there’s nothing you don’t share. All that I have, I give you. all that I have. I shared. I can’t remember the exact words, but. I’ll do it whatever I said tomorrow. So, what does it really mean? Well, it is about those things. It is about bodily unit, it is about a new family unit, it is about total partnership. But Paul says it’s a mystery. Verse 32. This is a profound mystery. The word mysterystery is something that is a secret or something that it’s not yet been revealed. And so, as I say, when you read Genesis chapter 2, you do not fully grasp what this is about.. It’s a mystery. But it’s now revealed. Verse 32 goes on. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.. Whoa. Way back, when God summed up what marriage is, he was act actually talking about Christ and the church. You don’t see that in Genesis chapter 2. But actually, says Paul, the real secret here is that this is about Christ and the Church. and that is why only Christians can really understand marriage, as I hope to explain. The unity of husband and wife points to the unity of Jesus Christ and Christians, the Church. The marriage bond reflects a greater reality. It reflects the bond between Christ and his people. The one flesh of marriage is actually modelled on Jesus and his people, united as one in spirit. And so when God gave marriage to mankind, it wasn’t primarily for companionship, children, or the greater good of society. It was, and that’s why marriage is still a blessing to those who don’t know God. But first and foremost, God gave marriage as a picture. A picture to inspire our hope for a real marriage. For the real marriage. You see, at its heart, marriage is a reflection of a heavenly reality of Christ and his love for the church. Marriage itself, being just a picture, is not the be all and end all. It is not the happily ever after. But it is a signpost to the happily ever after. And this is why we so easily get it wrong. We kind of want marriage to be the happily ever after. It’s not surprising that novels and films, at least of a a previous generation wanted to see marriage as the Happily Ever After. But they missed the point. The marriage itself, isn’t? It’s pointing us to the true happily ever after. Christ with His people forever in heaven. The Bible begins with a marriage, and the Bible ends with the great marriage. The beginning is just a signpost. The end is the wedding feast. of the Lamb. And we read there, then, that the church is like a beautiful bride, which is described here, without blemish, without anything wrong, Abs absolutely beautiful and perfect. And Christ takes her into heaven. We’ll think a bit about that at the end. That’s what marriage is. It’s reflecting, it’s pointing to that heavenly reality. And so we’re not to see marriage as the be all and end all. If that were the case, singleness would be unbearable. The death of a spouse would be unbearable. The break up of a marriage would be unbearable. And if we see marriage as everything, then we’re trying to make it into something that it was never meant to be. We made it into another idol. We’re thinking that marriage will give us everything that we want. Marriage will give us the security and the joy and the significance that we long for. You know, if you go on a journey, I do enjoy seeing Oxford on the signpost for the first time. You know, you’ve been a long way away and you see But I don’t stop the car there and think, “Ah, let me just sit in front of this signpost.” I mean, that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? I mean, I don’t presume no one ever does that, do they? But that’s what you’re doing if you think marriage is the answer to everything. It’s just a signpost. Now, uh.. next week, we’re gonna have to start getting more practical. So I’m not going to get too much application because I preached too long last week, so I’m just going to spread this out. But do you get the point? We have to understand what marriage is. Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck in the wayside. Here’s the other implication. If marriage is a signpost, well, actually, you don’t have to be married to enjoy the real marriage. And singleness is a huge issue. And sometimes, maybe not so much these days, but certainly in past generations, and certainly in some circles, marriage is treated as such a big thing that we can be left thinking somehow I’ve missed out if I’m single. My mother is blind. And she sometimes says, you know, that the first person I I’m going to see will be Jesus. I was talking to someone this week, who’s completely deaf. I mean, you can hear now with coplia implants and and hearing AID, but completely deaf. And do you know what he said? He said, “The first person I’m gonna hear will be Jesus.” And he said, “I’m hoping he will say to me what “W done, good and faithful servant.” I thought, “Wow. You know, you can go through you can go right through life as this young man, never hearing at least he can hear with something with AID, but you could go all your life with never hearing or never seeing. But you can still, at the end, hear Jesus, you can still see him. You can go all in your life being single and you will still be part of that greatest marriage. That’s the joy. Let