00:00:00 Now, when is the last time, if you\'re married, you remember having a good conversation with your spouse? Not talking about a fight, not talking about logistics or Costco shopping lists, but a serious conversation. If we were to plot a marriage life cycle chart that sort of plots happiness on one axis and your marriage age on the other, every one of us have different expectations, but people have done research, and they\'ve come up with what happens in every phase of marriage. 00:00:39 What happens in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. And what they found out is the timeline is very interesting. In your 20s, if you\'re married in your 20s or early 30s, you really married someone you were not really sure about. I always tell this, the process of how you found each other loses its impact the day you\'re married because the next day you get a complete unfiltered view of who he or she is, and it\'s usually shocking. 00:01:15 And so research is clear that the sharpest drop in marital happiness comes in those early years of marriage, not because anything dramatic happened, but because reality arrived and neither of you had a category to deal with it. And then you move on, and once you have children, they found out that two out of three couples report a measurable decline in their relationship, especially in the first three years of their marriage. 00:01:47 And almost half of the mothers who reported that decline felt it at year one. And they didn\'t just notice, it just happened. And in your 30s and 40s, if you\'re married, you just tell yourself it\'s a season, it\'s one of the busiest seasons of marriage. Work, traffic, kids\' schedules of school and extracurriculars, caring for older parents. You\'re not unhappy exactly, but you\'re just not there. 00:02:23 You\'re just pulled in so many different directions, and you assume and you\'re thinking and hoping, \"I just want this season to end.\" So you wait for the house to become quiet, for the children to leave. Everyone told you it gets better once the kids are gone. And here\'s what one of the longest studies actually found, that contrary to expectation that the curve will start swinging upwards, the relief people spend 20 years waiting for does not arrive. 00:02:58 Instead, it gets worse for two-thirds of people. But they did find there is a third of couples for whom it did not decline, and they actually came out stronger and richer in their marriage. And so researchers went looking for what was it that this one-third demographic had. It wasn\'t that they had easier children or they had more money or better families. It was three very simple, pragmatic things. First, it found that their husbands, they interviewed, spoke about their wife with fondness. 00:03:35 There was still some affection in that marriage. Second, each of them knew what was actually happening in each other\'s lives, not just the logistics or about work, what they were feeling and going through. And third, they always spoke as we instead of he or she. They had a sense of togetherness. And the problems were not yours versus mine, but ours. 00:04:03 And in the couples whose happiness declined, the marriage had quietly split into two people with unresolved baggages, managing their own lives in the same house. But there was another very interesting study. We\'ll get back to our passage quickly. Harvard University did a longitudinal study. Since 1938, they followed the same families for over 50 years through wars, careers, children, retirements, all of that. 00:04:36 When they gathered up everything they knew about a person when they were at age 50 and asked the question, what predicted how healthy he or she would be at 80, the predictor of that, according to this study, it was not their cholesterol level, it was how satisfied they were in their closest relationship or in their marriage. The people who were most satisfied in their marriage when they were at 50 were the healthiest when they were at 80. Isn\'t that fascinating? 00:05:14 In Silicon Valley, we are building things all the time, and when you build something, you always give it a spec of what that thing can endure, what kind of stresses and where will it fail and crack. And if you\'re building it, you get to give it that, right? And marriage is something that was built by God as a designer, just like behind every design, there is a designer. 00:05:42 And He has given us in the Bible, right in the very opening pages of what this marriage is designed to be, what can it withstand, how to overcome pressures and challenges that your marriage is going to face. But if you\'re not married this morning, please don\'t check out. Stay with me. I will show you in the end why this passage is not just about a life you\'re somehow missing and singleness is a problem. It\'s about another life that we are all living in. 00:06:14 So there are three things we are going to look at today. First is the designer of marriage. Second, the divine design for marriage. And third, the disruption and restoration of the design. So we\'ll begin with the designer of marriage. Genesis 2:18 begins by saying, \"Then the Lord God said, \'It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.