SGFC Worship Service (July 26, 2020)

Philippians as a Call to Worship, Prayer, and Christian Unity

For Philippians, Therefore, my beloved brethren, whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm, we stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. I urge you, Judea, and I urge you, Syntyche, to live in harmony in the Lord.

Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel together with Clement. Also, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I will say rejoice. Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise dwell on these things, the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.

And the God of peace will be with you. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me. Indeed, you have concern before me, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances that I am in.

I know how to get along with humble means. I also know how to live in prosperity in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, of being filled and going hungry, of both having abundance and suffering need.

And I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me and my affliction. You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, but you alone.

For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than you once for your needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. But I have received everything in full and have an abundance.

I am supplying and supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. And my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

Now to our God, our Father, be the glory forever and ever. Amen. And greet every saint in the Lord Jesus. And brethren who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Prayer as Worship and Intercession for the Church and Nation

So I would say as Brother Mike spoke about his place in reading the scriptures, I'm the.

One among the elders that keeps us on track as far as assigning who does what on any given Sunday. And I would just say this, Brother Mike does wind up reading the last chapters. And I thank God for the providence of God, because an Italian from the Bronx pronouncing Jewish names is not an easy thing.

So brother, Lord bless you. As we come to prayer, it's all seriousness. I thought about it as I knew I would be praying this morning. I wanted to at least say this as we go to prayer. If we are the children of God, then I want to continually remind us of what the Apostle John said as we go to prayer, where he said, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, us, that we should be called the children of God.

And as we come to prayer, brothers and sisters, this is not a point in the service. This is worship. This is where we come as a body from so many diverse backgrounds and so many different trains of thought, and we yet get to unite our voices before God.

So as we pray, let us pray in sincerity. Let us be honest. Let us be true. And let us remember that that our God is worthy of our worship. So let us pray. Our Father in God, you are great. You are greatly to be praised.

Your greatness is unsearchable. Lord, who is like you, glorious in praises and fearful in wonders. Lord, you're the living God. You're the true God. You're not a God of wood or a God of stone, but you are the God who has made us, the God who rules over the universe, the God who has fashioned each one of us and breathed into us the breath of life.

Oh God, we come before you in the name of Jesus to approach you, the holy, righteous God, now satisfied through the work of the Savior. And we come as your people and we pray, Lord, that you would accept our prayer this morning, that you would hear us, Lord, that this would not just be a religious activity, but that we would seek your face in truth.

No, God, this morning, as we pray, there are many physical needs for many, even amongst us, even a small group like us. And yet, oh, Lord, there are so many infirmities. Think of Brother Walter and Chris's aunt and others who are dealing with cancer, and Sister Mary who is struggling in her life.

And oh God, we come to you and we ask you to do a great thing, Lord, something that only you can do, and that is to heal. Use doctors, use medicine, use whatever it takes. But oh God, ultimately, even as you have instructed us, who is it that wounds or heals and who made the deaf and who made the blind, but you.

So God, be with those and all of others that have physical infirmities. Lord, we also would be negligent if we didn't consider the things that are taking place in this country that you have placed us in.

Lord, you have created us to live this day in this land and to demonstrate that we are the people of God, and oh God, we confess that this nation is a mess. No other way to put it, Lord, we seem to be running crazy in our thinking.

Men and women and those in authority who want to call good evil and evil good and light darkness and darkness light, and Lord, they seem to be at times trying to force us to be like them. Oh God, give us the grace as your people, as churches, as the body of Christ to stand for the truth, to not be afraid, to be obedient, but be obedient to you first.

God, you have said that if you be for us, who could be against us? And yet we confess, Lord, so often we seem to hide in the corner, not realizing that we are in union with the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Be with those churches that are suffering persecution. Oh God, we thank you that no one has stopped us from coming here this morning, except perhaps our own hearts. Be with us. Be with them. Be with our missionaries.