me just read one for 7. Because the scriptures, yes, extol marriage, but also extol singleness. Just let me read. 732. I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs, how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman, or virgin, is concerneded about the Lord’s affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband. I’m saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. Actually, singless as an advantage. You can give your time. undivided in devotion to the Lord. If you’re married, your attention is supposed to be divided. That’s the reality. And if you’re married and trying to live as if you’re single, well, it doesn’t fit with this. If you’re single, you can live in undivided devotion to the Lord. That’s our second heading. God designed marriage to reflect Christ and the church. Thirdly, “nowing Christ transforms marriage. Knowing Christ transforms marriage. God created us in the image of God. To put it more bluntly, God made us like little pictures of himself. Okay? We’re supposed to look like God. I don’t mean physically, God is a spirit. But there is so much about us that should show other people God.. Jesus said this in Matthew 5, verse 1, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and glorify God in heaven. We’re to be like lights that shine on God, that show people and lead people to God. We’re made in the image of God. Our marriage is do a similar thing. Our marriages are there to show the unity of Christ and His church, the commitment of Christ and His church, the love of Christ, and and his church. Our marriages are signposts to Christ and the church, to that great marriage. And so this is why it is that only when you know Christ can you understand deeply? Can you feel what marriage really is? As I keep saying, this does not negate marriage for for non Christians. Marriage is still a blessing to non Christians, and the stats show that. Married people benefit from being married. Children benefit from having married parents. When you’re a Christian, it’s even better, because you have a feel for what marriage really is. If you’re not a Christian, you’ll have a view of marriage that is actually guided by self preservation, not self giving. You’ll tend to think maybe just of the lovely wedding of having a beautiful house, even a stable relationship. and that’s as far as your view of marriage goes, and what all those things are good, but they don’t get to the heart of what marriage is. You see, a married couple can have a stable, but rather distant relationship, relationship, where they’re not growing in love. They’re not reflecting Christ and the church. other things take priority, and they settle for something less than a deepening love. So often in scriptures, Paul encourages the church to love God God more and more. Christian love is a more and more love. Christian love continues to grow. Christian love doesn’t settle at a kind of plateau. But frankly, all too many marriages do. You kind of have this, well, okay, let’s just. It’s peaceful. We can cope with this. but it’s not a deepening love. The plan that God has for marriage is so much better. Two things. Two things. Firstly, the relationship of Christ to the Church is the pattern for marriage. And then, secondly, the gospel of Christ gives the power for marriage. Rationship over Christ to the church is the pattern for marriage. Let me just read verses 22 to Christ. 25 again. And we will look in much more detail of these things next week and maybe even the week after, we’ll see. Verse 22. Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now, as the Church submits to Christ Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Throughout these very practical instructions of how to live as husband and wife, more is said about Christ and the church than actually of how to live as husband and wife. If you don’t get the message, it’s just so, so clear and so powerful and so prominent in these verses, the role relationship of Christ to the church gives us the pattern for marriage. God’s plan for husbands is to be as committed in love to their wives as Jesus is to the church. That’s a massive standard. And yet it’s also a beautiful thing. The most beautiful thing. God’s plan for wives is to submit to their husbands as the church does to Christ. And again, that’s a beautiful thing. But by nature, none of us can do that. By nature, we cannot even understand why anyone would want to do that. This is why only the Christian can understand God’s real design for marriage. We just don’t get it. If you’re not a Christian, that word submit grates on you. grates on Christians sometimes. I’m not saying, you know. And this depth of love, well, I think, hang on a minute. I will love her, but there’s a limit to everything, surely. You say, no. It’s not a limit. And that’s what we do in our marriages. We reach a platea, and we kind of think, well, we’ll stay there. We’re putting a limit on it.” And God says, no. I want a signpost that is far clearer than that. I want to a signpost that actually is more and more like Christ’s love. I want marriages where the submission of the wife to her husband is more and more like the submission of the Church to Christ. Or we could add, like Christ’s