1. "Marriage is a commitment, we say, but it has to be more than that. A commitment that is nothing more than a commitment, a prison inside vows we now regret, feels like a trap."

2. "The value of a marriage, just like the value of a human being, is rooted in reflection—that is, in being made in God's image—not in production. Yet very often, whether we're married or not, we actually do value marriage based on what it produces."

3. "If you love what marriage produces more than the one marriage portrays, it will slowly suffocate because then it is idolatry."

4. "You don't evaluate beauty based on whether the good outweighs the bad, as if we hang the Mona Lisa in the Louvre because it's pretty good. You evaluate beauty by its alignment to perfection."

5. "Marriage as reflection reframes marital struggle. If marriage were about production alone, struggling marriages would be failed marriages. But why should a marriage see and show God only when it's going well?"

6. "Marriage is a sign. It's not the destination. You may not have the sign, but you will not miss what it points to. Charlie clutched that golden ticket like it was his life, but once he got to the chocolate factory, that ticket faded in importance."

7. "There is something God-like in keeping a costly promise. If you value marriage for the stuff it produces, so much of what you're going to get will fail to satisfy. But marriage as reflection is deeply satisfying because God is deeply satisfying."

8. "To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known but not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God."

9. "Early in marriage, a husband and wife must learn to trust God's purposes in creation, when in self-righteousness we are tempted to see difference and assume deficiency."

10. "If you value marriage for what it produces, you may move toward your spouse, but ultimately only to take. If you value marriage for the one it portrays, you will seek real oneness."

Observation Questions

1. According to Genesis 1:27, in whose image were human beings created, and what distinction does the verse make about how they were created?

2. In Genesis 1:28, what specific commands does God give to the man and woman after blessing them?

3. What problem does Genesis 2:18 identify about the man being alone, and what does God say He will make for him?

4. In Genesis 2:21-22, how does God create the woman, and what does He do with her after creating her?

5. According to Genesis 2:24, what three things happen when a man and woman come together in marriage (leaving, holding fast, becoming one flesh)?

6. What does Genesis 2:25 say about the condition of the man and his wife, and how did they feel about it?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon distinguishes between valuing marriage for "reflection" (Genesis 1:27) versus "production" (Genesis 1:28). Why does the preacher argue that locating marriage's value in what it produces—children, companionship, ministry—ultimately leads to disappointment and even idolatry?

2. How does the phrase "helper fit for him" in Genesis 2:18 establish that the woman's difference from the man is purposeful rather than accidental, and why is this significant for understanding marriage as a reflection of God?

3. The sermon states that marriage is fundamentally "worship" because it allows us to "see and show" God. How does this understanding of marriage as worship change the way we should evaluate whether a marriage is successful or failing?

4. In Ephesians 5:31-32, Paul says the one-flesh union of marriage is a "profound mystery" that "refers to Christ and the church." How does this connection help explain why marriage was designed with both purposeful difference and covenantal union?

5. Why does the preacher argue that the gospel is the antidote to self-righteousness, which he identifies as the main enemy that distorts and confuses "purposeful difference" in marriage?

Application Questions

1. The sermon warns against treating your spouse as either "a means to getting what you want" or "an obstacle." In what specific situations this past week have you been tempted to view your spouse (or a close relationship) in one of these ways, and how might viewing the relationship as "reflection" change your response?

2. The preacher encouraged those struggling in marriage to "talk to a godly friend" rather than keeping struggles hidden. What specific step could you take this week to either seek help for your own struggles or make yourself available as a safe person for others to confide in?

3. For those not currently married, the sermon states that "singleness shows the gospel's sufficiency." What is one concrete way you can cultivate deeper satisfaction in Christ this week rather than waiting for marriage to fulfill you?

4. The sermon challenges us to steward the advantages that differences bring—using them for service rather than exploitation. Identify one specific advantage you have over your spouse or someone close to you (whether in income, emotional competence, verbal ability, or otherwise). How can you deliberately use that advantage to serve them this week?

5. Considering that marriage is meant to help us "see God more clearly," what is one quality of God's love—such as His patience, forgiveness, or faithfulness—that your marriage (or a close relationship) has helped you understand better? How can you intentionally reflect that quality back to others this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Ephesians 5:22-33 — This passage expands on how the one-flesh union of marriage specifically pictures Christ's sacrificial love for the church and the church's submission to Christ.

2. Colossians 1:15-20 — Referenced in the sermon, this passage describes Christ as the perfect image of the invisible God, showing the standard of reflection that marriage ultimately points toward.

