7-27-08
Unity, Intimacy, and Priority
Building a Joyful Marriage: Part 4
Genesis 2:18-25

Summary: The last three aspects of God’s ideal for marriage are Priority (leave parents) to show God’s covenant relationship, Unity (united to his wife…one flesh) to show God’s oneness with us, and Intimacy (naked and unashamed) to show the norm for our relationship with God.

1. Companionship
2. Partnership
3. Priority (Faithfulness/Commitment/Covenant)
The Logic of v.24
Cut the apron strings
Highest priority
Covenant commitment with God
4. Unity
United
One flesh
Legal Status
Practical outworking
Oneness in purpose
5. Intimacy (Naked & Unashamed)
Intimacy
Unashamed before God

Genesis 2:18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

1. Companionship 
We are in the midst of a study of God’s ideal for marriage, and we found that there are five clear marks of God’s perfect design for marriage spelled out in Gn.2.  The first is companionship.  God designed marriage to solve the problem of Adam’s aloneness, which shows us that the ideal marriage is a deep and profound friendship and companionship.  Your spouse should be your best friend, and that is important because marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and His Church and the Lord Jesus Christ is our closest friend.

Jn.15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends

That is part of the gospel and our marriages are walking proclamations of the gospel – especially the part about the way in which God and His people love each other.

2. Partnership
The second mark of God’s ideal for marriage is partnership.

18 I will make a helper suitable for him 

Helper is a word that always describes God (110 times), and is never used of human beings, except here.  I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from?  It comes from God, and her name is Eve.  Unless you are like Paul or Jesus – specially called by God to be single for the sake of the Kingdom, then you need a spouse to accomplish your calling.  You need a suitable helper.  A marriage is not two people carrying out two callings under one roof.  It is one flesh carrying out one calling.
That is not to say you both do the exact same work.  We are male and female precisely because of the fact that we have different roles.  But our attitude and perspective should be such that we are consciously working as partners, and always remembering that our different roles are different aspects of the one task.  God wants your family to be a certain thing, and you cannot make it that by yourself.
And again, this is important because it reflects the way God interacts with His people.  Amazingly, He works in partnership with us.  But in that partnership between God and His people you do not have man working independently over here and God off over here, and they come together at the end of the day and just say, “How did your part go today?”  The partnership is so profoundly joined together that you cannot tell where one leaves off and the other begins.

Colossians 1:29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

That is the reality that our marriages are to model.  When people look at the work being accomplished for the kingdom through your marriage it should not be all that clear where one ends and the other begins.  We should be so intermingled and entwined and tangled and mixed together that it really does reflect the way God works in His people.  It is not my place to take over Tracy’s roles in the home.  However it is my privilege and joy, as much as I can, to supply her with strength and encouragement and leadership and protection in all that she does.  She needs to carry out her role, but as she is doing that she is going to face an enemy who is going to do all he can to hinder her.  And I need to fulfill all that Scripture means by headship in order to give her the courage and strength and motivation and knowledge and confidence and rest and whatever else I can supply as the main human tool God uses to empower her.
And wives, you should have the same mentality.  You may not have the slightest understanding of what your husband does all day at work.  And that is OK.  But still, you can encourage him and support him and honor him.  A man who has that kind of support from his wife can accomplish ten times what he could do otherwise.
And by the way, this is another area where we need to protect each other from temptation.  If you are not your spouse’s greatest encourager and supporter, then someone else will eventually come along and fulfill that role and it is going to be really hard for your spouse not to be attracted to that person.  If a man comes home and just gets yelled at or argued with or belittled or dumped on, and then he goes to work and some woman there is deeply impressed with him and has high respect for him and encourages him, you have just placed him into a position of great vulnerability to temptation.  And men, it is the same for your wives.  If you are not tender and compassionate and understanding and interested in what she has to say, it will not be long before Satan sends some other guy along who will do all that.

3. Priority (Faithfulness/Commitment/Covenant)
So what is God’s ideal?  There are five parts.  The first two are companionship and partnership.  Let’s take a look at the third.