Be with Scott. Be with Walter. Be with those who seek to speak the truth in dark places. And yet, oh Lord, we live in such a land of darkness, and yet we proclaim to be such a nation as walks in the truth, and yet we despise the very God who gives us the breath that we breathe.

So forgive us, Lord, for our sins as a nation. Forgive us for our sins as a church. Forgive us for our sins as husbands and wives and mothers and fathers. Forgive us for those secret sins that we seem to hold on to in our own lives.

Thank you, Lord, that we can come. Thank you that you hear us. Thank you that you've given us your word. Thank you that your word lives forever. Lord, may your word this morning do its work in our hearts.

May the words that Brother Keith speak, may they be from you and not from him. May you empower him and empower your word. And Lord, may we grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

Lord, may this not just be this morning a religious activity, but may our worship rise up to you as a sweet-smelling aroma. May you be pleased in what we do. Correct us, oh Lord, but not in anger. Teach us, oh Lord, help us to learn, help us to be more like the Son of God.

Lord, I just cannot stop saying it. Son of God, who so loved us that he gave himself for us. It's in his name, for his glory and for our own eternal good, we pray. Amen.

Genesis 2:24 as the Foundation for Biblical Marriage

I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians and then back to Genesis, because I don't know why I said Ephesians. I have no idea. That literally was just an error. We haven't been in Ephesians at all.

Please turn to Genesis 2 and forgive me. That's not a good sign to start that way. In the last month, I have read two different books. One of one of those books was called Dark Agenda. The other one was entitled The Gathering Storm.

And in both of those books, there were entire chapters that were dedicated to the subject of marriage and how marriage has been. Changing before our very eyes in the last generation and how people understand the institution of marriage and how people understand the value of marriage and even the very idea of who should be married and why people get married.

And it just amazed me that two books that came out this year and both of those books dealing with the culture, both of those books had an entire chapter on the subject of marriage. And as most of you know, when I sit down to prepare my sermons, I study the text.

I look at the language. I focus on what the text has to say. But then I also reach and I pull out my commentaries because when I read the commentaries, they allow me to look and ensure accuracy and ensure consistency in what I'm saying.

And and so I look at those commentaries and and one of the commentaries that I'm using for preaching through Genesis is James Boyce's commentary. James Boyce was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

Wonderful minister who gave his life to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I was looking at his commentary on Genesis 2, 24, which is our text for today, something he said in that stood out to me.

He said, today, marriage is under attack. Now, that may not seem like an overly insightful point, but what's interesting about that is he wrote that 34 years ago. James Boyce's commentary on the book of Genesis was published in 1986.

Boyce had no idea how far the attack would eventually spread, but he knew the attack was underway. In his writings, he said there was a four pronged attack against the institution of marriage. Now, just remember, 34 years ago, these were the four things he pointed out that were attacking the institution of marriage.

The first thing he said was hedonism, celebration of the playboy lifestyle. The second thing was widespread acceptance of adultery. No longer was adultery carrying the same social stigma that it once did.

The third thing he said was the ease of divorce. The advent of no-fault divorce gave rise to the destruction of the value of marriage. And then the fourth thing he said was the legalization of abortion on demand.

Because the legalization of abortion on demand created a sex without consequences mentality. Little did Boyce know that the things that he was saying were somewhat prophetic because not only are all of those four things still true, but the very definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman would eventually come under assault.

Neither could he likely have foreseen that even the very definition of male and female would become so obscured in our modern culture's ever hastening attempt to throw away all vestiges of Christian truth.

Marriage certainly was under attack in 1986, but since then the attacks have only been gaining more and more ground. As Christians, we are called to celebrate, to practice, and to defend the concept of biblical marriage for it is the foundation of all of the society.

Years ago, I heard an atheist who was railing against the subject of the biblical definition of marriage, and he said, you can't use the Bible to define marriage because it's filled with marital inconsistencies.

It supports polygamy and incest in one place, and it calls for singleness and celibacy in another place. The Bible doesn't have a standardized position on marriage. That was his argument, and arguments like that are not uncommon.