3. Revelation 19:6-9 — This passage depicts the marriage supper of the Lamb, illustrating the ultimate fulfillment of what earthly marriage signifies in God's redemptive plan.

4. 1 Peter 2:21-25 — The sermon references this passage to show how Christ's example of entrusting Himself to the Father guides those who find themselves vulnerable within the differences of marriage.

5. Isaiah 54:1-10 — This passage portrays God as a faithful husband to His people despite their unfaithfulness, reinforcing the covenantal nature of marriage and God's redemptive love that marriage reflects.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: The Question of What Marriage Is For

II. Marriage Is a Living Picture (Genesis 1:27)

III. Marriage Is Purposeful Difference (Genesis 2:18)

IV. Marriage Is Covenantal Union (Genesis 2:24)

V. Conclusion: Shifting Our Understanding of Marriage's Purpose

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I want you to imagine what it's like to feel trapped in a marriage.

For some of you, that's going to take a good amount of imagination, I'm afraid, for others, none at all.

Joni Erickson, Tada and her husband can tell such a story. Joni, as you may know, suffered a terrible accident at 17 that left her quadriplegic, and she came to Christ Shortly thereafter, Ken came into her life 13 years later. They entered marriage with rosy expectations. As Johnny said, We were convinced that with Christ at the center of our life together, we had all we needed to see us through the toughest times. We just didn't realize how tough times would get.

A few years in, the demands of caring for Johnny were weighing on Ken. Emptying bags that collected urine, lifting her in and out of bed, handling all the physical labor from shopping to cooking to cleaning.

He was suffocating, he said, slipping into depression, and one day he snapped. I can't do this. Johnny remembers him saying, I feel so trapped. And she snapped right back. Well, didn't you know it was going to be like this?

What were you thinking when you asked me to marry you?

Johnny quickly repented and asked for forgiveness, but what was said was true. They both realized they felt trapped.

Marriage is a commitment, we say, but it has to be more than that. A commitment that is nothing more than a commitment A prison inside vows we now regret feels like a trap.

The fact is that marriage wasn't working for Johnny and Ken, which you may have noticed is the title of today's sermon, Marriage Doesn't Work. That's the perception behind our culture's growing abandonment of marriage, and yet, There's an important truth in that phrase, marriage doesn't work to accomplish our purposes because so often we have the wrong purposes in mind. So what is marriage for?

Normally at this church, each sermon focuses on a particular text where the point of that sermon is the point of the text. But today starts something a little different. Five topical series sermons on marriage. Which I trust will be useful for those of you who are in or entering marriage, and useful more broadly because marriage teaches about relationships, which we all experience. But beyond that, marriage, as Mark said earlier, is a key part of our understanding God's love, since it's one of Scripture's main analogies for describing it.

Just think for a moment how the Bible begins and how it ends. Genesis 1, creation. Genesis 2, marriage. Genesis 3, we meet Satan. And then the Bible unwinds in exactly the same order.

Revelation 20, the fall of Satan. 21, God's dwelling with humanity pictured as marriage. And Revelation 22, new creation. Creation, marriage, Satan, Satan, marriage, creation. Creation is of uncommon importance in Scripture.

Since it's the first of these, let me give you a few ground rules for listening to these sermons. First, for the married, very simply, think about yourself, not your spouse. These sermons are to be a mirror, not a weapon.

For all of us, listen to help the marriages around you in this church that we might hold marriage as precious among all, as Hebrews 13:4 says, written to married and unmarried alike. For those looking to get married, use these sermons to shape what you're looking for. Teens, that goes for you as well. And in addition, since your parents' marriage will shape your view of marriage, use these sermons to better understand that particular marriage. For those not married, see how God intends to accomplish in your life the same purposes that lie behind marriage, whether Will not yout ever marry?

For the widowed, use these sermons to praise God for the good he did in your marriage and allow him to tenderly care for any wounds that might linger. For the divorced, to heal your understanding of God's perfect purposes in marriage, knowing that God will use all things for good.

And for those of you who are struggling in marriage, use these sermons not mainly as a recipe to exit struggle, but as insight into God's purposes for struggle, which in turn will guide you through it. And thinking specifically of you, I am sorry that for some these sermons will be difficult to hear because Scripture describes something so different than the marriage you have experienced. And that may be especially difficult because you just can't explain why that is. You have tried your best to obey Scripture, and yet what you have is painfully broken. So the one request I would have of you is don't keep that to yourself.