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother

It is interesting that God says the Adam and Eve account teaches us to leave father and mother.  Adam and Eve didn’t leave their parents – they didn’t even have parents.  So if they didn’t leave their parents, how does their story teach us to leave our parents when we get married?
The Logic of v.24
Let’s follow the logic.  God said “I will make a suitable helper so man will not be alone.”  Then He makes Eve out of Adam’s own flesh and presents her to Adam and Adam responds with great delight in poetic verse.  Then he points to all that and says, “See, that is the reason why a man leaves father and mother when he gets married.”  The fact that the first human relationship God ever created was a husband-wife relationship - that, combined with the amazing oneness and union between Adam and Eve is why a man leaves father and mother for his wife.  The priorities of God in creating human beings and the unparalleled oneness that exists in marriage show that the marriage relationship is a priority even over the parent-child relationship.  Which means it is a priority over every human relationship, because the parent-child relationship is the closest natural relationship there is.  So God’s ideal for marriage is for the marriage relationship to be the priority above every other relationship in life – a higher priority even than your parents or your children.
It is interesting that Moses says, “This is why we have the present day custom of a man leaving his parents for his wife.”  That is a striking comment, because in that time, when a couple was married they lived with the man’s parents, and were joined to that clan.  So geographically it was the woman who left her parents and the man stayed nearby his parents.  And so you might expect that v.24 would say, “This is why a woman leaves her father and mother…”  But it specifies the man leaving because the point is not so much about geographical leaving as much as a shift in priorities.  (And this is an especially dramatic statement in the cultural context of ancient Israel, where the commitment to one’s parents was a much greater priority than it is in our culture.)
The reason you are more closely related to a sibling than to a cousin is because you share more genes with a sibling.  And the blood relation with parents is even more than with siblings because there is even a greater blood relation there.  But there is no blood relation to your spouse.  The world does not really have any explanation for why that is, although even they can see it.  If you are in intensive care they will let your spouse in to see you before they will let any other family member in.  When I moved out of my parents’ house the courts did not step in and divide up all our belongings like they do in a divorce.  Even the world can see that the marriage relationship is unique.
And they have no idea why. By the spring of 1988 I had lived with my parents for over 20 years, but I was not even aware that Tracy existed.  Less than 30 months later Tracy and I were married and she became my closest relative even though she is from a completely different bloodline.  Why is that?  How did that ever come to be?
The reason your parents are such close relatives to you is because you are made up of half of your mother’s genes and half of your father’s.  But think of how closely Eve was related to Adam – closer than a son or daughter, because it wasn’t 50% of her genetic material that came from him, but 100%.  She was made from his very flesh.  And what this passage is teaching is that when you get married, God makes you as closely related to your spouse as Adam was to Eve.  
Cut the apron strings
God’s ideal for marriage is for you to be more committed to your spouse than to anyone else.  When a man listens to his mother more than he listens to his wife, that is a violation of God’s plan for marriage.  When a woman starts being more responsive to her boss at work or her father or her pastor or anyone else than to her husband, that is not God’s ideal.  The highest commitment of your life must be your spouse.  This is an important principle for newly married people to understand.  Some people cannot seem to cut loose from the apron strings.  It is not a good idea to be spending hours on the phone with your parents right after you get married –and your wife does not need to hear about how amazing your mother’s cooking is.
And some parents make it hard.  They refuse to let go, and they interfere by trying to continue to parent their child even after marriage.  That seems to be one of the hardest things for parents, yet it is crucial.  If you want to have a close relationship with your adult kids throughout your life, then step back when they get married.  From time to time people comment on how close a relationship Tracy and I have with my parents.  That came to pass as a result of tremendous wisdom on their part.  When we were married, overnight they went from just treating me as their son, to seeing me as another adult into whose life they should only come by invitation.  They stepped way back, and gave us plenty of time to establish our home.  They were always there for us, but never interfered in any way.  And for a while there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction.  We were not estranged, but my focus was on my new marriage. 
Then, after some years passed, and our marriage was solid and beginning to mature, Tracy and I sort of migrated back into closer and closer contact with them and now the closeness we enjoy with them is absolutely wonderful.  So many times I have seen couples get married and their parents just make themselves a thorn in their child’s side.  Their parents want so desperately to be close with them and to maintain the same influence, and they become so intrusive that they drive their children away.  More than once I have seen couples move out of state just to save their marriage.  And in some cases that is wise, because the marriage is now the highest relationship.
Highest priority
Marriage is not just the highest relationship, but the highest earthly priority period.  Your wife is more important than your job.  Your husband is more important than your children or anything else in your life besides God Himself.  That is God’s ideal. 
And there are two questions to ask yourself in this regard.  Is my spouse my highest earthly priority?  Is that obvious to my spouse?  It is not enough for you to say, “My wife is my highest priority.  She doesn’t think that is true, but I don’t know what her problem is because it is true.”  Maybe it is true, but if it is not evident to your wife then you need to make some changes so it becomes evident to her.  You need to strive to communicate your commitment to her that spells priority in her way of thinking.
And it is the same for women.  Ask your husband, “Does it ever seem like there is anything in my life that I put ahead of you as a priority (besides God)?”  And do not get upset if he gives you an honest answer.
One other quick thought to add here; God is showing us that the marriage relationship is the closest of all human relationships and the highest priority, and He does that by saying it is even higher than the parent-child relationship.  The implication, then, is that the parent-child relationship is the second highest.  (Otherwise it would not make the point that marriage is the highest.)  God’s design is for the husband to take over the role of the father.  That is a good word for our culture, because in our culture we tend to wait until we are much older before getting married, so adult, single women tend to just be out there on their own.  They leave their father and mother, but they do not have a husband.  I do not think that is God’s design.  I am not saying it is wrong for a woman to move out of her parents’ house and become financially independent.  But if a single woman is going to look to someone as a caretaker and protector and guide, I think if at all possible she would generally do better to think of her father first rather than looking to a boyfriend for those things. 
This system of dating that our modern culture has developed is an arraignment that, in many cases, is a substitute for marriage.  And so as early as middle and high school our children are being trained to live in a kind of quasi-marriage relationship with each other.  Hopefully, if they are Christians they understand that physical intimacy outside of marriage is sinful, but in many cases they live as husband and wife in other ways.  They don’t have a physical union, but they set each other as their highest priority, and function together and relate to one another in roles that are designed for marriage.  So the boyfriend takes over the role of the father.  That is not God’s design. 
Our culture’s system of dating sets up a kind of semi-marriage, where they try to enjoy some of the benefits of a marriage type relationship but without the legal lifetime commitment and without the one-flesh union created by God in marriage and in marriage alone.  But God designed relationships between men and women such that so much of what is wonderful about the way a husband and wife are to relate to one another is wonderful precisely because of the security of the lifetime commitment, which is why dating relationships generally do a whole lot more harm than good.  The Song of Solomon repeatedly warns us not to awaken marital love prematurely, because of how powerful and life-dominating that kind of love is.  Outside of marriage it just makes a mess of your life.
Covenant commitment with God
So God designed marriage to be a companionship so that it would illustrate the companionship between God and His people.  And God designed marriage to be a partnership so it would illustrate the partnership between God and His people.  So why do you suppose God created marriage to be the highest relationship priority?  Once again it shows us something about the way God relates to His people.
God has made a covenant with His people.  A covenant is the most binding kind of commitment there is.  In our culture the most binding commitment we have is a contract.  If you break a contract you forfeit either money or some possession, or maybe even your freedom temporarily if you go to jail over it.  But a covenant is stronger than a contract.  A covenant was a commitment that was sealed with your very life.  The way they would make a covenant was by killing some animals, cutting them in half, and then the two parties would walk together between the halves of the animals, and by doing so they were saying, “If I break this covenant may I share the same fate as these animals.”  When you make a covenant you are saying, “Keeping this covenant is a higher priority even than my own life.”
And marriage is a covenant.  It is not a contract.  It is not a mere promise.  It is not just a commitment.  It is a covenant.  Pr.2:17 says that the adulteress…

