God and Man

This morning, we're going to be talking about the pursuit of happiness. We're going to be thinking about what the Bible, I believe, tells us about what it means to be happy. And being happy, I believe, has two primary ingredients. To be happy, you need to know who you are, and even more importantly, who God is. We're going to go back Think about the foundational truths revealed in God's Word about who He is and who we, well, not necessarily are today, but who we were supposed to be. We're gonna go back and we're gonna look at the design because right now we live in a corrupted version of that design. Our world has sin in it. So we're gonna go back and we're gonna look at Genesis 1 and 2. So we just finished walking through the book of Romans for about eight months. We're going to take a short topical series, a theological series, to really just focus on the most basic truths. We're going to have a gospel foundation series. So if you look on the back page of your bulletin, you can see there the sermon series. We're going to begin in Genesis. We're going to end in Revelation. So we're going to look at the whole Bible. We're going to look at the whole story. We're going to look at the way it was supposed to be and the way it ends. And in between, you see, there's sin, and what we do with sin, and then there's sin and what God does with sin. So God created us to be with him, Genesis 1 and 2. We refuse God. That's Genesis 3, that's next week. God comes down to reconcile us to himself, to wash us of our sin, to give us life when we chose death. That's the third sermon. And then finally, we will get a picture, a vision of what God intends, and it is that we would be with Him, that He will be with us. The purpose here is to remind us, as a church, just the most basic truth of what we believe. We're gonna cover the most essential doctrines. God, man, sin, redemption, reconciliation, heaven. In all this, we're looking at God's Word. So here we are, we're going to be thinking about the most fundamental truths, and we're going to start in Genesis 1 and 2. Before I read, will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have given us your Word. You've not left us in our sin. You've told us who we were meant to be. You've sent your son to make us who you want us to be. Help us, Lord, to believe these truths, to live according to them, and to long for the day where we will be with you without sin. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So there's a few things I wanna pull from Genesis 1, but we're gonna mainly pull those out as we walk through Genesis 2. And I want to make it very clear, Genesis 1, that's a song of praise. It's like a hymn. There's an order, there's a pattern, there's an escalation. It's declaring the orderliness of God and how good creation was. And then we see Genesis 2, verse 4, it begins a different kind of writing. These are the generations. That first creation account is a hymn of praise because God has made things so good and so orderly. And then we have the history begins. These are the generations. And that's a pattern through Genesis. Chapter 5, verse 1. Chapter 6, verse 9. And chapter 10. That's a pattern to say, here's how history has unfolded for the creation of God, particularly man. So here are the word of the Lord, Genesis 2, beginning in verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, and the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And the tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of evil, good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah. where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Dillum, onyx stones are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you shall eat of it, you shall surely die. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heaven, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. Again, we're going to see essential truths. We're going to get to go back here and we're gonna see the way it was meant to be, the way it's supposed to be, the way God designed it. It's good. The first thing I want us to see here is that God created man uniquely. God created man uniquely. Notice verse seven. The Lord God formed the man from the dust, from the ground. Now, from dust we came, to dust we return. We are people of this earth. We have been created from the earth, we are created for the earth. God has given us a special role as men, as humans, to be part of this creation, to have a central role in the creation. But it's not just that he formed us specifically from this dust to be united with it and connected it. Really, the thing we should focus on here is he breathed life into us. It's quite an intimate, personal picture of God's relationship to man. He doesn't do this with any other creature. He puts his breath in our mouth, in our nostrils, in our lungs. The life we have is dependent upon God because God has given us his life. I believe woman shares this same unique relationship, this unique status, because I believe this is connected to the image of God. Man and woman both were made in the image of God, Genesis 126. The breathing shows this unique, close relationship. to be able to know God, to know His love, to be face to face, to know He loves us, to know He cares for us. We know that Adam's able to speak with God. So it should leave us thinking, why does God feel so distant today? God meant for us to have a uniquely personal relationship with Him. Quite frankly, we should look around and ask, Why don't I have that? Why don't I enjoy a relationship with God? Well, that's what we're gonna look at next week. We broke that relationship with God. We use one simple word to describe this, it's sin. We decided to not listen to God. He gave one simple command to Adam and Adam couldn't keep it. Well, we'll look at that in a moment. But I want us to see, I want you to recognize here, God did not create us to be distant from him. He created us to be close to him. God