Let these sermons be the catalyst to ask for help from a godly friend. Even if your spouse insists that no one should ever know about what you are struggling through, Obey God rather than man. And God tells us that we should bear each other's burdens. My prayer is that even in ways I can't intend, God would use these sermons to bring light into darkness and to bring healing.

I know that for some today, the institution of marriage is a painful one to consider.

Just know my aim is to ply a salve, not to pick a scab. And though I don't know the shape of your pain, remember that God knows, which brings us back to Johnny and Ken's painful marriage. Marriage wasn't working because it wasn't delivering what they had expected. Ken hadn't anticipated what caregiving would be like. Johnny hadn't expected that he would ever question his decision.

Thankfully, God took them from despair and helped them realize they needed a better answer to a basic question: what is marriage for?

It's interesting, our culture keeps changing its answer to that question. Two centuries ago, marriage was about economic security for raising children. The prosperity of industrialization made it more about love. In the 1960s, marriage is self-expression, but today is one Professor Johns Hopkins has noted, marriage has moved from a cornerstone of life to a capstone, the thing we do when we finally arrived and it's time to have children. Children, love, self, and back to children.

No wonder we're confused. So, what is marriage for? Well, in Matthew 19, when Jesus answers that question, he goes back to the very beginning, to Genesis 1 and 2, and addresses a more fundamental question: what is marriage? So, this morning we're going to do the same thing. First, from Genesis 1:27, go ahead and turn there now.

We'll see that marriage is a living picture First few pages of the Bible, a living picture. Then Genesis 2:18, marriage is purposeful difference, purposeful difference. And then Genesis 2:24, marriage is covenantal union, covenantal union. So let's start with my first point, which is, in case you're getting worried, my longest point. Marriage is a living picture.

In Genesis 1, God creates all things by his word, and every day of creation ends with the same refrain, and God saw that it was good. But then in verse 27, God does something very different, something that will lead creation in verse 31 to be called very good. He creates mankind. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

Well, as we learn, as we keep reading through Genesis, these words image and likeness aren't two different things there. One, an image of God that is like unto God, to look at us, is to understand something about God, and that quality is inherent to us. Even when sin enters and obscures our display of who God is, it doesn't destroy that quality. And be made in God's image is something which is communal, right? Male and female he created them, something Jesus says speaks to marriage when he rebukes the Pharisees in Matthew 19.

Though God's precise nature isn't in full focus here, it is fitting that the triune God cannot be imaged by just one person or just one kind of person.

So verse 27 establishes our value. We have value because we reflect the glory of who God is, just as your image in the mirror reflects who you are. Our nature is our job description. And then in verse 28, God blessed them, it says, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

When God blesses in these chapters in Genesis, be it the animals in chapter 1, or the Sabbath in chapter 2, Noah in chapter 9, he's explaining how his purpose for each aspect of creation will be accomplished. Our purpose is to image God. Verse 27. We work that out, verse 28, through the things we produce, our love and our labor, our relationships and our rule. Work and family matter not because God somehow needs us to do those things, he certainly doesn't, but because that's how we reflect him as those made in his image.

And this has real implications for marriage. The value of a marriage, just like the value of a human being, is rooted in reflection. That is in being made in God's image, Genesis 1:27, not in production, Genesis 1:28. Yet very often, whether we're married or not, we actually do value marriage based on what it produces: friendship, intimacy, children, companionship, ministry. None of those things are wrong, but none of those can bear the weight of a marriage.

So nearly 25 years ago, I stood across from Joan Huang and called God as witness to some very big promises until death do us part. Why was I doing that?

Well, we were tired of going back and forth between DC and San Francisco to see each other. She was gorgeous and already my best friend. We wanted to have kids together and ministry and life together, all wonderful. And I can honestly tell you today that my marriage is the very best part of my life. But there was a deeper purpose that day I don't think I understood.

I wanted the things marriage produces, Genesis 1:28, without Genesis 1:27, but God created marriage as a means to reflect him Genesis 1:27 expressed through Genesis 1:28. And when you look for meaning in Genesis 1:28, disconnected from Genesis 1:27, it leads you into trouble. Right? Most modern idols are Genesis 1:28 idols. We live in a city that worships what?

Work and dominion. Genesis 1:28. We live in a culture that worships romantic love. Other cultures worship fruitfulness itself. Again, Genesis 1:28.

What were ancient Israel's main idols? Baal, the god of dominion; Ashtoreth, the goddess of fertility.

Things haven't changed that much.