\'\" So here we get a glimpse of our designer. Who is it speaking? It says the Lord God, which is the Hebrew is Yahweh Elohim. 00:06:56 Yahweh, as we know, is a covenantal name for God, the God of covenants, and covenants had not been established yet with people. But he is a covenantal God, and he holds the DNA of the design. He puts his imprint in this, and he\'s Elohim, which means these two words come repeatedly together in the Bible. He\'s the supreme God. Usually it\'s a plural name for God as gods, but when it\'s applied to God, it talks of how he\'s the supreme and yet a personal God. He\'s a God who has authority. 00:07:33 Yahweh Elohim, he introduces himself whenever he does, like, \"I\'m the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,\" the name he uses is Elohim. He\'s very personal. And so right by his name, we have an insight into what the fingerprint of God was on marriage. Marriage is therefore a covenant, as we have seen several times, and not a contract because of who instituted it. And because Yahweh is also the supreme and yet our personal God, he knows all things past, present, and future. 00:08:13 He gets the authority to define and design marriage. One of the biggest threats of marriage is happening in our times right now. Every culture, every nation, every time, marriage has had different challenges. In primitive cultures, polygamy was completely accepted. Even today, there are some parts of India and villages and tribes. I remember going to missions, a village, a tribe in southern India, where I got to hear the testimony of a man who became a Christian. 00:08:49 He shared that he was living a polygamous life because that was normal in his village, and he didn\'t have a sense of problem about that till Christ came into his life. But now in this culture and across the world, people are trying to redefine what marriage is, who gets to be married, and who has any say in marriage. The attack is not just about defining marriage. There is an effort to destroy marriage and family as an entity in and of itself, so that the culture can decide what marriage is. 00:09:33 It can say who can marry whom, man and a woman or a man to man or a woman to woman, and all kinds of permutations and combinations, or the government tries to regulate and get its hand around it. But really, the only one who has authority to define marriage is God himself. And we are going to see what its purpose was. But if we have the starting design to be faulty, then the whole product becomes faulty, isn\'t it? 00:10:08 So it\'s important what you believe in your minds, and especially as children, I think it\'s important to reinforce this for them, even when they are young. But it starts with the Lord God said, \"It is not good that the man should be alone.\" This is the first time in scripture we read the words, \"It is not good.\" And I\'ve thought about this. 00:10:30 I\'ve heard a lot of sermons, and I\'ve preached on this too several times, and sometimes it gets restricted to just, oh, it\'s the dealing with loneliness, but I think it\'s bigger than that. Everything until now was good. It says God created the heavens and it was good. He created the sun and the moon and the stars and it was good. And it all reflected his goodness. There was something about God that was reflected in what he created, and so it was good. 00:10:58 So why is it that when he creates man, he says that it\'s not good? It probably means there\'s something about God that is still not expressed exclusively through Adam. So there is something missing, and a clue to that missing piece is to understand who God is. God is, we know, a triune God. He\'s the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. There\'s a community within the Trinity, a community of love. 00:11:27 Adam, created in God\'s image by himself, yet does not have the capacity and capability to have community, because to have community, you need to have an object of love, you need to have someone who can receive that love, and there has to be a way to express the love, right? And you have that within Trinity. But God\'s desire was to create man in his image because he had a bigger, deeper purpose. And this is important for us to remember as married people or those who are ascribing to marriage. 00:12:02 The purpose of God from beginning was always to create a covenant people he could call his own. And that is something Adam could not accomplish by himself. We often say, we\'ve done this even in our own marriage workshops before, that the purpose of marriage is not happiness, but holiness. Right? I think it\'s Gary someone who said that. Gary Thomas? Yeah. I think it\'s a great statement. 