One of the ways that unbelievers attack the scripture is to seek to find inconsistencies and contradictions in the scripture, and these are the attacks that are most often associated with the subject of marriage.

The Bible's just inconsistent on the subject of marriage. Well, today I hope to show you that that's not the case. The Bible is actually very consistent from the beginning all the way to the end as to what constitutes a biblical marriage, and we're going to look at this passage which actually establishes the institution of marriage and then becomes the standard by which later passages would hearken to say this is what marriage is supposed to be.

This is the foundational text. This is the text that even Jesus would point back to when he was establishing with the Pharisees what is biblical marriage. He says, have you not heard from the beginning?

And he quoted Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24. This is the foundation for biblical marriage, and today we are going to defend that proposition. So let's stand for the reading of God's word. We're going to read actually verses 18 to 25, but our focus is going to be on verse 24.

Then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the Lord 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.

Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast unto his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. Now as I seek to give an exposition of it, I pray first and foremost that you would keep me from error, but also Lord that you would keep me from cowardice, that I would preach with accuracy and with boldness.

The Meaning of Therefore in Genesis 2:24

In Jesus name, amen. Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 is unique in regard to how it works within the larger passage, because so far in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2, and we've been studying that for those of you who are new or visiting with us today, we have been studying through Genesis now since September of last year.

We've gotten to the end of chapter 2, so we've been kind of taking it a little slow, but what we have noted so far is that what we have is a series of narrative events. We have in the beginning, chapter 1, God gives an overview of his creation, and in chapter 2 he focuses in on the creation of man.

Then he says that wonderful thing that we talked about last week, it's not good that man should be alone, I'll make a helper for him, so he focuses on the creation of woman, but then the text changes.

We move from the indicative to the imperative. The indicative tells you what is. The imperative tells you what should be or what must be. The indicative tells you what is. The imperative tells you what you should do because of what is.

And often times the word that links the indicative to the imperative is the word therefore. The word therefore connects what came before to what comes after, and it gives the natural byproduct or the natural result of what was just said to how it relates to what is about to be said.

In fact, you've probably heard this before, you may have even heard me say it. Anytime you are studying the Bible and you come to the word therefore, you need to stop and see what it's there for. You need to see why it's there, because that is normally taking you from a proposition of truth to how you apply that truth.

Therefore, do this. And that's what we have in Genesis 2 and 24. Moses is moving from the narrative. This is what has happened. God has created man. God has created woman. God has brought man and woman together in the very first marriage.

He has created a new family. Therefore, a man should marry a woman and the two should become a family. By the way, one thing you'll note from this passage, Genesis 2 and 24, is this ain't about Adam and Eve.

How do I know? Because it says therefore a man shall leave his father and mother. Guess what Adam didn't have? Adam didn't have a mom and daddy. Adam didn't have a father or mother. So therefore a man shall leave his father and mother.

This isn't about Adam and Eve. This is about all of the subsequent generations that would follow Adam and Eve. This is about their posterity. This is about their children and grandchildren and so on all the way down to today.

This therefore is not about them. It's about us. This is a divinely inspired commentary on what just happened. You see what happens is God just performed the first wedding. And we have no idea what that wedding was like.

We don't know if they took vows. We don't know if they had to repeat after me. We do know this, Eve weren't wearing no dress. I mean we know that. That's all we know. But it was a wedding. And God performed the wedding.

And then he said through Moses, therefore a man should leave his father and mother. And cleave unto his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This act of God giving Eve to Adam is the basis for Moses' commentary.

And based on this we have the first true institution of man. The first institution of man conceived in the mind of God and exercised in the perfect garden of God was the institution of marriage. It preceded sin therefore it is not a sinful institution.

See government is an institution of God as well. Romans 13 tells us. Tells us that government is put in place because of the evils of men. Therefore government is an institution that came after the fall.