Then after the fall in Genesis 3, what is it that God curses? He curses the woman's labor, her experience of childbirth, the man's labor, his work, their relationship together. And that parallelism is striking. Why would God curse in Genesis 3 what he commands in Genesis 1, presumably so that our Attempts to find meaning in Genesis 1:28 in production, disconnected from 1:27 reflection, will fail. So that our idols will never deliver, so that as Augustine prayed, our hearts would be restless until they rest in you, O Lord.

By the way, many of you here might believe what many religions teach, that God's standard for you is that the good things you do outweigh the bad things you do. That's not what the Bible teaches, and I hope what we've been talking about helps you understand why. Our value is in reflection, not production.

If this was a world that was about production, maybe that would make sense. But you don't evaluate beauty based on whether the good outweighs the bad, as if we hang the Mona Lisa in the Louvre because it's pretty good. You evaluate beauty by its alignment to perfection.

And in a world that is fundamentally about reflection, nothing less than perfection will do. Because we are made in whose image? In the image of God, right? The bad things we have done lie about God, and there are no good deeds we can do to fix that. That's the nature of sin, and that is why Jesus Christ is so important.

Because as we saw in that reading from Colossians 1, Jesus perfectly imaged the invisible God. And then what did he do with that?

He died to satisfy God's justice so we might be forgiven, and he offers his perfect life to us as our own, exchanging our ugly scribbles for his Mona Lisa. Right, his role in that transaction was immense. To leave his heavenly throne for a dirty manger and eventually for a cross, our role is to simply receive by faith. To say, Yes, I've sinned. No, I can't fix it.

Yes, by faith I receive what Christ has done. Yes, I will follow Him in repentance. That's how you can be forgiven of your sin. That's how you can be restored to what God made you to be. But back to marriage.

What is marriage? I think most fundamentally, marriage is a living picture and specifically a picture of God's love. Like we saw in that reading from Revelation 19, and as Paul describes in Ephesians chapter 5, it's not just a happy accident that marriage happens to illustrate God's love for his people. This is what marriage was created to be.

The problem is that we don't operate that way. We do value marriage for the things it produces: friendship, ministry, sex, children, rather than the one it portrays. When it doesn't produce what we want, which is inevitable in a fallen world, we feel cheated. So much idolatry of marriage has this one problem at its core. And yet, for Christians, there is a more subtle problem.

We've read Ephesians 5.

We've heard Revelation 19. Marriage as a picture sounds beautiful, vaguely mystical, somewhat mystifying, and we can't figure out what to do with it. It's like a puzzle piece. It doesn't go anywhere. You think, Ah, someone must have dropped it in the wrong box.

But as it turns out, that one piece is the corner piece around which everything else is placed.

Our culture treats marriage as about self-fulfillment. Thus, Ed Sheeran's new song about romantic love, sweetly based on his own marriage, is titled Heaven, the Ultimate in Self-Fulfillment. Now, as Christians, we know better, not because marriage is self-fulfillment oversells marriage, but because it undersells it. And yet we struggle to articulate exactly what vision beyond self-fulfillment marriage really is. And many of the answers we give fall short of what we see here in Genesis 1.

So we say that marriage is more about making us holy than happy. That's true. I don't think most people honestly say that can sustain a marriage. Ed's song is titled Heaven. I don't think we should say he should have named it sanctification.

It's just not the whole picture. We say marriage should be about grace rather than performance, which again is very helpful, and yet even that can tie you up into knots. You want a grace marriage because that's how you have a good marriage, but how do you know if you have a good marriage if it does what you want it to do? And now we're right back to the performance marriage.

The only goal for marriage that won't collapse in on itself is the one we see right here at the beginning of the Bible. Marriage is a picture of God's love for us.

So more practically, what does it mean to value marriage not for what it produces but the one it portrays? Two words, see and show. Through marriage, we see God more clearly. The satisfaction of giving yourself for another helps you understand him. The wonder of feeling truly one despite great differences, the joy of compassionate mercy, those pleasures are God-like.

Not in the sense of idolatry, but worship. Marriage helps us see God. It also helps us show God. When we imitate God in marriage, we show others how good he is. So a husband's selfless love shows his wife what God is like.

Children understand God's love initially through their parents' love. Friends and neighbors see it too. And you know, even God himself delights in how a good marriage points to his goodness.

So God's calling for the married is this, through marriage see and show the glory of God. Which honestly means that ultimately marriage is worship. Right? In Scripture, worship comes in two acts, like breathing in and breathing out. In worship, like in our corporate worship right now, we take in the goodness and beauty of our God.