did not create us to wonder who he is. God has spoken so we know who he is. God has not left us to figure out who we are or what's right and wrong by ourselves. No, God intends for us to know him and who we are according to his word. What we need to recognize is What we messed up in creation, God has decided to fix. We call this the gospel. It's good news. God did not leave us distant from himself. God recognized, even though we tried to build a tower at one point to get back up to God, he had to come down to look at it. He realized we can't fix ourselves. So he came down. The father sent his son to become like us so that he could walk the life, he could live the life we were supposed to live in every way. He was like us in every way, yet he was without sin. This son is named Jesus Christ. He lived 2,000 years ago. He was a perfectly righteous man, but he was crucified. Crucifixion was the death penalty that they used for the worst criminals. It was shame, it was suffering, it was hideous, it was gross. The perfectly righteous man, the only man who has ever been perfectly righteous died the worst kind of death. And what we know about crucifixion wasn't the worst part of what he suffered that day. Being nailed to the cross, being mocked, being spat upon, that wasn't the worst part of the day. The worst part of the day is when the Father decided to pour out all of the wrath we deserve on Him. So that the wrath we deserve we will not have to suffer. The distance we would feel from God forever because of His wrath against our sin would be washed away because the Son paid the penalty. Jesus Christ died in our place that day so that whoever believes in Him will never suffer the wrath of God. They will live forever with God. That is the good news. And it's not just, we need to believe in Jesus so we can be forgiven. No, God says, I want you to believe in Jesus so that I can give you my Holy Spirit so that you can once again know me, know my love, and love me. God is in pursuit of a renewed relationship. So we're thinking about how God intended it. He breathed life into us so that we could know him, so that we could be personally connected with him. We refused him, he sent his son to die for us, and then Jesus does something like what the Father did in creation. In John 20, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples. This is the new breath that brings new life. So if you're a Christian, you need to realize that you have a whole new identity because Jesus, he died for us, he's risen again, he's ascended, and the Holy Spirit now comes to do a new work in us. Here are four things that we should think about as we think about the new relationship we have with God because of Christ. First, we're new creations in Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us the new life, the resurrected life of Christ. Friends, this is better than the life Adam had in Genesis 2. This is why it's better. In Genesis 2, Adam was given a life that he could lose. He died. When we believe in Jesus Christ, you are given a life that you cannot lose. You are given eternal life. We're new creations, and it's better than what God gave Adam, but now in Christ, we cannot lose the life we've been given. Secondly, we have a new righteousness. Sin is forgiven. We are declared righteous. We're declared innocent. This is also better than Adam. You see, Adam, in Genesis 2, has a righteousness, but he lost it. He had a right standing before God, and he betrayed God, he rebelled against God, he lost that righteousness. When we believe in Christ, you are declared righteous because of the perfect work of Christ. You cannot lose that righteousness. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When we believe in Christ, we're new creatures, we have a new righteousness. Thirdly, we have a new family. You're not just in a right relationship with God as the highest creature, as the primary servant, as the image of God, the ambassador for all creation. You are actually now a son of God. Because Christ, the son, shares his inheritance with you. You're not just in a right relationship, you're part of the family. because the Father adopts you. You're beloved as a son. Finally, the fourth thing, you have a new purpose. And this is actually very similar to Adam. Worship. When you believe in Jesus Christ, your purpose changes. You stop pursuing the sins of this world and you start pursuing the righteousness of Christ. that this is the good work of what God created us for? Worship. This is the good work we're supposed to be doing now. But it all starts with one simple thing. God does not intend you to think he's destined. That's not how we were created. That's not what we were created for. God wants to know us. He sent his son so that we can know him. Before we move on into our next point, I want to ask a very important question, because the breathing of life, the giving of life, the unique status of man among creation, it goes back to being made in the image of God. We can look at this at Genesis 1, 26, especially verse 27. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let him have dominion. Verse 27, it's a great declaration of poetry. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God that he created him, male and female, he created them. I wanna say three things about what it means to be made in the image of God. First, it means every human being has a unique status among all of creation. When I mean every, it means every. Every human being, male and female, are made in the image of God. There's a dignity and a worth that every human being inherently has because they're all given the status of being image bearers. This needs to apply to how we think about other human beings. Every human being. Those who are not like us. Those who may not like us. They are all made in the image of God. Every human being has dignity and worth, and we as Christians are supposed to be modeling what that looks like. To seek out and welcome the stranger, to show every human being has dignity and worth. Secondly, there's a status I also wanna point out, being made in the image of God, it's a unique ability. God breathes life into us so that we can reflect him. If you're a human being, you have a unique opportunity, a unique ability other creatures do not have in this world. It's to worship God. We take that for granted. You have the unique ability to think God's thoughts after Him, to desire and to love God, to know Him, to proclaim His praise. That's a unique ability among the creatures of this world. It's a unique ability and it's a great responsibility. That's the third point. We were created for worship. And that's a dangerous thing in our present time because Genesis 1 and 2, we were designed for worship. We were righteous, Adam and Eve, and they were worshiping the one God. But here's the problem once we become sinners. We are sinners, not that we are. We need to realize this. We were designed to worship and we are always worshiping. The question is, who and what? We are always actively worshiping something. We were created to worship only one thing, though. We are too often turned to worship everything but the one thing we were designed to worship, and that is God. It is a great power. It is a great responsibility. We must learn to discipline our desires. to change the way we think, to change the way we talk, so that we fulfill that great and highest calling, that great responsibility to worship. That leads us to our second main point. We have a unique status, we've been uniquely created for a unique relationship, but secondly, God created man to work. The second thing I want us to see from Genesis 2 is that God created man to work. Look at verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. He works and he protects. There's a unique job description here among all the creatures, but thankfully for Adam, he has a really simple job description. There's two parts to it. There's the proactive maintaining and caring, and then there's the watchful work of protecting and defending. We can just back up for a second, we can recognize God created us for work. Work is good. It is good to be at work. Finding a job that allows you to use your abilities to better society, provide for your family, that's the objective. Find work, desire work, and work hard. One of the things we realize, When we think about work, we need to be contributors, not complainers. It's just so easy to complain about work. And I think we get confused because we complain about work when work is good. We shouldn't complain about it. What we're really complaining about is the curse, our sin, that's made it more difficult and complicated. If we go look at Genesis 3, as we will next week, work in the garden used to be easy. It was productive. It was fruitful. We didn't sweat, apparently. That was part of the curse. You know, if I could write my own kind of version of Lennon's, I can only imagine it would be, can you only imagine what it would be if we hadn't of sinned? And the first verse would be about how wonderful the garden would be. No thorns, no thistles, no chickweed. All those weeds you have to pull up constantly, how unproductive your labor is. In the garden, Adam was said, go work and it's gonna be fruitful work. Go work and it's going to be enjoyable work. That's how God designed it. Be of the work of God. Now this is over against the way we think about work. There's two primary sin problems we have in the way we typically think about work. One, we work for the weekend. We work so that we can play. We work so we think, well, once I finish working, then I can start doing what I really enjoy, whereas God's saying, no, you're supposed to actually see work as an opportunity to worship, and therefore you should enjoy. The second one is this. You work so you can retire. God never calls you to stop working. Your work just looks different. You don't work so that you can stop working. You work so that you might be able to set aside more time to do a work that looks different. We are supposed to be about work. And the work we're supposed to be doing is the work that glorifies God. Whatever you're doing, as a Christian, what we're looking at here is how you do it and why you do it. It's for the glory of God. And I also want us to look here that Adam is called to work in a very specific place. God created the garden specifically for Adam and it was blessed specifically for Adam and it was intended and designed to help him. And what's unique about this garden is it's where God and Adam come to meet. It's where God says, I'm going to talk to you there. I'm going to meet you there. It's like the temple. His work was enjoyable. His work was not laborious. It was not difficult. It was with God. One of the things we need to see here is that the work we're supposed to be doing as those made in His image, exercising dominion, we're supposed to be representing God in everything we do. That was our job. God's glory and God's order we're supposed to implement here in his creation. What happened in the fall? The creature that God most empowered on earth led a rebellion that corrupted all the other creatures. We were the most empowered creature. We were the ones given the greatest responsibility. We were the ones given the greatest power. and we chose to rebel. Now as I think about this in light of the gospel, what's amazing about the fact that God calls us out of the darkness into the light as he gives us life when we were dead. He doesn't just say I'm gonna give you the blessings and then you just kind of soak it up. No, he says I'm now going to recruit you back into the work you failed to do to begin with. I'm going to recruit you back into it. I'm going to give you gifts. I'm going to empower you so that you can now set your focus to work. We talked about this last week. Every Christian's a builder. Every Christian has been designed and gifted to build