00:12:38 It\'s a wonderful truth, but sometimes I think it\'s still a little human self-centered and limited, as true as it is. The purpose of marriage was not just about our personal holiness. The purpose of marriage was God to create a covenant people that he could love and he could be their God, and they could be his children, so that he could extend his reign on earth through them. The Westminster Confession of Faith has an entire chapter dedicated to marriage. I would encourage you to read. 00:13:16 It\'s Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 24. And the second part of that chapter describes four purposes God had for marriage. It says, \"God ordained marriage for the mutual help of husband and wife, the increase of mankind through legitimate offspring, the increase of the church with the holy seed, and the prevention of sexual immorality.\" Now, all of these purposes we see soon fail by Adam and his first marriage. And the rest of the chapter, we are going to see how God restores it. 00:13:58 Why do we do this? Why does God say it is not good? Why do we need this understanding of marriage? I think we need this because your marriage was never given to you as a private arrangement to make your life better or for your own comfort. It was given as a building block of a community of God\'s people who God is establishing to reign on earth, to exercise dominion over earth, land, and sea in relationship with him. 00:14:34 So if we take that big picture out and reduce marriage to just be, \"How can I find happiness or the perfect spouse who will make my life happy?\" You\'re going to miss the whole point. So what is marriage? To summarize, it\'s a covenant. It\'s not a contract. Micah, chapter 2, verse 13, it talks of the wife of your covenant, and it very clearly specifies who can marry. A marriage is between male and female. There is absolutely no ambiguity in scripture about that. That\'s the original design. 00:15:12 It\'s our fallenness that has led to other designs. And that, again, in the same chapter in Westminster Confession, it talks explicitly in the first point, marriage is to be between one man and one woman. I can\'t believe that we have to say this now. Growing up, I never had a doubt about this or thought about this, but now we really have to say this, even for those of us who think, \"Isn\'t this so simple? Isn\'t this common?\" No, it\'s not. But it\'s not just that it\'s between a man and a woman. 00:15:42 It\'s not a contract and a covenant, and that has practical implications. That\'s the reason why living together is not okay. That\'s the reason why wanting to get to know all aspects of a person before marriage in order to decide can get very challenging and all of it. Because what that says is, \"I have the authority to define my marriage,\" and fails to go to God. So if God is the designer, then the next question is, what has he actually designed? 00:16:19 And Moses, who wrote this, gives us a big description, and we\'re going to spend the most of our time in this part in verses 18 to 20. We\'re going to look at our second point, the divine design for marriage. The first time \"not good\" appears, God answers that with a very definitive statement. He immediately says in that verse, \"It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.\" 00:16:56 So we\'re going to look at God\'s design for a woman, and then we\'re going to look at God\'s design for a man in these texts. It\'s not exhaustive, but just from these, and then we will go from there. It starts with, how does God try to help fix this issue of it not being good? He says, \"I\'m going to give man a helper.\" Helper, or if we ask these days, \"I want to have someone to help with my household chores. 00:17:26 I want to hire a help to do work,\" it kind of is a little inferior the way the word is used today. But the Hebrew word \"ezer\" is used roughly 20 times in the Old Testament, and most of the times, this word actually refers to God himself, that God is our helper. Psalm 33:20, \"Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield.\" Psalm 121, verse one and two, \"My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.\" 00:17:56 In Exodus 18:4, \"The God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.\" And again, in Psalm 54:4, \"Because God is my helper. So when God calls the woman as a helper, He is giving the woman a title He wears Himself. A helper, as God as our helper, when we go to Him and ask God to help, what we are saying is we are asking God to fill what is lacking in our life. It can be any kind of a need. So a helper supplies what is lacking for us. 00:18:44 She\'s someone, as a wife, who comes into a marriage and sees what can I bring to help bring the best out of a man in an area that he lacks. And that\'s why the phrase \"fit for him,\" \"helper fit for him,\" is used twice. And that\'s also the reason why it says she was created from his side. It doesn\'t say ribs exactly as some translations do. But the reason it says she was created from his side is because she is the same essence. 