We see, we glorify our glorious God, sorry, we glory in our glorious God, and in worship, be it at church or in your love of neighbor the rest of the week, we glorify our glorious God. We show with our lives what he's like. Marriage is about reflection, not production. The things marriage produces, kids, sex, companionship, ministry, they're just the paints that make up that picture, but the point is the picture, not the paint. The point is marriage is worship.

In this idea, marriage as worship, marriage as reflection matters for those who are looking to get married because it fine-tunes why you want marriage.

Do you want marriage, honestly, because of the things it produces or because you want to see and show God? That'd be a good question to ask yourself and maybe someone who's discipling you. But more negatively, would you say that you're dating deal-breakers or more about reflection or production? What about those who love their marriages? I said earlier that my marriage is the very best part of my life.

There's something a little not Christian about me saying that, right? Because that can very quickly become idolatry. On the one hand, I don't think you want to hear a series on marriage from someone who doesn't like his marriage. And yet, the fact that I do love my marriage is dangerous, because marriage can become about itself instead of God. It can become about the painting instead of the painting, which is why you must love God more than you love your spouse.

If you love what marriage produces more than the one marriage portrays, it will slowly suffocate because then it is idolatry.

And this idea of marriage as reflection matters for when we struggle in marriage, which is also my experience at times.

When marriage is about production, your spouse is either a means to getting what you want, which can deceptively make your marriage look great, or an obstacle, which is where things fall apart. Marriage as reflection, on the other hand, reframes marital struggle. If marriage were about production alone, struggling marriages would be failed marriages.

But why should a marriage see and show God only when it's going well. I don't like it when my wife is angry with me. My first reaction is sinfully to assume that her anger is wrong, but you know, sometimes very often it's right. And the aftermath of those painful experiences has taught me a lot about God's mercy. Moving from production to reflection changes what a marriage is for, and that changes your perspective on struggle.

Marriage as reflection is also important for those who are widowed. What your marriage produced has come to conclusion, but not what it reflected. Where part of what we will praise God for around his throne forever is the very unique angle on his goodness that your marriage displayed. For the divorced, You can say the same for some of the good things that happen in your marriage and where you can't. Marriage as reflection provides theological language for God's heartbreak in what you suffered.

This idea has implications for those struggling because they're not married. Marriage is a sign. It's not the destination. You may not have the sign, but you will not miss what it points to. Right, Charlie clutched that golden ticket like it was his life, but once he got to the chocolate factory, that ticket faded in importance.

If marriage is a reflection of a greater reality, then if you never marry and you never enjoy sexual intimacy, never have children, there is real heartbreak there, which I don't want to minimize. Proverbs 13:12, Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Our job is to mourn with you, and from the perspective of eternity, you miss out on nothing. As God says in Isaiah 56, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

The sign is good. The New Covenant reality that signifies are far better. Which can also be said for those who are married and yet are struggling with the broken picture their marriage has become. God has charted a different path to those ultimate realities for each of His children, and we can trust Him with that choice. So Sam Albury has written, if marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency.

We value marriage for the stuff it produces. God values marriage for the one it portrays. But I don't mean that to suggest that marriage is stale and boring. It's worth noting that there is far more satisfaction in reflection than in production. So before that big snowstorm we had a few weeks ago, I brilliantly decided to park our car in the back of our house, where it got trapped in ice.

I was about to leave on a long trip, and so I promised Joan that before I left, I would have the car out, thinking that, of course, DC would come and clear the alley, but a week went by, and it still wasn't cleared, so the day before I left, I spent hours chopping ice, put on tire chains, and with great effort, fishtailed that car down the alley, onto the street, And within hours, a team of five Bobcats arrived from the city and cleared the alley. If I had just waited three more hours, all that work could have been avoided.

But Joan praised me for keeping my promise, and that felt fantastic. In fact, the futility of my work only made that feeling stronger. There is something God-like There is something Godlike in keeping a costly promise. If you value marriage for the stuff it produces, so much of what you're going to get will fail to satisfy. But marriage as reflection is deeply satisfying because God is deeply satisfying.

You see, to understand marriage, you must truly believe that you were made for his glory, that you were made to find your ultimate satisfaction in communion with him. Right, the highest aim, loftiest speculation, the greatest reality that could ever capture your obsession and affection is not human love, as good as it may be. It's the goodness, the mercy, the beauty, the righteousness, the wonder of the God who is three in one and one in three who is transcendent and immanent, who through Christ says he is ours. To glorify him is your highest aim. To glorify him is your most essential delight.