has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. 

When the people asked God why He would not accept their worship He said…

Malachi 2:14 Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have acted treacherously against her, though she was your companion and your wife by covenant.

Marriage is a covenant. The reason it is a covenant is because it is designed to illustrate the relationship between God and His people.  In Gn.9 He made a covenant with Noah and all the descendants of Noah (which is all human beings in existence).  In Gn.15 and 17 He made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants (which is anyone who has faith like Abraham).   In David’s time God expanded that covenant (2 Sam.7).  Then in the time of the prophets God started talking about a new covenant that would be better than the old covenant (Jer.31).  That New Covenant is nothing more and nothing less than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is why we call the New Testament the New Testament (“testament” is another word for “covenant”).  Everything the Bible says from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelation is the New Covenant.  So you can hardly over-emphasize the importance of the role covenant keeping plays in God’s relationship to His people.  His relationship with us is formulated in terms of covenant more than any other way in Scripture.
So it is no accident that marriage is also designed by God as a covenant.  Your faithfulness and commitment and obligation to your spouse is not just a matter of making your spouse happy.  It is a matter of whether your life is going to tell the truth about God or lie about God.

4. Unity
When God created mankind He wanted there to be one, special relationship that would be different from all other human relationships and that would be a living illustration of the way God is with His people.  So God’s ideal for marriage is for marriage to put on display God’s companionship with His people, His partnership with His people, and His covenant faithfulness to His people.  And in v.24 we see a fourth purpose – to show God’s union with His people.

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 

There are two key terms in that verse that we need to examine: “united” and “one flesh.”
United
The word “united” (or “hold fast” or “joined” or “bonds” or “cleave” depending on your translation) literally means to stick to someone.  It is used often of holding fast to God or God’s Word as opposed to straying away.  It is a decidedly inward concept.  Holding fast or clinging to someone is not just living under the same roof.  It is very much a function of your heart.  In 1 Ki.11 it says that Solomon married all kinds of pagan women which was forbidden by God. And then…

1 Kings 11:2 …Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. … 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

So it looks to me there like the thing that caused his heart to turn away from God was his holding fast or clinging to those women.  So you see how it is an issue of the heart?  You have heard of the figure of speech “joined at the hip” to refer to two people who are always hanging around each other- to be united with your spouse in this way means to be joined at the heart.  It is a closeness that makes your heart easily influenced by their heart.  Scripture even uses this term to describe clinging to a sin (2 Ki.3:3) or clinging to a sinful culture (Josh.23:12).  It is a clinging of the heart.
It is also an emotional term.  In Gn.34:3 there are three terms that describe Shechem’s love affair with Dinah.  He spoke tenderly to her (lit. spoke to her heart), he loved her, and his heart clung or held fast to her.  So having your heart cling to your spouse goes along with love and tender, romantic speech that touches the heart.  God’s ideal for marriage is for a man and woman to be joined at the heart in loving commitment such that each is easily influenced by the other because of the profound oneness.
One flesh
The other phrase God uses to communicate oneness in marriage is “one flesh.”