00:19:19 In a sense, a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, are co-equal before God. They are co-heirs before God. Matthew Henry, one of the commentators, old school commentators, made this very interesting quote. He says, \"A woman was not made out of a man\'s head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.\" Isn\'t that beautiful? 00:19:57 And what kind of a woman you are is something you can think and ask your husband what he thinks. Does he think like you think you came from his head or from his side? Or is he treating you like you came from his feet? The whole idea here is when God is designing marriage, He is thinking of husband and wife to complement one another, and especially the wife, rather than to compete. And notice what a helper actually does in scripture because it\'s not passive. 00:20:35 When God helps us, He\'s supplying what is lacking. So the question for a wife is not what am I allowed to do? It is what is lacking in him that God put me here to supply. The sisters, you already know the answer. You\'ve known it for years. And in many marriages, it never gets said because saying it feels like criticism, so it turns into resentment instead. You complain, \"Oh, I wish my husband was like this. He did this, he was that, he was this.\" 00:21:08 But you really are not saying, \"How can I help to bring that into his life?\" So how about this week, wives, name one thing that you feel your husband is missing and ask God, \"How can I help fill that need?\" And offer it to him rather than complain. You can tell things to him simple like, \"Hey, I think you need rest. You\'re just working way too much.\" Or, \"I think you\'re carrying this problem,\" whatever it may be, \"all by yourself. I\'m here to share. I can share my thoughts.\" 00:21:45 Or, \"I think you stopped talking to God about this and why don\'t you pray?\" You can be that spiritual helper because in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is our helper, in that sense. So that\'s the first design for a woman in marriage is to be a helper. It\'s not inferior, it\'s not condescending, it\'s not derogatory. It\'s very powerful. It can make a marriage become more beautiful. Secondly, we see that she is a companion. 00:22:15 God brings all the animals and parades them before Adam, and Adam is doing the first nomenclature in human history. He exercises his ruling by naming them. But he also sees them going in pairs. But though they are going in pairs, the first is none of them are single, but secondly, they are not of his kind. Animals are great. COVID, one of the things that happened is a lot of people got COVID dogs, right? It\'s what I hear. Dogs are cool, but a dog cannot be your companion. 00:22:57 If you are closer to your dog than your wife or husband, there\'s a problem, right? We need to fix that. That\'s a separate issue. But what is designed here is for Adam to... He\'s doing this so Adam can see, hey, I can\'t get that companionship from any of these other things. None of these animals can give me. They\'re not like me. They\'re not my same kind. Friendship is an essential aspect of companionship. 00:23:35 If you talk to people who are married for a very long time and ask them, \"What is the one important thing or a secret for your marriage?\" Of many things, they would say friendship is one. It\'s to cultivate friendship in your marriage because your kids will grow up and leave home one day. You\'ll probably change jobs, your colleagues will be gone, your technology will get outdated. 00:23:58 But the one person you\'re going to spend the most time is with your spouse, and you need to intentionally develop that friendship. You can do that like I\'ve always shared even in our marriage workshops, at least try to have one meal a day together with your wife Date your wives. I think some people ask and give a blank stare like, \"What is dating?\" And always like, \"Isn\'t that like for before we get married? Should we do even after or why or is it okay?\" 00:24:30 No, it\'s more important you date your wives after your marriage. One evening a week, do what she likes. And at least once a month, try to spend a day with her. Go for a hike or a movie or whatever. That\'s how you build friendship. It needs face time with each other. Got to have this on your calendars, otherwise it\'s not going to work. Friendship does not survive on just good intentions. And let\'s look at the process again, once again, how God does this. Verses 21 and 22. 00:25:02 It says, \"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.\" Adam didn\'t have trouble finding a spouse. He didn\'t have to wade through endless apps, or he didn\'t have to need connections. You know what Adam had to do? Nothing. That\'s the most... Sorry, what was that? Go to sleep. 