up the body of believers. Every Christian is a builder of the most important institution God has designed here on earth at this time, and that is a church. to encourage one another with our words and actions. There's different kinds of work, but it's all focused on the same thing. The third thing I want us to see from this text, God created man to depend on him. He created us for a unique relationship. He created us to work. He creates us to depend upon him. God created us for himself. That's okay. There's no higher purpose for man to exist than to exist for God. The problem that we usually have is we think God is there for us. He's there to get us out of jams. He's there to give us the things we want. That's flipping the order. He's God and we are not. That's the most fundamental lesson we have to remember. He is God and we are not. He created us for Himself. His desire is for us. And we're supposed to depend upon Him. First, let's look at verse nine. Out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food. We see here, God created us to depend upon Him and He provides abundantly. Every tree that we needed to support life was given to us. It was pleasant to the sight. It was good for food. God has made this garden yield productively and fruitfully everything man needs. So verse nine, we realize, okay, God has provided for us. Look at verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man. you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. So all that fruit, look at it, it's yours. I've given you everything you need. Look at all I've given you. You may surely eat of every tree, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die. Now, this is a little interesting, right? There's all kinds of trees all over the garden. There's two unique ones. There's a tree of life, a tree of good and evil, knowledge of good and evil. And God said that of all these trees, there's one, there's only one that God says you can't eat of it. Everything else is yours. You are to exercise dominion over all the garden, but this one tree, I've given you the one simple limitation. Why does God do that? I believe this is one of the most helpful things God does for Adam in the garden. He gives him the limitation so that Adam will not forget that God is God and he is not. God is the one who is the true Lord of this garden. Man needs a reminder that he is not autonomous. He's not independent. And specifically here, man, you do not determine what's right and wrong. God does. That's why we long for autonomy. That's why we long for independence, because we want to be able to tell you what we think is right and wrong, and God's saying no, who know what is right and wrong, that's God. He tells us what is right and wrong. We're not supposed to go pursue that one tree so that we know that God is in control. He is truly autonomous, we are not, and He determines what is right and wrong. Our problem is we don't really like that. We feel like God's rules could limit us. We feel like God's rules are too imposed, and we feel like God's rules, they're not what I really like, so we reject them. Friend, realize that when you reject what God says is right and good, you're rejecting the happy, good life. He designed you. He knows what's good for you, and his commands are always good for you. He does not keep anything from you that is good for you. He sent his own son. He's given you the greatest gift. He does not hold back good things from those he loves, and we know he loves us because he sent his son to die for us. Our problem is we just do not like to listen. Problem is we don't like restriction. We have to learn to realize God's rules are good. So God created us for this relationship. He created us with a unique responsibility. He created us to depend upon him. And finally, we come to the last section. He created us for one another. Specifically, God creates a woman for man. Now, we can go back and we need to make sure we realize chapter one, verse 27, is a grand, overarching declaration. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. In case we're wondering, is it just men? No, male and female, he created them. Men and women have equal dignity and worth. Male and female are created with the same power, that same ability to worship God. They're both made in the image of God. But they were created differently. They have different roles. So the first thing we need to realize is, yes, women are made in the image of God. That is clear. But secondly, they're male and female. That's something else that we actually need to make clear today. There's a difference between men and women. I'm not sure we needed to say that 50 years ago, but today we've gotta say that. There's male and there's female. Now, let me speak to us as Christians. Sin corrupts and it confuses. We need to be careful to look down upon those who are confused about gender. We shouldn't be surprised they are. God has given us a clear order and design, and Satan has been seeking to twist it and corrupt it from the very beginning. He's attacked marriage, he attacks the family, he attacks gender. Gender problems, they're not new, they just look different today. We need to realize that most of the history of the world has looked at women as if second class citizens. We're gonna see here that the Bible dismisses that. No, they're first class. They're to be honored and praised. But we've always corrupted things. So whenever there's gender confusion, don't mock that. That's a consequence of the fall. That's a consequence of sin. We need to realize that those who are in the middle of gender confusion, they're just feeling the effects of sin. They need the gospel. We also need to be careful not to get mad when there are certain rules being put in place to normalize what we know is wrong. This is what we do, folks. Whatever we like, we want to make normal for everyone. We shouldn't be surprised that others want their lifestyles to be recognized as