Genesis 2:21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

What really captivates Adam’s affections is the fact that she came out of him.  Man was formed from the dust, but woman from flesh.  God didn’t make her out of dust, because He wanted to demonstrate the profound unity in marriage.
But what is the nature of that unity?  Some of you might be thinking, “It doesn’t seem like we are one flesh.  If we are one flesh, how come we can’t seem to get along?  I don’t get in arguments with my arms and legs.  If we were one flesh, why is there so much conflict?”  Eve was formed right out of the very body of Adam.  She literally came from his flesh.  But Tracy came from Minnesota.  She was not formed out of one of my ribs.  So could it be that Adam and Eve were one flesh, but that does not apply to Tracy and me?  No.

Matthew 19:4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 

That passage makes a couple things very clear.  First, when Gn.2 says that the man and the woman were one flesh that is talking about all married couples.  Jesus applies it to every marriage.  Secondly, the way the two become one flesh is by the action of God in joining them together on their wedding day.
When a man and woman stand at the altar and say their vows, the one joining them together is not the pastor or the bride and groom or the State.  It is God. Every married couple has been joined together by God.  It is a legal status.  Jesus said even a couple that is on the verge of getting a divorce is one flesh.  Positionally all married couples are one flesh.  However in practice we need to strive to live up to our position, right?  We drift apart in our goals and purposes and interests and finances and work and ministry and all kinds of other ways.  Later in this study we will look into how to reverse all that and get back to the one flesh ideal of Genesis 2.
One with Christ
We will talk a lot more about that in the sermons to come.  But for now let’s think about why God made marriage a one-flesh relationship.

Ephesians 5:28-32 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--  30 for we are members of his body.  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." 32 This is a profound mystery-- but I am talking about Christ and the church.

The two becoming one flesh was designed as a picture of the way the Lord interacts with His people.  Verse 29 says that the way Jesus interacts with His church is that He feeds and cares for it like you feed and care for your physical body.  If you are a believer Jesus Christ feeds and cares for you because you are one of His body parts.  You are a body part of Christ, and the way He feels about caring for you, and the way He feels about protecting you, and the way He feels when someone hurts you is like the way you feel about your own body parts.
Even the nicest, most morally upright, friendliest unbelievers are totally separated from God relationally.  They might go to church, read their Bible every day, pray every day – they might even spend their lives as preachers or missionaries teaching people about Jesus.  But when Judgment Day comes Jesus will say, “Depart from Me; I never knew you.”  They are not in His family, they are not God’s children, they are not God’s friends, they are not God’s servants – they have no place in Christ at all.  They are utterly estranged from Him and dead to Him.  And that was you – and me, before we were converted.
But when you became a Christian, Scripture says God placed you in Christ.  We see that phrase about 100 times in the NT.  It means to have the closest possible relational oneness with Him.  As a believer you are as close to God as your arm or leg is to you.  There is no language to communicate a closer union of two persons.
Everything that is His is yours. All His riches are yours. His house is yours. His kingdom is yours. His family is yours. His wisdom is yours. His heaven is yours. His creation is yours. His angels are at your disposal. He who didn’t spare His own Son will certainly give you all things. Everything He has is yours.
And everything you have is His. All your sorrow, all your fears, all your anxiety, all your worry – He will take it all. Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you. Even your sin and your punishment He bore on His body on the tree. Everything that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ belongs to you, because you are one with Him.
He is inside you – touching you in places so deep you don’t even know about them - moving your most hidden motives and your feelings and emotions and passions and resolve and attitudes.  And you are inside Him – living in a cocoon of His thoughts and His grace and desires and love and will.  Every square inch of your life is touched by Him inside and out.  And everything you do you do in relationship with Him – either resisting the force He is exerting on that part of you or submitting to it.  Before you were converted you were on your own – floating in space.  Then you responded to the gospel in faith and now you are joined to Christ, and your life was transformed from being a piece of worthless, meaningless trash to being joined to the very life of God.
That is what the Lord Jesus Christ does with His people.  And He wanted us to understand something about that, and so when He created humanity He created one special relationship designed to reflect that truth: marriage. 
And that is the reason for sex by the way.  Producing children is secondary.  (That is why procreation is never mentioned a single time in the Song of Solomon.)  The purpose of sex is to serve as one of the components of oneness that God placed only in marriage to illustrate the way Christ is related to His people.

1 Corinthians 6:16-17 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

For your marriage to fulfill its purpose for existence there must be a oneness and unity between you and your spouse that is unparalleled in any other kind of relationship in the world.