00:25:34 Adam was asleep for the most important arrangement of his life, and it is good that God, in a sovereign and providential manner, brings the right person at the right time in your life, and that\'s a very important thing to do, and therefore it enables us to go to Him in prayer. We\'re not asked to sleep and wait, but we can pray for God to do the same in our lives, through whatever means it may be. 00:26:07 And it\'s important if you\'re already married, to remember that the person you married, no matter how you found him or her, is the one God brought into your life. You\'d never doubt or fantasize about it. You never ask your question, especially in a conflict, \"If I had married someone else like that other person, my life would have been amazing.\" But also want to hear this carefully because it can be easily misused. God did not hand you a perfect match. 00:26:45 He handed you a covenant, and the covenant is what makes this person the right person. But I do want to add a word of caution. God\'s providence never justifies a spouse\'s cruelty. If you\'re being harmed in your home, the covenant does not mean you must endure violence in silence. And I hope and trust it\'s not happening in our church, but men, you cannot touch your wives with violence. That\'s the weakest thing a man can do. It\'s what weakest men do. 00:27:18 And wives, if you\'re going through any of that, please reach out to us. We are here to help you and hear you out, and your healthcare providers will ask you. We have wonderful support structures in this country for that. There is help and there is no shame in asking for it. And let\'s move on to man\'s design in verses 23 and 24. After the parade and he goes to sleep, wakes up as a married man, sees his wife for the first time, look what happens. Here comes Adam\'s poetic marital vow covenant. 00:27:58 \"Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.\" God charges men and husbands to do three things, and it\'s here in marriage. First, says verse 23, he speaks. Says, \"Then the man said, \'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.\'\" Notice what just happened. This is the very first time in the Bible a human being opens his mouth in scripture. It\'s not a prayer. It\'s not a complaint. 00:28:32 The first recorded human words in history are a husband speaking about his wife with delight and out loud in poetry. When he says, \"This at last,\" it\'s like an astonishment, an exclamation. God had paraded every creature and the text says with an ache for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him, and then God brings her to him at last. And she has done nothing yet, still. There\'s no accomplishments, no cooking, no children. He\'s not praising her performance. 00:29:16 He\'s praising her for who she is, which is the exact opposite of sometimes how most of us talk about our spouses because we focus on output, isn\'t it? But the design is this. The man is the one who speaks, and the first thing he does with his voice is to honor his wife with it. Remember the research from earlier. A third of marriages that didn\'t decline had husbands who spoke about their wife with fondness loudly. That\'s Genesis 2:23. They just rediscovered the design. 00:29:59 So this week, how about take a time, at least once a day perhaps, to say one specific thing, true about your wife. Don\'t make stuff up. You can\'t impress your wives after you\'re married. They can see through your fakeness, right? Say it loud once in front of your children. They need to hear that their dad is fond of their mom. Because they are learning how a man speaks about a woman, and they are learning it from you. 00:30:31 And do it in front of your children, do it in front of your parents or in-laws if they\'re living in your house. It\'s okay, because Adam did it, and research says it\'s critical. We are not a speaking culture. We\'re not very expressive. We don\'t say things. Come on, that\'s just not true. It\'s baloney. Because all your movies that you watch, they don\'t just say things to each other. They sing songs and run around trees, and you watch those a zillion times and have them on your playlist, right? 00:31:06 So you can do it. It\'s simple. He speaks. Second, says he names. In verses 19 to 20 and 23, Adam names every animal. That\'s real authority. When you get to name something, there\'s an authority built into it. But watch what he does with it when he turns to his wife. Says, \"She shall be called woman, because she was taking out of man.\" IshHa, from ish, is the name for her. Everything is in the garden is named as the other. Her, he names as of me. 00:31:48 The only name he gives that has his own name inside it. And so how Adam exercises his God-given authority is not by way of command, but by recognizing what he is lacking and what she is bringing and how that makes them complete. And why does God march the animals past him at all? Verse 20 tells you, \"But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.\" The entire naming parade exists to teach Adam what he lacks. His authority is the thing God uses to expose his own insufficiency. 00:32:28 He rules over all of it and rules straight into loneliness. So if you\'re a man who use your position to prove that you are superior, you have inverted this. So this week, ask your wife a question you already don\'t know the answer to and let her answer. End the conversation and not start a correction to it. So he speaks is the first one, he names, and the naming humbles him. And third, he holds fast, the most important one, verse 24. 