normal. That's what we do. We don't need to be mad about it. We simply need to be prayerfully seeking to proclaim the gospel that clarifies the truth and brings Christ honor. Men and women are created equal. Men and women are given the same status, but yet there's different roles. Now, there's two things that are very important about the woman and the creation in verse 18. She's a helper fit. The woman is a helper fit. And as we look at what this means, let's look at this verse, it is not good that man should be alone. Now, if we look at this in light of Genesis 1, this is day six. Every day in Genesis 1 ends with it is good, it is good, it is good, it is good. This will be the first time it is good has not been said. Here in day six, God says it's not good yet. But notice Genesis 1 and the way it ends. It was very good, verse 31. Verse 31 doesn't just end with it is good, it ends with very good, and in the middle of day six, it's not good yet. Woman has to be created for it to be good. Creation is not finished until woman is created because she is so necessary. So it's not good for man to be alone, so God says, I'm going to make him a helper fit. Now, helper, let's just stop there. We use this word help in our culture, in our language, sometimes very unhelpfully. One of the ways we use this word is, oh, they're just the help. Right, you've heard somebody talk about this. Oh, that's the help. They're in the kitchen cooking. They don't get to eat dinner at the table. That's the help. They're doing the lawn, but they don't get to swim in the pool. That is not the way this word is being used in this passage. The woman is connected to the man in such a way that they're one flesh. She's not there just to be the help. That's unhelpful. Actually, let's think about this word. I want you to see something. It says as much about the man as it does the woman. The man needs help. That's actually one of the most powerful declarations that God is saying here. It's not good yet because man needs help. And woman is provided because the woman provides the help. Men need women. So what kind of help? Well, what kind of help does a woman provide? Well, if you go back to Genesis 1, there's a command, procreate. Now, I'm not going to give you an explanation as to why men and women are both needed to procreate. That would be a great question for the elder candidates to really test their ability to teach on Wednesday night. But I hope it's obvious that a man needs a woman to fulfill the great command, be fruitful, multiply, fill, The earth. The other word here is fit. We use this word for fitness. Someone is physically fit. Their muscles are strong. They're able to do a job. They're able to compete in a game. Well, here it shows a healthiness and a design. The woman is particularly designed to provide the specific help the man needs. And I think here, specifically, Eve was designed for Adam. God has design and he has purpose. Now, it's a really odd passage, okay? I'm just gonna be honest, as you read this passage, it's a little odd. So here's Adam. It's been declared, it's not good for you, you need to help her fit, and then all of a sudden, all right, here's all the animals. Name them all. And among them, not a single helper was found who was fit. It sounds a little odd that Adam, not knowing what he's looking for at all, has all the animals go by. And one of the purposes here was to see if there's a helper fit for him. And it's building up an anticipation. And so God gives him a nap. That must have been hard work. naming all those different creatures. And so while Adam was taking a nap, God takes out a piece of the man from his side, and he designs from that rib, from the very side of Adam, of his own flesh, the woman he needs. Now, it's an odd scene. But quite frankly, it actually, as I studied this, it helped me understand another odd practice that we have in our world. So picture up here. a young man in a tuxedo. He's not quite as clueless as Adam as to what he's looking for, but he has no idea what he's about to get into. Right? There's people gathered. And then all of a sudden, a bunch of women dressed very nicely start walking down the aisle. As if, if you're an outsider, you're thinking, is he there choosing one of them? Why are all these women coming by? And then all of a sudden, The one woman shows up. See, our wedding practice is like Adam here. As she goes by, she's not the one. As she goes by, she's not the one. And then there she appears. That's the one. And the Father brings her to Adam. The Father brings her to the groom. just as God, after he designs this woman, brings her to man. This is, I believe, a beautiful picture of the first wedding. It's a little odd, but in creation, the whole point is to build up this anticipation. Adam, he needed a helper fit, and then he goes through the exhausting labor of naming everything, and there's no one found, and then God designs specifically, especially for him, that one helper fit just for him. It's a beautiful picture of what God does for us. And it gets even better. Notice verse 23. Then the man said, the first recorded words of man. Man speaks for the first time recorded in scripture. He named the animal. This is significant. It's the first words we have of man. They're significant. What does he say? At last, that anticipation worked. At last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Friends, we need to realize the first words that God recorded for us from man are praising God for woman. That's significant. Women matter to God. Creation has a climactic finish. When woman is created, it is not very good without her. God values women. The Bible makes her special. Man's first words are praising God for her. It's a sad reality as we look next week. It only takes two more declarations from Adam to start blaming God for a woman. We're supposed to be in Genesis 2. Genesis 3 is a corruption. So I ask you, men, how often are you praising God for your