5. Intimacy (Naked & Unashamed)

25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Intimacy 
Nakedness, in Scripture, usually speaks of either humiliation or poverty.  The point here is that there was no embarrassment - they were completely comfortable in each other’s presence.  I think this goes beyond just physical exposure.  Adam and Eve were completely open and exposed to one another in every way without any self-consciousness, embarrassment, concern about protecting themselves or having their guard up, or having anything at all to hide.  It was a relationship of absolutely unhindered intimacy. 
It requires a very special kind of relationship where you can be at your most vulnerable, and still be completely at rest and comfortable with someone else.  The reason we are not completely open with one another is because of the risk of being hurt.  A person who does not know you and rejects you does not really hurt you much.  But if the person who knows you best rejects you, that really hurts.  When you have exposed yourself completely to another person, from that moment on that person has tremendous power to hurt you because if they reject you they are rejecting the real you.  The more you open yourself up to someone, the more potential they have to hurt you, and for that reason we develop protective layers we use most of the time when interacting with people.  And we do not really "let our hair down” unless we are in the company of people we really trust.  Those protective layers block intimacy. 
But God made one particular human relationship where you can be naked and unashamed.  He created the first marriage with no risk of rejection and therefore no inhibitions.  Your spouse knows all about you and sees all your weaknesses and ugliness and faults and inadequacies – far more than anyone else – and yet loves you more than anyone else. Think about that.  The one who sees worse things about you than anyone else is the very one who loves you more than anyone else. 
Unashamed before God
Why did God make marriage like that?  Can you finish the sermon?  Are you picking up on the pattern?  God made marriage like that to reflect the fact that His relationship with us is like that.
And if that doesn’t blow you away, then you are just not thinking about it.  The norm for a Christian’s relationship with God is naked and unashamed!  The naked part doesn’t surprise anyone.  We all know that God can see our hearts.  But unashamed?  Is that the way you think of yourself before God most of the time – unashamed?  For many Christians that is absolutely inconceivable.  They have almost no other posture before God than shame.
But that is not good.  It is not what God wants.  When we sin and rebel against God we should feel shame – no question about that.  Psalm 51 teaches us how to respond to God when we are repenting of our sin.  In v.1 David asks for mercy because he is guilty.  In v.2 he asks for cleansing because he is filthy.

Psalm 51:3 I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

Those are the words of a man who is deeply ashamed before God.
So yes, a posture of shame is appropriate when we have sinned.  But that is not to be the norm permanently.  The whole purpose of repentance is to be restored.  And when God restores you, your shame turns to joy and rejoicing. 

8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation 

The sense of being crushed in guilt is supposed to be temporary.  It is for the purpose of driving you to repentance, and then it should give way to joy and rejoicing.
“But isn’t it true that we are always sinning?  Are we not falling short of God’s perfect standard every second of every day?  And if that is the case, how do we know when it is appropriate to be bowed in shame and sorrow and brokenness over our sin and when it is appropriate to return to joy and gladness and rejoicing?  One passage that answers that question is Micah 7:8-9. 

Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.

You know it is time to return to rejoicing when God brings you back out into the light.  There is a sense in which God turns His face away from us when we sin.  He disciplines us by removing the nearness of His presence to a degree.  So you seek Him in prayer, and in Scripture, and you strive for sweet communion with Him, but it does not come.  Scripture turns into just print on a page, and your prayers seem to just bounce off the ceiling.  That is what it is like when God turns His face away.
So how do you know when it is time to continue in sorrow and contrition and to remain bowed in shame and repentance? - As long as His face is turned away.  But when He grants you nearness to His presence again, and you are able to experience joy and delight in communion with Him, and the Scriptures become satisfying food for your soul again, that is God telling you that the discipline is over and you are restored and it is time to return to joy and rejoicing.
And that state of joy and rejoicing in Him is the norm, and the condition of sorrow and brokenness before Him is the exception to the rule.  So when God created a special relationship to display what His relationship with His people is like He created marriage, where husband and wife are naked and unashamed before each other.  That illustrates the astonishing, amazing truth that we can walk before God unashamed.

Conclusion
What a gracious God we serve! He is the most wrathful, dangerous being in existence, yet for us He is utterly safe as we stand before Him exposed and unashamed. He is utterly delightful in His nearness to us. And He is utterly reliable in His covenant commitment to us. And add to that the two we saw last week – companionship and partnership.  This is unlike any religion in the world. No human mind could ever make this up. How do you even communicate a relationship like that? I’ll tell you how. You create a man who is utterly alone and in desperate straits because of his aloneness and then you create a suitable helper for him. That will communicate the companionship and partnership. Next you call the man to make her a priority even over his own father and mother and everything and everyone else. And that will illustrate the covenant commitment.  Next you make the two of them one flesh. That will show the unity and closeness and oneness. Then you plant a unique kind of love in them such that they stand before each other naked and unashamed, so that the person who sees them at their worst is the very person who loves them the most.
If you have trouble remembering them just think of the text in Genesis.  
•	It is not good for the man to be alone – Companionship
•	I will make him a suitable helper – Partnership
•	For this reason a man will leave his father and mother – priority
•	…and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh – unity
•	And the man and his wife were both naked and unashamed – intimacy 
Every time you look at your spouse let it remind you of those five amazing privileges we have with our God, and let the joy of that truth drive you to be faithful to live out the illustration God designed in marriage.