Marriage as worship is the path to a sweet and satisfying marriage, but a sweet and satisfying marriage cannot be your ultimate objective, or you will crush that marriage under the weight of your expectations. You don't value marriage as reflection, 'cause you wanna have a good marriage. You value marriage as reflection because you have discovered that God is better than marriage and the goodness of the marriage that follows is simply part of how you enjoy the goodness of God. As gospel people, we have received such amazing gifts from our God in Christ, have we not? Does that not propel you to see Him more clearly?

To show Him more clearly? His kindness, His mercy, His patience, His forgiveness, what wonderful gospel realities marriage reflects.

In that sense, marriage cannot be a cul-de-sac, spiraling in on itself as some higher plane of personal fulfillment, but neither is it an interstate as if all that matters is the destination. Marriage is more like a scenic country lane. The journey is delightful, as through it we see and show the glory and goodness of God, yet it is a temporary sign. Even that scenic country lane is going somewhere. Listen to how our brother John Chrysostom described this 1,600 years ago.

So whether we presently live in virginity, in our first marriage, or in our second, Let us pursue holiness, that we may be counted worthy to see Him, and to attain the kingdom of heaven through the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, dominion, and honor with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and ever unto the ages of ages. Amen. Amen.

Yet, because this is just the end of the first point, You could say that being a living picture is true of many relationships. Parent-child, boss-employee, even friendships all share that quality. Which leads us to Genesis 2, where we see what's different about marriage. Not only is marriage a living picture, marriage is a purposeful difference. And if my first point was the why of marriage, its most basic purpose, then these Last two points are about the how.

How does marriage uniquely image God? Genesis 2 is a second telling of creation focused in detail on the man and the woman, and its focus on woman is really without parallel in ancient Near East creation accounts. Follow along in Genesis 2. In verse 7, God forms the man first, charges him to work and protect the garden, verse 15, charges him with his commands, verse 17, then, verse 18, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.

In our modern context, it's easy to assume that Adam's problem was he was lonely. That's not how Genesis frames it. The problem was that Adam was incomplete. That phrase translated not good is like Mac without cheese. You like that, Bill Behrens?

Not some sort of moldy cheese, right? By himself, Adam couldn't fulfill his purpose to reflect God by filling the earth and ruling it. That's why God's solution in verse 18 is not a companion, Like he's lonely, it's a helper, and not another man, but one who corresponds to him, the woman. God brings all the animals to Adam, and none proves fit. So verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

The woman was made to be Adam's helper. And as you may know, that word helper in Scripture is not a weak word, right? Most frequently it is used not of people, but of God as Israel's helper. In my own marriage, Joan as my helper encompasses talent, intelligence, virtue. It would be poor stewardship if I didn't lean on those strengths.

Helper may not be a position of leadership, it is very much a position of strength. And she's also made to be one who is fit for him, who corresponds to him, which means the whole point is that they are different. This is not merely role language, like you do it sometimes and not others, this is orientation language. In all of life, This is how the first husband and wife were oriented toward each other. These are differences that become most pronounced when children enter a family, but their existence doesn't depend on children.

We live in a culture which is very wary of any language of fundamental difference because it fears that difference implies dependence, which leads to exploitation.

And sadly, that's often true, especially in a world that locates value not in reflection but in production.

And yet what we see here is that reflection is a joint activity. It is a partnership with husband and wife playing different roles, the power of a marriage located in those differences. I hope that makes the Bible's prohibition against same-sex unions seem less arbitrary. Right, if we would understand marriage as reflection, we must understand these differences. Turning the Bible to Ephesians 5, maybe keep a finger there in Genesis 2, where Paul reflects on these verses from Genesis 2, verse 24 of Ephesians 5.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So Paul's describing reflection and he's saying that husband and wife are not interchangeable in that reflection. Men and women are different. Though they exist along a distribution curve in their biological and psychological traits, those traits do form fundamentally different curves.

What's more, as Paul notes, in marriage, man and woman play different roles. And those roles are not unrelated to the different traits of male and female.

That means that for a marriage to reflect the love of God in Christ, we must see how our differences in biology and personality and psychology combined with those differences in role place the husband and wife in two different places.

We communicate differently, we fight differently, we fear differently, we express love differently, we certainly make children differently. So many Christian books on marriage, aside from that requisite chapter on headship and submission, could leave you thinking that husband and wife are interchangeable and everything else. That just doesn't tell the whole story. If we are to reflect on the love of God in marriage, we must trust God's purposes in making us different.