00:33:12 Says, \"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.\" The subject, it says, who is this responsibility given to? This is a command. Now, after God providentially does this in the designing process, he builds in it a command that once again reiterates that marriage is between a man and a woman, but this is something even more, a command specifically targeted to the man in the marriage. 00:33:42 Jesus even tells us, he refers back to this about whose sentence it is in Matthew chapter 19, verses four and five. He quotes this verse and attributes it to the Creator himself. This is the designer, God, Yahweh Elohim, speaking to husbands. And notice who moves. Says in those cultures and in many cultures in the world, it\'s the bride who usually leaves her household. Here it talks of a man that you should leave your household because it\'s about forming a covenant with a covenantal God. 00:34:26 The cost of forming and maintaining this covenant falls fair and square on the man. If forming this covenant has cost you nothing, you haven\'t yet done what 24 asks. And why to leave? Why should a man leave his father and mother? This is the most important, challenging things in many marriages, especially in South Asian marriages. They just don\'t know how to do this. 00:34:52 You can physically leave your parents and live thousands of miles, and yet still be covenantally connected with them, which means you do what they tell them to do and what to tell your wives and how to run your family. Or they can even live in the same house and do the same thing to you. Because the reason why God asks him to leave is because God is establishing a new paradigm. 00:35:28 Says, \"Your covenant loyalty as a family is to me as your covenantal God, and then to the spouse he gave you, but not to your parents, who ought to be honored and cared for.\" Right? Scripture explicitly. There\'s a difference between honoring and caring for our parents and treating them as the covenantal head of the home. You have to cut the umbilical cord. Leaving does not cancel honoring, my dear friends. It cancels controlling. 00:35:57 God is the one who holds the power and you need to listen to in how to run your lives, not even your wonderful parents, however godly they may be. You can take their counsel and wisdom, but as a man, it\'s you and God. But the important word is cling, davak. Says it\'s about something being glued to. It\'s a covenant loyalty word. It\'s used in Deuteronomy 10:20, \"You shall fear the Lord your God and hold fast to Him.\" 00:36:31 The word scripture uses for clinging to God is the same word it uses for a husband clinging to his wife. Not to just stay married to, not to tolerate. Presence is not leaving and cleaving. It\'s more than that. Now perhaps you can ask yourself as men is, what is one thing you haven\'t left? 00:36:58 Maybe your mother\'s opinion, or could be your work or career that became more important in your life, or it\'s about a version of your single life before you were married that you still want to continue, whether it was hanging out with your friends on the weekends, playing games instead of your family, or whatever it may be. God calls us to leave it and cleave. The design in one line is she helps and befriends for a woman. 00:37:32 He speaks, he honors, he holds fast for a man, and God brings them together. You remember what\'s missing here? There\'s nothing about income, nothing about who decides or who earns more. All of it in the text in front of us. And then in verse 25, the whole thing comes apart. We come to the third part, the disruption and restoration of the design. Verse 25. It\'s a beautiful verse. It says, \"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.\" 00:38:08 You know the first most beautiful thing in that first marriage was this was the only time in human history, in any human marriage, there was no guilt, there was no shame. Marriage is the one human relationship in which a man and a woman can be fully known emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and have the potential to experience no guilt and shame based on who we are or how we look or what we think or what we do. Therefore, it\'s a holy place. 00:38:47 And that\'s why the scripture says keep the marriage bed holy. When you share any of that, either emotions you\'re sharing with someone at work, is the soft-spoken guy or girl you feel very comfortable with to talk and want to talk more than with your wife, or physically even, it goes against the grain of God\'s design and can be disruptive. And that\'s what sin did, isn\'t it? Sin disrupts the design, and then everything runs in reverse order. And what happens to that is what we see in Genesis 3. 00:39:27 In chapter 2, he opens his mouth and says, \"Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.