Benediction: 1 Thes.3:12,13  May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Day 1: Priority

There are at least five parts to God’s ideal for marriage in Genesis 2.  The first two are companionship (it is not good for the man to be alone) and partnership (I will make a suitable helper for him).  The third is seen in v.24.

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother

It is interesting that God says that the Adam and Eve account teaches us to leave father and mother.  Adam and Eve didn’t leave their parents – they didn’t even have parents.  So if they did not leave their parents, how does their story teach us to leave our parents when we get married?
Follow the logic. God said “I will make a suitable helper so man will not be alone.”  Then He makes Eve out of Adam’s own flesh and presents her to Adam and Adam responds with great delight in poetic verse.  Then he points to all that and says, “See, that is the reason why a man leaves father and mother when he gets married.”  The fact that the first human relationship God ever created was a husband-wife relationship - that, combined with the amazing oneness and union between Adam and Eve – that is why a man leaves father and mother for his wife.  The priorities of God in creating human beings and the unparalleled oneness that exists in marriage shows that the marriage relationship is a priority even over the parent-child relationship (which means it is a priority over every human relationship, because the parent-child relationship is the closest natural relationship there is).
By the spring of 1988 I had lived with my parents for over 20 years, but I was not even aware that Tracy existed.  Less than 30 months later Tracy and I were married and she became my closest relative even though she is from a completely different bloodline.  Why is that?  How did that ever come to be?
The reason your parents are such close relatives to you is because you are made up of half of your mother’s genes and half of your father’s.  But think of how closely Eve was related to Adam – closer than a son or daughter, because it wasn’t 50% of her genetic material that came from him, but 100%.  She was made from his very flesh.  And what this passage is teaching is that when you get married, God makes you as closely related to your spouse as Adam was to Eve.  
God’s ideal for marriage is for you to be more committed to your spouse than to anyone else.  When a man listens to his mother more than he listens to his wife, that is a violation of God’s plan for marriage.  When a woman starts being more responsive to her boss at work or her father or her pastor or anyone else than to her husband, that is not God’s ideal.  The highest commitment of your life must be your spouse.  This is an important principle for newly married people to understand.  Some people cannot seem to cut loose from the apron strings.  It is not a good idea to be spending hours on the phone with your parents right after you get married – and your wife does not need to hear about how amazing your mother’s cooking is.
Marriage is not just the highest relationship, but the highest earthly priority period.  Your wife is more important than your job.  Your husband is more important than your children or anything else in your life besides God Himself.  That is God’s ideal. 
So there are two questions to ask yourself in this regard.  Is my spouse my highest earthly priority?  Is that obvious to my spouse?  It is not enough you to say, “My wife is my highest priority.  She doesn’t think that is true, but I don’t know what her problem is because it is true.”  Maybe it is true, but if it is not evident to your wife then you need to make some changes so it becomes evident to her.  You need to strive to communicate your commitment to her that spells priority in her way of thinking.  Wife, ask your husband, “Does it ever seem like there is anything in my life that I put ahead of you as a priority (besides God)?” (And do not get upset if he gives you an honest answer.)

Day 2: Covenant commitment with God
Why do you suppose God created marriage to be the highest relationship priority?  Once again it shows us something about the way God relates to His people.  God has made a covenant with His people.  A covenant is the most binding kind of commitment there is.  In our culture the most binding commitment we have is a contract.  If you break a contract you forfeit either money or some possession, or maybe even your freedom temporarily if you go to jail over it.  But a covenant is stronger than a contract.  A covenant was a commitment that was sealed with your very life.  The way they would make a covenant was by killing some animals, cutting them in half, and then the two parties would walk together between the halves of the animals, and by doing so they were saying, “If I break this covenant may I share the same fate as these animals.”  When you make a covenant you are saying, “Keeping this covenant is a higher priority even than my own life.”
Marriage is a covenant.  It is not a contract. It is not a mere promise. It is not just a commitment. It is a covenant.  Pr.2:17 says that the adulteress “has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.”  When the people asked God why He would not accept their worship He said…

Malachi 2:14 Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have acted treacherously against her, though she was your companion and your wife by covenant.