And yet how many times, especially early in marriage, did I think or even say to my shame, well, Christian confessed in his prayer, if you would just do this the way I do, this would be so much easier.

I often hear the same, at least implied in premarital counseling. And the fact is that statement is often true. It would be easier if you and I were the same, but it entirely misses the point of the marriage.

Early in marriage, a husband and wife must learn to trust God's purposes in creation, when in self-righteousness we are tempted to see difference and assume deficiency. Now, some differences may indeed be deficiencies. Sorting that out takes a lot of time, but most efforts to recast a spouse in your own image will damage the purposeful difference that is the power of your marriage. Later in marriage, the challenge shifts. Trusting God's purposes, not just in creation, but in redemption, when you discover that some of those differences are deficiencies, and self-righteousness makes you feel cheated and embittered, you need to realize you're approaching marriage as production.

If instead you approach it as reflection, you will learn to tenderly compensate for the deficiencies in your spouse, trusting God's redemptive purposes and reflecting God's redemptive love. And notice that in both those in most situations, the enemy, the danger, is self-righteousness, because it's self-righteousness that distorts and confuses and abuses purposeful difference. But praise God, the gospel is the antidote to self-righteousness, isn't it? In the gospel, we receive a true righteousness which is stamped Christ, not self. And so, the gospel liberates us from the tyranny of always needing to be good enough.

That's how we trust God's purposeful differences. But a reflective marriage must also steward those differences because, as is often the case, some differences create positions of power. The roles Paul describes in Ephesians 5 come to mind, which we'll talk about in a later sermon. But this extends far beyond those roles. For example, when my kids are in emotional turmoil, they are much more likely to confide in my wife because she is vastly more competent than I am.

Vastly more emotionally competent than I am. And you know what? That is exhausting for her, and it makes life a little easier for me. That same reality gives her a closeness with our kids that makes life richer for her, That's just a little example of how those differences can create real power differentials. Some of those put one spouse, most often a wife, into a very vulnerable place.

And so a question every married person must address is, what are you going to do with the advantages those differences bring. Many men make more money than their wives. I can proudly tell you, as a pastor married to a doctor, that's not true for me. In an argument, many women can run circles around their husbands. That is true for me.

Now, what are you going to do? Are you going to exploit those advantages for selfishness or use them for service? Will you see them as opportunity for power play or for a picture? A picture of what our Lord Jesus did with his position of power. As 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.

Become rich? Like Jesus, when differences bring advantage, we steward those advantages for the goodness of the other. But what about the opposite? When differences leave you feeling vulnerable? We're going to talk a lot about that in the sermon we have coming up on 1 Peter.

Very simply, we image God by imaging his Son, who, 1 Peter 2:23, when he reviled, did not revile in return, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. In a word, we trust, we trust God. Trusting does not mean submitting to what is sin. It does not mean doing nothing while a spouse routinely humiliates or mistreats you. Very often it actually means exactly the opposite.

The challenge is in some marriages it can be difficult to know what it really means to trust God in vulnerability because your marriage has been using even the Bible itself to justify what God does not justify.

And again, it's hard to figure out what's up and down if you're in that situation. You don't have to figure it out. Just talk to somebody. Talk to a godly friend. But those hard situations notwithstanding, in the Bible, we see that all Christians are to trust providence when we are in places of vulnerability, including the vulnerability of difference, so that our reaction to that vulnerability is guided not by fear, but by love.

So marriage is a loving picture of God's love for us. Part of that comes in how marriage is purposeful difference. But difference alone would make marriage terrible, which is what brings us to our final point, not just purposeful difference, but covenantal union. Genesis 2:24 and 25 Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife are both naked, and we're not ashamed.

There's a road every married couple must travel from Genesis 2:20, different by design, to Genesis 2:24. One flesh. That is not an easy road to travel. And the minefield of those four verses is the fuel behind many a newly wed quarrel. How can you be both different and one?

The tools the Bible gives us for traveling that path, communication, calling, sexual union, are what we'll examine in later sermons, but what I want to focus on now is the destination. What does it mean to be one flesh?

It means that marriage is fundamentally union. I like Christopher Ash's definition, marriage is the voluntary public union of one man and one woman from different families. And this union we see in Genesis 2 is not one of convenience but of permanence. In fact, Malachi 2 uses the word covenant. And as Jesus says in Matthew 19, what therefore God has joined together, let man not separate.