wife? How often does she hear you praising God for her? How often do your children hear you praising God for her? Because here's just the reality. If you're not proactively praising God for her and thanking God for her, you're going to take her for granted and you're going to start thinking of somebody else. Someone else is going to seem more attractive if you are not proactively praising God for the woman he designed and fit for you. Husbands, love your wives. Know that she is the one fit for you because you're married to her. It's just that simple. The best defense against sexual morality is a good offense. Proactively pursue Christ. Proactively pursue your wife. And when you fail, and we all fail, trust that grace we heard of earlier. Christ washes us, Christ forgives us. Grace abounds to us as sinners. Do not believe the lie that you deserve better Know the truth. You deserve hell. You do not deserve better than God's given you. You have it better than you deserve. Your wife has been fit for you. Let me speak to you if you're single. You do not need a spouse to be a complete human being. He or she will not complete you. You need Christ. He is the one who actually transforms you. He is the one who takes you and makes you human again. That is a worshiper. He washes the spots and the blemishes. He washes you. And he makes you whole. You do not need a spouse to be a complete human or a complete Christian. You need Christ. You need a church. You need other brothers and sisters to come around you. If you're single, you're not a second-class citizen. You're a Christian. You have every privilege and benefit and blessing being connected to the true bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Let me speak to you with a little more practical advice that I don't often give publicly. If you're single and you want to get married, do not think there's a magic way of identifying your spouse. There's no magic, there's actually very little mystery. Marriage is simply hard work. Here's my advice, and you can take it for what it's worth, I'll step aside. If you're a believer, that other person's a believer, and you think you can grow each other in Christ and his love, and they're willing to live with you, you're like 90% there. Here's the truth. You can marry Prince Charming and that dude's gonna change in time. We change. We become different people. By grace, we become better people. By grace, we become more loving and more lovable. But what you need is to find somebody who's going to pursue Christ with you. I realize that may sound simplistic, but it's the truth that who you're marrying is not gonna be the same dude he is later. She's not gonna be the same gal she is later. Lord willing, you'll both be changed by Christ as you pursue him together. Finally, let us just look quickly at verse 24. Marriage matters. Marriage matters. We can flip over to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter five. It's on page 978 if you're using a Pew Bible. Ephesians chapter 5, and I want you to look at verses 31 and 32. This mystery is profound. Now, at first I would just stop and say, all right, what mystery, Paul? Okay, Adam and Eve, they didn't have a mother and father. Is that the mystery you're referring to? No. I believe this statement is declared to show that this is universal for all marriages at all times. The fact that it's given about mother and father, leave and cleave. Verse 32, this mystery is profound. I am saying that what we read about between a man and a woman becoming one, it refers to Christ and the church. a husband and wife are supposed to reflect the relationship of Christ and his church. Specifically, what we're supposed to see here is that a young man, he leaves his mother and father, notice it's the man who leaves, to pursue a woman and be united with her. This is most fulfilled when the father, God the father, sent his unique son down to us so that that son could love us with a greater love than no one has ever experienced before. It is the greatest love we received. God himself came down, descended, took upon the form of a man, took upon the form of a servant, died for sins he did not commit so that he could love us by washing us, by reuniting us. The marriage that we have as a covenant in creation It's actually a reflection of the true marriage and that of between Christ and the church. The greatest love anyone has is Christ for his bride. That means husband, he loves her more, he loves your wife more than you do. He sanctifies her, he washes her, he makes her holy. It brings us back to that first point. God created you for a relationship. God created you to know him. He sent his son so that you can know him again. If you are here and you do not know this personal relation with God, if you do not know the love of God, you are going to know the wrath of God. Unless you believe in Jesus Christ, the bridegroom who has come to show us God's love, the bridegroom who has come to wash us of our sin, the bridegroom who has come to make us whole again. He alone has perfect love. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you that you are the God who created us so uniquely, with love, with care, so that we would know you, so that we would praise you. We thank you that you did not leave us alone when we rejected you. You've not left us to be distant, but you have sent your Son to become like us in every way so that we can be forgiven when he dies, when he died and rose again for us, when we believe in him. We thank you that you sent your Holy Spirit so that we can hear you, so that we can know you and know your love. Help us, Lord, to recognize what you are doing in all of creation. Help us to realize that the things that are corrupt, they're because of sin. The things that are good, help us to see them as good. And help us to be committed to proclaiming you so that your praise is heard throughout all of creation. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.