Marriage is a covenant and the reason it is a covenant is because it is designed to illustrate the relationship between God and His people.  In Gn.9 He made a covenant with Noah and all the descendants of Noah (which is all human beings in existence).  In Gn.15 and 17 He made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants (which is anyone who has faith like Abraham).  In David’s time God expanded that covenant (2 Sam.7).  And then in the time of the prophets God started talking about a new covenant that would be better than the old covenant (Jer.31). 
That New Covenant is nothing more and nothing less than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why we call the New Testament the New Testament (“testament” is another word for “covenant”).  Everything the Bible says from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelation is the New Covenant.  So you can hardly over-emphasize the importance of the role covenant keeping plays in God’s relationship to His people.  His relationship with us is formulated in terms of covenant more than any other way in Scripture.
So it is no accident that marriage is also designed by God as a covenant.  Your faithfulness and commitment and obligation to your spouse is not just a matter of making your spouse happy.  It is a matter of whether your life is going to tell the truth about God or lie about God.

Day 3: Unity
When God created mankind He wanted there to be one, special relationship that would be different from all other human relationships and that would be a living illustration of the way God is with His people.  And so God’s ideal for marriage is for marriage to put on display God’s companionship with His people, His partnership with His people, and His covenant faithfulness to His people.  And in Gn.2:24 we see a fourth purpose – to show God’s union with His people.

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 

There are two key terms in that verse that we need to examine: “united” and “one flesh.”

United
The word “united” (or “hold fast” or “joined” or “bond” or “cleave” depending on your translation) literally means to stick to someone.  It is used often of holding fast to God or God’s Word as opposed to straying away.  It is a decidedly inward concept.  Holding fast, or clinging to someone is not just living under the same roof.  It is very much a function of your heart.  1 Ki.11 says that Solomon married all kinds of pagan women which was forbidden by God. The result: 

1 Kings 11:2 …Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. … 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

The term translated “held fast” is the same as “united” in Gn.2:24.  Evidently the thing that caused his heart to turn away from God was his holding fast or clinging to those women.
You have heard of the figure of speech “joined at the hip” to refer to two people who are always hanging around each other - to be united with your spouse in this way mean to be joined at the heart.  It is a closeness that makes your heart easily influenced by their heart.  Scripture even uses this term to describe clinging to a sin (2 Ki.3:3) or clinging to a sinful culture (Josh.23:12).  It is a clinging of the heart.
It is also an emotional term.  In Gn.34:3 there are three terms that describe Shechem’s love affair with Dinah.  He spoke tenderly to her (lit. spoke to her heart), he loved her, and his heart clung or held fast to her (same word as in Gn.2:24).  So having your heart cling to your spouse goes along with love and tender, romantic speech that touches the heart.
God’s ideal for marriage is for a man and woman to be joined at the heart in loving commitment such that each is easily influenced by the other because of the profound oneness.

One flesh
The other phrase God uses to communicate oneness in marriage is “one flesh.”

Genesis 2:21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

What really captivates Adam’s affections is the fact that she came out of him.  Man was formed from the dust, but woman from flesh.  God did not make her out of dust, because He wanted to demonstrate the profound unity in marriage.
But what is the nature of that unity?  If we were one flesh, why is there so much conflict?  Eve was formed right out of the very body of Adam.  She literally came from his flesh.  But my wife did not come from my body.  Could it be that Adam and Eve were one flesh, but that does not apply to Tracy and me?  No.

Matthew 19:4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 

That passage makes a couple things very clear.  First, when Gn.2 says that the man and the woman were one flesh that is talking about all married couples.  Jesus applies it to every marriage.  Secondly, the way the two become one flesh is by the action of God in joining them together on their wedding day.  When a man and woman stand at the altar and say their vows, who is the one who is joining them together?  It is not the pastor or the bride and groom or the State.  It is God.  Every married couple has been joined together by God.  It is a legal status.  Jesus said even a couple that is on the verge of getting a divorce is one flesh. 
Positionally all married couples are one flesh.  However, in practice we need to strive to live up to our position.  We drift apart in our goals and purposes and interests and finances and work and ministry and all kinds of other ways.  Later in this study we will look into how to reverse all that and get back to the one flesh ideal of Genesis 2.

Day 4: One with Christ
The meditation yesterday was about the fact that God made marriage to be a relationship of superlative oneness.  Why? 

Ephesians 5:28-32 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--  30 for we are members of his body.  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." 32 This is a profound mystery-- but I am talking about Christ and the church.