But marriage did not come after the fall. Marriage was an institution of God from the beginning. It preceded the introduction of sin. It was not tainted by sin. It is now but it was not then. Therefore some identify marriage as a creation ordinance.

Ordinance means law. It was a creation law. God established this principle before sin. The principle of marriage. So today what I want to give to you is I want to give you three imperatives for marriage that come from this text.

Three imperatives for marriage which are established on Moses' divine commentary. First we're going to look at the plan of marriage. Then we're going to look at the purpose of marriage. And then we're going to look at the priority of marriage.

I don't always give you a literated outline so you're welcome. But we're going to look at the plan and the purpose and the priority of marriage as we see it in this passage. Remember this passage is the foundation for all the rest of the bible.

If anybody ever comes up, well the bible talks about polygamy. The bible talks about all of these other things. Understand this. All of those are aberrations of the plan. They're aberrations of what God designed.

You say well David was a polygamist. Yeah, David was a polygamist. That does not make that the plan for marriage. Don't use David as your example. Trust me, your wife won't like it. Go back to the beginning.

Go back to the pre-sin beginning. And look at that as the foundation. Because when Jesus was asked about marriage, He didn't go to David and He didn't go to Solomon. He went to Adam and Eve. The plan for marriage is simple.

One, there are only two people involved in the marriage. One man and one woman. Two complementary figures. Not mirror images of one another, but two complementary images of God. One man and one woman complement one another and there are no spares.

Remember that. God created Adam and God created Eve and He didn't create Sarah and Lauren and Edith because Eve might not have filled the ticket. No, it was one man and he had one woman. There was no Lilith.

You ever heard the myth of Lilith? There is an ancient Jewish fable which says that God created Adam a wife who was unwilling to be submissive and therefore God sent her away and created him a second wife called Eve.

And the first wife's name was Lilith. You ever heard of Lilith Fair? Lilith Fair is an all-woman rock event that started back in the 90s. Sarah McLachlan and a bunch of other people started something called Lilith Fair.

Lilith Fair was based on the idea of the Lilith character from Jewish mythology which was supposed to represent feminist strength because she was not willing to submit to her man. And therefore God banished her and created Eve.

And you know what the Greek word for all that is? Baloney. That's right. That's my favorite Greek word. It's baloney. It's garbage. Because it just ain't so. It's an interesting myth, but that's all it is.

There is no biblical precedent for the existence of any character called Lilith. It is absolute fairy tale. One man, one woman, two complementary figures is the plan for marriage. And the marriage has a three-fold responsibility.

I'm going to use my board because you guys know how much I love my board. And I meant to put these on the screen, but I always forget. So I have my board just in case. The three-fold responsibility of marriage is this.

Leave, cleave, and weave. One, two, three. Now I didn't invent that. I heard somebody else say it, but I liked it so much I remembered it. Leave, cleave, and weave. Let's look at what that means. When he says, First, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother.

Now I want to let you know, parents, that's not an insult to you. That has nothing to do with insulting the role of the parents. It's not calling your children to leave you behind completely, to abandon their heritage, or their responsibilities to you as you age.

I do believe that it is a responsibility of children that as their parents age to provide for them assistance and love and support. In fact, I believe when the Apostle Paul said, A man who doesn't care for his own is worse than an infidel.

You remember that passage? I think he was actually referring not only to his children, but to his parents. We have a responsibility to care for the aging. So this doesn't mean leave your parents in the dust.

This doesn't mean leave your parents behind and run away and rob them of love and support as they age. That's not what it means. But what it does mean is that when you get married, there is a change of allegiances.

Before you get married, your primary relationship in life is with mom and dad. But when you get married, your primary relationship in life is now with spouse. And I've got to tell you, this is one of the areas, having done ministry for many years, and having sat through hours and hours and hours of marital counseling, this is one area that I can tell you often is the impetus for so many problems.

People who allow other people to be more important than their spouse, even mom and dad. Men and women who put their family above their spouse for whatever reason often end up in marital turmoil. Now, there must be an allegiance to the spouse that comes before everything else, even the children.