\" One chapter later, he tells God, \"The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit.\" From poetry, it became blaming. From mine to the woman you gave. And that\'s what sin does. The first time, guilt and shame creep and break into marriage. And that\'s been the norm since, isn\'t it? We all fail each other daily in marriage. 00:40:06 If you remember this marriage life cycle chart I was talking earlier, why is there a decline in happiness? What breaks marriages at every phase is conflict, and how each person responds to the conflict. And I want to do a recap of our marriage workshop session. We know that usually we have three modes of dealing with conflict, isn\'t it? One is fight, second is flight, and third is fright or freeze. And in a couple, usually you will find at least two of the three working with one. 00:40:50 Some like to be, \"Let\'s fight it out and just get it out there.\" And for others, you\'re a flight person. You are, \"I\'m a conflict avoidance.\" You try to run away. You suppress it, only for it to come out later as a volcano erupting. Right? Or for some, you\'re fright, you just freeze, like a deer in the headlights. But what that can do is it can settle into withdrawal and despair. And why do we do this? Why do we have these modes of dealing with conflict? 00:41:21 The reason we do this is because we don\'t know how to deal with guilt and shame. When one person does something wrong or hurtful, shame and guilt are the logical consequences. Guilt says, \"I did something wrong,\" and shame says, \"There is something wrong with me.\" It\'s more deeper and personal. So Adam and Eve\'s response to shame was to hide it with fig leaves and deflect the blame onto the other. And that\'s what happens in each of those three modes above. Not one is not better than the other. 00:42:01 You may think, \"Oh, I\'m not a fighting person. I\'m quiet, but he\'s the fighting person, so he\'s more bad than me.\" No, you\'re both equally destructive. And perhaps ask yourself, remember your most recent fight or conflict with your spouse, and do a short postmortem of it. What did you do in your most recent conflict? What did you feel first? Did you feel guilt or shame or both? And how did you handle it? Did you try to handle it by yourself? Because you can\'t. 00:42:41 Once conflict comes and you give in to guilt or shame, the second thing it does is you begin to doubt God\'s providence, and the thought comes, \"What if I had married someone else?\" And third, it just goes to the next step of the friendship and companionship being lost. The we becomes two people managing their own lives in the same house, and that\'s where we started with the illustration, remember? And finally, the covenant gets broken. 00:43:15 And what is the consequence in the big scheme of things of God\'s purpose? A covenant people cannot be formed. And we see in Genesis how things spiral very fast, very quickly. Nations immediately go on a downward spiral, and God has to start over with another man, Noah, and then with Abraham to build this covenant people. But ultimately, a second Adam had to come, the last Adam had to come to fix what the first Adam could not do. 00:43:52 What the first Adam could not accomplish was to form this covenant people who are loyal to God, but a second Adam came to exactly do that. One of the commentators put this beautifully, I love it, how he phrases it. He says, \"The first Adam received an innocent bride and failed to protect the covenant. The last Adam receives a guilty bride,\" you and me, \"and gives himself to redeem her.\" How beautiful it is, isn\'t it? Adam could not cover his own shame and guilt. 00:44:26 The fig leaves were not enough to cover it, or his wife\'s. So husbands and wives, you can\'t cover your guilt and shame yourself. You\'ll be in this endless loop until you come to Christ, because Christ reverses it. Jesus Christ doesn\'t offer couples better marriage techniques, which many marriage conferences can do, and it\'s good sometimes to go learn them. He deals with the source and the root of it. He deals with guilt, shame, and self-rule beneath marital conflict. 00:45:00 And he tells us that we don\'t have to cover our shame because he takes that shame upon himself on the cross and hung naked. He dealt with our guilt on the cross by giving his own blood and offering forgiveness. So now we don\'t have to be the one to draw first blood with our spouse in our conflicts, and we can now offer the forgiveness that we receive from him, and that\'s the bigger F in a conflict. It\'s bigger than fighting or flighting or freezing. It\'s forgiving. 00:45:38 That\'s the lubricant, and that\'s what restores marriages. Ephesians 5:22-33, it talks of marriage as a mystery and ultimately pointing to Christ and the church because Christ is the faithful bridegroom who does what a perfect husband ought to do. He says in that passage, he gives himself for the bride, he cleanses her, he nourishes and cherishes her, he unites her to himself, and presents her in glory. And look again at the three things the research found in marriages that did not decline. 