The two becoming one flesh was designed as a picture of the way the Lord interacts with His people and verse 29 says that the way Jesus interacts with His church is that He feeds and cares for it like you feed and care for your physical body.  If you are a believer Jesus Christ feeds and cares for you because you are one of His body parts.  You are a body part of Christ, and the way He feels about caring for you, and the way He feels about protecting you, and the way He feels when someone hurts you is like the way you feel about your own body parts.
Even the nicest, most morally upright, friendliest unbelievers are totally separated from God relationally.  They might go to church, read their Bible every day, pray every day – they might even spend their lives as preachers or missionaries teaching people about Jesus.  But when Judgment Day comes Jesus will say, “Depart from Me; I never knew you.”  They are not in His family, they are not God’s children, they are not God’s friends, they are not God’s servants – they have no place in Christ at all.  They are utterly estranged from Him and dead to Him.  And that was you – and me, before we were converted.
But when you became a Christian, Scripture says God placed you in Christ.  We see that phrase about 100 times in the NT.  It means to have the closest possible relational oneness with Him.  As a believer you are as close to God as your arm or leg is to you.  There is no language to communicate a closer union of two persons.
He is inside you – touching you in places so deep you don’t even know about them- moving your most hidden motives and your feelings and emotions and passions and resolve and attitudes.  And you are inside Him – living in a cocoon of His thoughts and His grace and desires and love and will.  Every square inch of your life is touched by Him inside and out.  And everything you do you do in relationship with Him – either resisting the force He is exerting on that part of you or submitting to it.  Before you were converted you were on your own – floating in space.  Then you responded to the gospel in faith and now you are joined to Christ, and your life was transformed to being a piece worthless, meaningless trash to being joined to the very life of God.
That is what the Lord Jesus Christ does with His people.  And He wanted us to understand something about that, so when He created humanity He created one special relationship designed to reflect that truth: marriage. 
And that is the reason for sex by the way.  Producing children is secondary.  (That is why procreation is never mentioned a single time in the Song of Solomon.)  The purpose of sex is to serve as one of the components of oneness that God placed only in marriage to illustrate the way Christ is related to His people.

1 Corinthians 6:16-17 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

For your marriage to fulfill its purpose for existence there must be a oneness and unity between you and your spouse that is unparalleled in any other kind of relationship in the world.

Day 5: Intimacy (Naked & Unashamed)
Genesis 2:25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

The point here is that there was no embarrassment - they were completely comfortable in each other’s presence.  This goes beyond just physical exposure.  Adam and Eve were completely open and exposed to one another in every way without any self-consciousness, embarrassment, concern about protecting themselves or having their guard up, or having anything at all to hide.  It was a relationship of absolutely unhindered intimacy. 
It requires a very special kind of relationship where you can be at your most vulnerable, and still be completely at rest and comfortable with someone else.  The reason we are not completely open with one another is because of the risk of being hurt.  A person who does not know you and rejects you does not really hurt you much.  But if the person who knows you best rejects you, that really hurts.  But God made one particular human relationship where you can be naked and unashamed.  He created the first marriage with no risk of rejection and therefore no inhibitions.  Your spouse knows all about you and sees all your weaknesses and ugliness and faults and inadequacies – far more than anyone else and yet loves you more than anyone else.  Think about that.  The one who sees worse things about you than anyone else is the very one who loves you more than anyone else.
Why did God make marriage like that?  Are you picking up on the pattern?  God made marriage like that to reflect the fact that His relationship with us is like that.
And if that does not blow you away, then you are just not thinking about it.  The norm for a Christian’s relationship with God is naked and unashamed!  The naked part does not surprise anyone.  We all know that God can see our hearts.  But unashamed?  Is that the way you think of yourself before God most of the time – unashamed?  For many Christians that is absolutely inconceivable.  They have almost no other posture before God than shame.
But that is not good.  It is not what God wants.  When we sin and rebel against God we should feel shame – no question about that.  Psalm 51 teaches us how to respond to God when we are repenting of our sin.  In v.1 he asks for mercy because he is guilty.  In v.2 he asks for cleansing because he is filthy.

Psalm 51:3 I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

Those are the words of a man who is deeply ashamed before God.
So yes, a posture of shame is appropriate when we have sinned.  But that is not to be the norm permanently.  The whole purpose of repentance is to be restored.  And when God restores you, your shame turns to joy and rejoicing. 

8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation 

The sense of being crushed in guilt is supposed to be temporary.  It is for the purpose of driving you to repentance, and then it should give way to joy and rejoicing.
“But isn’t it true that we are always sinning?  Are we not falling short of God’s perfect standard every second of every day?  And if that is the case, how do we know when it is appropriate to be bowed in shame and sorrow and brokenness over our sin and when it is appropriate to return to joy and gladness and rejoicing?  One passage that answers that question is Micah 7:8-9. 

Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.

You know it is time to return to rejoicing when God brings you back out into the light.  There is a sense in which God turns His face away from us when we sin.  He disciplines us by removing the nearness of His presence to a degree.  So you seek Him in prayer, and in Scripture, and you strive for sweet communion with Him, but it does not come.  Scripture turns into just print on a page, and your prayers seem to just bounce off the ceiling.  That is what it is like when God turns His face away.
So how do you know when it is time to continue in sorrow and contrition and to remain bowed in shame and repentance? - As long as His face is turned away.  But when He grants you nearness to His presence again, and you are able to experience joy and delight in communion with Him, and the Scriptures become satisfying food for your soul again, that is God telling you that the discipline is over and you are restored and it is time to return to joy and rejoicing. And that state of joy and rejoicing in Him is the norm, and the condition of sorrow and brokenness before Him is the exception to the rule.