You say, but I love my babies. Yes, but you didn't marry your babies and your babies will one day marry someone else. And when your babies marry someone else, guess what they're supposed to do? They're supposed to leave you and marry that person.

Because that's what this text says. And therefore, if you teach your children that they're the most important thing in your world and the spouse is the secondary thing in your world, that's the way they're going to grow up thinking it should be, and that's the way they're going to treat their spouse.

But if you teach your children that the spouse is the number one, the most important person in your life, when they grow up, they will have that as their example, and that will be the foundation upon which they build their lives.

So the first rule, the first part of the plan is that you have a man and a woman and they leave behind and they cleave. That's the next word. Cleave to one another. Now, I use the word cleave because it's the King James Version.

The ESV, which I read out of and teach out of, uses the word hold fast. And the word fast there doesn't mean to go quickly. The word fast is the root of the word fasten. It means to be connected together.

It means to cling or to clasp. And what it's talking about is loyalty. A man should leave his father and mother because that's where his loyalties were before. That's where his primary relationship in life was before.

He's going to leave that relationship and now he's going to cling to a new relationship. He's going to cleave unto his wife. And what's interesting about that language is that language is used all throughout the Old Testament about how we are to be loyal to God.

Here are just a few passages. Deuteronomy 10 .20 You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve Him and you shall cleave unto Him. Deuteronomy 13 .4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice.

You shall serve Him and you shall cleave unto Him. Joshua 22 .5 Be careful to observe the commandments that the law of Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, and to cleave unto Him.

So what are those passages commanding us to do? Be loyal to God. So what is the commandment to cleave unto your wife commanding you to do, men? To be loyal to her. In the traditional vows of marriage, we say to cleave unto his wife and keep himself only for her till death do us part.

Cleave is a word of loyalty. You leave your former allegiance and you establish a new allegiance to your wife. And then you weave. You weave together a new family unit. You know what happens when you take two threads and you spin them together?

They become one. One stronger thread. In fact, that example is used for us in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 4 .12 talks about how when you wind cords together, they become stronger. And then it says a threefold cord cannot be broken.

It's talking about the idea of weaving things together. It's talking about the idea of taking things that were separate and making one new, stronger thing. When a man and a woman are married, they create a new entity.

And that entity is a family. Both were part of a family. But now they have left that family. They have come together and they've created a new family. That's the plan. Man and woman leave the family, cleave together, weave a new family.

But what's the purpose? We know what the plan is. The plan is very simple. What's the purpose? The purpose of marriage is twofold. First, the purpose of marriage is to create a new family. That's the physical purpose.

But then there is also the purpose of marriage in that it prefigures the gospel. That's the spiritual purpose. So marriage doesn't just have one purpose. Marriage is a multiple purpose endeavor. The first thing you do in a marriage is you create a new family.

But you also, you are in your marriage prefiguring and you're giving a form of the gospel itself. So let's look at those two things very quickly. First is the idea of creating a family. When a marriage happens, two complementary units become one whole.

Two individuals are no longer individuals. They are one unit. Oftentimes you'll hear people say, this is my other, what, half. Why do they call him the other half? Because I'm not whole anymore. The reason why we call him...

In fact, if you're me, you say this is my better half when you're talking about your spouse. My much better half, right? But she's still my half. Because together we are whole. And separate we are broken.

When we got married, we were still Keith and Jen. But we weren't just Keith and Jen anymore. We were Foskys. We were united together. And I want to say something. And if this is offensive, write me a note.

Put it in your pocket and don't give it to me. Because what I'm going to say is true. The idea of remaining individuals once you are married and maintaining your individuality is secular nonsense. I'll say it again.

The idea of maintaining your individuality in a marriage is secular nonsense. Because when you get married, the two become one. You're a new unit. And this desperation that people have to remain independent is one of the things that is destroying the very foundation of marriage.