And Jesus there views this idea of oneness as far more than sexual union. It is the entirety of a marriage. In fact, sexual union without that oneness can be devastating. Covenant is commitment without contingency.

It's not based on whether it's working for you, it's based on who you now are. The two are now one. Paul draws on this in Ephesians 5 and shows its reflective qualities. Verse 31, the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, which it is.

Just think about marriage, and yet he says, And I am saying it refers to Christ in the church. But the oneness of husband and wife emits profound difference is a key aspect of how they image their Creator. So what's the nature of that union?

Is it common interest?

No, I'm genuinely interested in things I never cared about before marriage simply because they matter to my wife. Right? So I go to the ballet, not to appease her, but because she loves it. And so in it, I experience some aspect of her, which means I love it.

Union isn't even common values, at least not entirely. But my wife and I honestly have different values in what we do with our money and our parenting and held intention with trust that can be a beautiful thing. We should not confuse union with peace. Sometimes peace comes at the expense of honesty about differences. Union is not uniformity.

So what is union? Listen to Paul in Ephesians 5:28. When he expounds on husband and wife as one flesh, he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

Marriage really is the love of neighbor in its essence. Loving the other as yourself, treating weakness with tenderness, cherishing what's different, caring for another as you care for yourself, Love that showcases the gospel is sweet because it's flowing from a love that we have received from Christ in the gospel. Tim Keller describes this oneness and its reflective potential when over the years someone has seen you at your worst and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him or herself to you wholly. It is a consummate experience.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known but not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.

People often think that marital success is rooted in its starting point. Did you marry the right person? In fact, it has much more to do with what you do with that starting point. If you value marriage for what it produces, you may move toward your spouse, but ultimately only to take. If you value marriage for the one it portrays, you will seek real oneness, not just to get a happy marriage, but because that is the God your marriage was designed to reflect.

So the joy of real union, like the joy of all of light's greatest pleasures is a God-like pleasure, or as Keller says, a consummate experience. It reveals a shadow of the joy our joyful God has in being God. That's how marital success should be defined. You have a good marriage to the extent that you live all those differences and live as one flesh. Success is reflection.

And with that, we should conclude. On that terrible night, Johnny and Ken lay awake in tense silence. That wasn't the end. They took their frustration to God. They discovered how much selfishness marriage was going to squeeze out of them.

They sought in new ways to join their lives together, and yet several years later, they were back in exactly the same place. Johnny was declining physically. The toll weighed on her husband. One night he collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. Johnny, I am so tired.

I don't feel like I can do this. I feel so trapped.

But this time instead of pulling away, she leaned toward him. Ken, I don't blame you one bit for feeling trapped. I just want you to know I understand, and I'm going to do everything in my power to support you and help you. I think you're amazing, and with God's help, we can do even this.

And Ken described much later on that in that moment, it was like an invisible weight had lifted from his shoulders. It was a turning point in their marriage. So what shifted between those two anguished conversations? It wasn't their circumstances. What shifted is what they understood marriage was for.

Johnny's reaction the first time was anger because Ken was depriving her of what she felt she was owed. The second time she moved toward him because, like Paul says in Ephesians 5, He was part of her. They were one.

What is marriage for?

If it is fundamentally about what it produces companionship, sex, ministry, children it will often fail us, leaving us angry and embittered. In fact, as part of God's curse that followed sin, marriage is guaranteed to fail in that way, otherwise it would be effortless idolatry.

Now, marriage is a living picture of our glorious God, not production, but reflection. Sometimes marriages image God better than others, yet the purpose is always to image Him through purposeful difference and covenantal unity. Marriage is a special way we get to see and show the glories of God. Its driving objective is not horizontal, as if it was about us, but vertical. It is a hunger to see and show who he is.

That means every marriage should be going somewhere, driving toward a full knowledge of the glory of God, a knowledge that all Christians will one day rejoice in whether or not they ever experience marriage. Because one day the God who is the source of all joy and delight says he will dwell with us face to face. The sign of marriage will be swallowed up in the love of the one it pointed to. We tasted God's love faintly here on earth. It will be ours in blazing, delightful fullness forever, and we will all enjoy what he revealed about himself in every marriage that pointed to him.

So is your life. Leaning toward Him. Let's pray.

Father, no matter what our position is toward marriage, our relationship with marriage, we have much we need to confess.

Because we are all idolaters at our core. And yet in Christ you have forgiven us and you are remaking us. We pray that we would set our hearts on things above, not on earthly things. And as your Son said, as we seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, all these things would be given to us as well. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.