submission to the Father. Not your will be done. Sorry, not my will be done, but your will be done. By nature, none of us can do this. By nature will we are self centred. We want to preserve ourselves. We think, “Well, I can’t give myself like that. I’ll be, I will lose myself.” And suddenly we think, ” ah, but didn’t Jesus say,, “Whoever finds his life will lose it.W it loses his life for my sake, we’ll find it.” We think, oh, this is what Jesus did, didn’t he? He lost his life, but he found it. Do you see, only the Christian can grasp this. The non Christian, out of self self preservation, says, ” I amm not going to submit. I’m not gonna love like that. I can’t. I don’t understand it. It will not work. It will damage me.” And the Christian says, I.A, but I begin to see this in Christ. I begin to see that there is a different way. You see the relationship of Christ to the church. gives a completely totally different pattern to marriage. It’s nowhere between these two extremes of that overly rosy view and that negative cynical view, something like that. It’s something completely different. Marriage is giving yourself. How can anyone do that? It’s impossible. That’s the second thing. The gospel of Christ gives the power for marriage. Let me read verses 25 to 27. “Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle, or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Again, there’s far more about the gospel in these verses than about human marriage. What is Christ going to do when he gave himself up for the church, he didn’t stop there. He continues to serve his people. and he’s working in us. He’s washing us. He’s taking away the filth, the wrong attitudes, the wrong ways of seeing things and behaving and speaking. He’s making us to be without stain or wrinkle, or any other blemish. He’s going to present us holy and blameless. And the world will be able to look on his bride and will be overawed by her radiant beauty. Not one blemish, and will be his work. That is the power of the gospel. And that is how we can begin to live a true Christian marriage. The gospel of Christ transforms us, it washeshes us, it empowers us. Ultimately, it will make us that radiant and beautiful bride. And so Jesus is doing his work work in us. And one way he does it is through our marriages. Marriages, they’re not a sacrament, but they are a place of sanctification. We feel the struggles, we feel the pain. We feel how tough it is to love, to submit. And we’re learning. And we seek God’s help. We say, God, what do I do here? And he’s helping. He’s changing us. He’s working in us. That self centredness, that self preservation that we have by nature. He’s beginning to take away. You see, this this alone is how we can begin to be godly husbands and godly wives. And this is why a Christian, Ma marry another Christian. There are non Christian marriages and they are good. And then there are Christian marriages. If you’re a Christian, don’t you dare marry an nonbeliever? That they won’t share this view. It’s a recipe for conflict. I mean, there’s always tension and difficulty in marriage, because we’re all cyn.ers, but if you don’t even come singing from the same song sheet, it’s a disaster. And so the scriptures insist that the belief of making may only marry another believer.. And it’s for these reasons. You see, when you’ve experienced Christ’s love, when your eyes have been moved to tears, that He has done so much for you. when you’ve seen that heaven could give no more for your salvation. When you’ve begun to see the love of Christ, then, you can begin to love your husband or your wife. Then you can start to submit, even as Christ did to his father. You know, it only occurred to me this week that Genesis 2, verse 24, when it says, a man leaves his father and mother, Isn’t that speaking of Jesus? Isn’t he that son who left his father? He left his home of heaven. And he left for one purpose to redeem a bride for himself. John 1 tells us that the Word was with God. That’s a statement of utter love and commitment between the Father and the Son of God, this etern eternal and beautiful relationship of love. The word literally was towards the Father, face to face. He absolutelyolute, affection, trust, love. But then we read, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It’s like going from the most comfortable, wealthy, magnificent, beautiful palace to the worst slum on the face of the earth. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. He was 214, since the children have flesh and blood, he too, shared in their humanity, so that by his death, he might taste death for us and destroy the power of H who holds the power of death. That’s what love really is. Jesus came from his father’s home to rescue us from the grip of sin. He came to give us life. He came to make us his bride. You can trust him. It If you’ve never trusted in Jesus, trust him just for this reason, that he gave everything. He gave his life. That is love. He died. He died for us. And he calls us to trust him and says, “Be part of my bride. I’m gonna change you. I’m gonna make you into what you can never dream you would be, not for your sake, for my sake. and you will love him. You will worship him forever.