John Piper - Staying Married is not about Staying in Love, Part 1

2/5/14

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMcJE4E4Ja8&list=PLAcB0f-21Xj26CR8Nc1FAo8dGccTuiFmQ&feature=share)

Even in sober Jewish world back then: Christ's vision on meaning of marriage was so enormously different from that of his disciples that they could not imagine it was a good thing. And such vision is a good news but not if you don't have ears to hear.

How much more magnificents of marriage in the mind of God seem unintelligible in the world where we live in, where the main is oneself, main doctrine autonomy, and central act of worship entertainment, two main shrines TV and cinema, and the most sacred genuflexion uninhibited act of sexual intercourse?

Such culture will find the glory of marriage in the mind of Jesus virtually unintelligible.

Jesus today would likely say to us, the same thing he said to his disciples in Matthew 19:11-12 "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.... The one who can accept this should accept it."

The assumption: we are so wired to selfishness, sin, and cultural adaptation that the glory of marriage is scarcely perceivable by our hearts and minds today.

Nevertheless God is merciful, He can change us.

Greatness and glory of marriage is unable to be felt, received, and thought without divine revelation and without the illumination of Holy Spirit, the world cannot know what marriage truly is.

We need to be set free from unbiblical views of marriage this world has intoxicated us with.

Marriage:

1) It is God's doing. (fundamentally)

2) It is for God's glory. (ultimately)

The world does not know this, and they scoff at it.

Marriage is God's doing..

i) b/c it was God's design in creation of men as male and female.

Genesis 1:27-28 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

--> From the beginning of this world the design of God was to have male and female be fruitful, as a union reflecting Jesus' and church's union.

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.""

--> Creation of marriage. Suitable = perfectly fit, tailored. God himself intends to do it and does it. Idea of solving solitude is God's idea.

Genesis 2:21-22 "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. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man."

--> God doesn't take an animal into a woman ("they're not like you in the nature, in the image of God"), he takes the essence of a man into woman.

Genesis 2:24-25 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

--> Everything in this text moving towards marriage. One flesh, naked, not ashmed = marriage.

ii) b/c God personally took the dignity of being the first father to give away the bride.

Genesis 2:22

--> "He brought her" to the man, He didn't hide her and say to us to find her. He had fathered her, and now His daughter is being given to a man. Majesty and beauty shines off of God as He presents his daughter He specially made.

iii) b/c God "spoke" the design of marriage into existence. (more fully than just his action reveals)

Genesis 2:24

--> God's command: "And they shall become one flesh". (Moses wrote Genesis, as Jesus believed. And Moses wrote the Scripture as God spoke.) Opening the design of marriage God himself. 

iv) b/c in the becoming of one flesh, a man and a women are experiencing a union that God himself performs.

--> God took out a rib from man, closed the flesh, made the rib into a woman, and reunited them back together as "one flesh." From one flesh to one flesh.

Genesis 2:24 & Mark 10:8-9 "and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.""

--> When a couple speaks their vows and have a sexual union, it is no human who's the main actor; God is. God joins a husband and a wife into ONE flesh.

The world treats marriage so casually, Christians often too act like they don't know it.

Marriage is from Him, through Him, and to/for Him and His glory. There is no other institution like it; nothing comes close.

How are these two people held together? What kind of relationship is this? Is this rooted in romance, sexual desire, or companionship?

No, marriage is a sacred covenant that stands against every storm until the last day of our lives.

Genesis 2:24 & Ephesians 5:31-32 ""For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."

--> The most important interpretation to be said about marriage. When God planned men as male and female and made them become a union, he patterned it after the relationship between Jesus (His son) and the church (His bride).

--> As he was designing this humanity, he already knew about Jesus Christ. 

--> Every marriage exists for God's glory and to display God. The ultimate meaning is that it reflects the covenant relationship of Christ and his church to the world. 

--> Never abandoning the bride, nor forsaking her, and ultimately bringing her perfected and clean to the supper of the lamb.

Luke 22:20 "In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

--> Christ knew that he need to pay the dowry with his blood for his bride. He calls that relationship "the new covenant." Jesus Christ establishes a new covenant with us as he takes his cup = an unbreakable marriage.

Staying in marriage is not about staying in love, but it is about keeping the covenant.

We should not be blown around by the messages of this culture; we got roots in Genesis, in reality, and in creation. 

God is our God, covenant is our lives.

God will never live His wife, He would get her back every time.