Because when you get married, it's not about independence. It's about coming together and depending on each other. And guess what? You're not your own anymore. You belong to that person. And that person belongs to you.

Oh, oh, I don't like that language. Well, let me read to you 1 Corinthians 7 .4. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

What does that passage tell us? When I got married, I was no longer an individual, independent man. I was her husband. And she was my wife. I belong to her, and she belongs to me. What has crept into the concept of marriage is that marriage is a potentially ending endeavor.

And therefore, we have to maintain our own individuality because one day I may have to get out of this contract. So we look at marriage as temporary. We think we should put expiration dates on the marriage certificate.

And what makes divorce so rough is when two become one, and then they break up again. You don't have two more. You have two halves. The two become one. Somebody objects. Does this mean you're telling me I have to give up my identity?

Yep. Because you used to be single, and you ain't no more. It used to be all about you, and it ain't no more. Your marriage creates a new family unit, and you are no longer an individual. You are part of that unit.

Marriage creates a family. But it also prefigures the gospel. The marriage ceremony is a picture of Christ and His bride. God gave Eve to Adam. God gives the church to Christ. God calls Adam the husband, and Eve the bride.

God calls Christ the husband, and the church His bride. We see this in Ephesians 5 .25 -27. We see it in 2 Corinthians 11 .2. We see this all throughout the New Testament. The concept of the bride of Christ.

In fact, in the Greek, there is a word. The word is telos. The word telos means goal, or end, or purpose. We talk about teleology. Teleology is the study of the purpose of something. The teleological argument is the argument that the world was created for a purpose.

So telos means goal or purpose. And we say, well, what is the ultimate purpose, the ultimate goal, the ultimate telos of marriage? I believe the pointing to the gospel is the ultimate telos of marriage.

God would take this relationship, and He would define this relationship as the relationship between Christ and His bride. Why did God make sheep? Somebody might say, well, God made sheep for wool. Or God made sheep for food.

Or somebody might say, well, I don't know why God made sheep any more than I know why God made zebras or giraffes. But can I propose to you the idea that the reason God made sheep was to show us how we act and that we need a shepherd?

Sheep are used throughout the Bible as an illustration of God's people. And that's no accident. God made sheep knowing they would be an illustration of believers. Likewise, He made marriage knowing it would be an illustration of the gospel.

Think about how marriage pictures the gospel. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother. What happens when the believer hears the gospel and the Lord opens his heart to believe and grants him the gift of regeneration?

What does he do? He leaves the world. And what does he do? He cleaves unto Christ. And he becomes a new creature. Therefore, all things have passed away and all things have become new. The picture of the change, the picture of the clinging and the cleaving together, the picture of the leaving, that's a picture of the gospel.

In fact, I would say this, if your salvation experience did not include leaving the world and cleaving to Christ, how in the world were you saved? And if you're not a new creature in Christ, if you don't have new affections and new desires, how do you know that you're in Christ?

I mean, it's like a man who says, I'm married, but I never see my wife and I don't have any affection for her. Yeah, we might want to talk about that. Somebody says, I'm in Christ and I don't have any affection for him.

You might want to talk about that. This is a picture of the gospel. It's a picture of the change. It's a picture of what happens. Marriage is a wonderful analogy. But now let's finalize by looking at the priority of marriage.

The very first thing God does when He creates a woman is He gives her to the man. That's the reason she was created. It was not good that man should be alone. So God made a complementary counterpart. And together they formed a union, a unique union, one they should never have with anyone else as long as they both shall live.

And marriage is supposed to be the most powerful and serious commitment that any person ever enters into. I say this when I do weddings. I say this commitment should rise above every social obligation.

It is more precious than any other interpersonal association. And there is no contract or no promise more binding or more secure. Because marriage is a covenant relationship. And this again points to how God works with us.

God works with us through the relationship of covenant. According to Hosea 6 -7, Adam was in covenant with God. We know that Noah was in covenant with God. Abraham and the patriarchs were in covenant with God.