00:46:13 Christ is doing. He speaks of his bride with fondness. He cherishes her. He knows her world. He was tempted in every way as she is. Christ makes her problem her own. He unites her to himself, you and me. Those three things are the three things the bridegroom does. We learn from him and experience it when He lives in us and not through a technique. And look at the man\'s design again and see whose portrait it always was. He speaks. 00:46:46 Jesus Christ calls His church His beloved out loud in front of the Father, even when you and I are still a mess. He names her as His own. More than bone of bones and flesh of flesh, He let His bones be crushed and His flesh be nailed on the cross. He left His Father\'s house and came for her, and the cost of forming the covenant entirely fell on Him as our faithful husband. And guess what? He holds fast to you and me as a bride who does not cling back, who tries to even push Him away many times. 00:47:26 Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. He is the true ezer, the true helper, the helper who supplies everything that is lacking in us. He restores the order. What sinned turned into this cycle of God, me, and you becomes in Christ God, you, and me. But this is not the end. The biblical story moves from the first marriage in a garden and ends with the last marriage supper of the lamb in Revelations 19. 00:48:01 If you\'re single this morning, never married or single again or widowed, you have sat and heard this on marriage and the temptation is to think that you\'re missing something in life. But hear the end of the story. Jesus said that in the resurrection, \"They neither marry nor are given in marriage,\" Matthew 22:30. This earthly marriage is temporary and typological. Sometimes we tend to idolize it too much, and these marriage conferences blow it way beyond proportion. It\'s the picture. 00:48:36 It\'s not the thing. It\'s a typology. Every marriage in this room will end one day at a graveside, if not now Sometime later. But the final marriage, the final reality, is the everlasting communion between Christ and his redeemed people. That means married people in this room, our marriages are pointing to something bigger. And even if you\'re not married, you are already married to Christ. You are in it. You are the bride along with each one of us. You\'re not waiting at the edge. 00:49:10 You are part of this covenant people. And Paul, in fact, who was single, has something even more wonderful to say in 1 Corinthians 7. \"The unmarried person,\" he says, \"is free from a divided attention, free to be devoted to the Lord without distraction.\" \"It\'s a gift,\" Paul says, writing as a single man who did more for the covenant people than most married men will ever do. So if you\'re single, don\'t just wait. Seek to find ways to use the singleness as a gift to serve. 00:49:45 Adam\'s problem was not that he was unmarried. Adam\'s problem was that he was alone. God\'s answer to it is not good to be alone is covenant community, and marriage is just one form of experiencing that covenant community, and not the only one. You can experience that community in this body, in this church. And for us as a church, I want you to hear this assignment, if there is someone who is single amongst us. It is our responsibility to offer that community to them. 00:50:18 So I want to close with some applications. As we spoke even last week, for young adults and singles, if you\'re considering marriage, ask one question above all others. Has this person learned to take guilt and shame to Christ? That alone, especially in conflicts, will matter more over 30 years than compatibility or chemistry or income. And take one step deeper into embedding yourself into a church as a community so you don\'t have to walk alone. 00:50:59 For parents and families, put that time, that meal, or the evening or the day out on your calendar like every other thing. And teach your children from a young age how to handle guilt and shame so it will not spill into their marriages, and you can help them to launch thriving families. But for all of us, when you fall and fail in your marriage or in your personal lives, go to the second Adam. 00:51:30 Confess your guilt and shame, receive forgiveness, and be filled with his love so you can, out of that abundance, offer forgiveness and love to your spouse. You cannot manufacture that by yourself. And this only gets truer and truer as you get older. When there is nothing else possible and you can still say it, Christ alone can enable that. 00:51:52 If there is just two things that you want to take away from this, may that be that you reflect the forgiveness that Christ offers in your marriage, and may you also seek the friendship that we cherish with Christ in your marriage. What sin had disordered in marriage, Christ, our faithful bridegroom, and last Adam, redeemed by giving himself for us and making us part of his covenant people.