Check Out The Love In Your Marriage
Check Out The Love In Your Marriage
1. Companionship
2. Belonging
3. Delight
4. Sexual
5. Spiritual
Text: Genesis 2:18-24
18 Then the Lord God said, “The man’s being alone is not good. I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed from the ground every wild animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man gave names to all the domestic animals and to the birds of the sky and to every wild animal of the field. But for man he did not find a helper corresponding to him.
21 Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at the place.
22 And the Lord God built a woman with the rib that he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said, “This one this time is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This one will be named woman, because from man this one was taken.”
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will cleave to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Sermon:
A marriage counselor once wrote of a wife who complained, “My husband does not love me.” When asked about this, the husband said, “Of course I love her. She ought to know that. I told her that twenty-five years ago.”
May none of you married couples let a day go by without saying to your mate “I love you.” Those three little words are all important. Husbands, perhaps, have more difficulty saying those three little words than do their wives. But husbands, what your wives crave more than anything else from you is affection, which you express when you tell them, “I love you.”
But when you say “I love you,” what do you mean and what does your mate understand? How do you define love? Defining it is not easy. Try to define it now. Have your spose write out his/her definition too. Later, after you finish reading this sermon, the two of you compare your definitions. You are likely to find that when you say “I love you” you do not both mean the same thing.
From asking couples to define love I learned they have different definitions for it. This led to the poem that introduces the eighth chapter of my book on marriage, Deepening Love – For Marital Happiness:
“Known to all, but ill defined,
Is this thing named ‘Love’
That lovers call divine.
By what name do you know it?
‘Sharing?’
‘Caring?’
‘Fondness?’
‘Sex?’
‘Romance?’
‘Friendship?’
‘Endearment?’
Is any one of these its rightful name?
Or may it be: ‘All!’?
Love is difficult to define because our English language has but one word to convey its numerous concepts. The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures have a variety of terms for love. This sermon text of Genesis 2:18-14 reveals those concepts of love within marriage. And now, I invite you married couples to: “Check Out The Love In Your Marriage.”
Marriage is a most blessed gift of God. It is such a blessed, loving relationship that God has used it to depict the loving relationship we believers have with Jesus. As blessed as it is, none of us has a perfect marriage however. We all fall short of the perfect love God requires of us in our marriage. This is so because we have a sinful nature that is selfish and inclined only to evil all the time. Thus we do not always love our spouse as we should but at times act from selfish motives and inflict hurt on our mate. Simply stated, we husbands and wives sin against one another and against God at the same time.
Sin in our marriage is a serious offense. The penalty for our sins against our spouse and against God is hell. But let us thank God for the greatness of his love for us by which he saved us from the eternal punishment we deserve through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross. “In this is this love, not that we on our part have loved God, but that he himself loved us and sent his Son as the appeasing sacrifice for our sins.”
God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, which has blessed us with eternal salvation and life in heaven, will move us to love him by living according to his commandments in our marriages. This means to honor our Lord we will love our spouse as he wants us to, which will enrich our marriages at the same time.
But this raises the question: What kind of love do we need to have and to hold toward our spouse to serve God and to honor Christ who redeemed us? Let’s find out by analyzing the first perfect marriage and what the Bible tells us about love in marriage.
On the sixth day of creation after the Lord had created Adam, he said, “The man’s being alone is not good. I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.” Adam was alone. To end his loneliness the Lord said he would create a woman and bring her to him to be his wife. A purpose and blessing of marriage, then, is companionship and friendship.
Being close companions and friends is the first type of love needed in every marriage. Friendship and companionship are the foundation on which the marital relationship is built. A man’s and a woman’s relationship begins as friends, builds from there, and leads to marriage. Without friendship a husband and wife have nothing between them except a great emptiness. In checking out the love in your marriage, are you and your spouse the best of friends and companions?
This love as friends and companions is observed in other parts of the Bible as well. In the Song of Songs the wife says of her husband: “This is my beloved and this is my friend.” At the same time the husband calls his wife “my darling,” which in the Hebrew means a female friend, or a beloved female.
You wives will be interested in knowing more about Titus 2:4, which urges you to love your husbands. The single Greek word for “love your husbands” can be rendered as “love your husband as a friend”. You are to be your husband’s friend and companion who holds a natural, warm affection for him.
This love as friends and companions will enable you to communicate and to share the intimate things in your lives with one another. It will also lead you to spend enjoyable and meaningful time together. It will make your marriage both a sharing and sociable relationship, the very things you desire.
Returning to Adam, while he was alone the Lord had him name the other creatures. While naming them Adam observed that unlike the other creatures he did not have a companion who belonged to him. But when he saw the woman the Lord had created for him, he said, “This one this time is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This one will be named woman, because from man this one was taken.” Immediately he realized she belonged to him. She was his helper who corresponded to him.
The Hebrew term for the English phrase “ccorresponded to him” is a word used to indicate things that correspond to each other and are alike and are set opposite of each other for comparison, like a salt and pepper shaker. Like a salt and pepper shaker belong together, out of all the creatures the Lord had made only the man and the woman belonged together. They corresponded to each other and were the counterpart for each other. They were a matched pair.
When the Lord had brought Eve to Adam, which was the first marriage, he stated an axiom for all future generations of men and women. He said, “For this reason (to be married as Adam and Eve were) a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.” The sense of belonging to one another is seen in the man’s leaving his parents to cleave to his wife. In the Hebrew the Englsih phrase “to cleave to” means to adhere to, to be glued together. In marriage the man and woman become bonded together like two boards that are glued together. This sense of belonging to one another is portrayed in the Song of Songs where the wife says of herself and her husband, “My beloved is mine and I am his. . . I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”
The above text and the Scriptures show us that in marriage a love as a sense of belonging together and to one another is needed between a husband and wife. Is this how you feel in your relationship? This love of belonging to one another will do several things for your marriage. It will keep you committed, loyal and faithful to one another, warding off temptations of adultery, which breaks this belonging together and to one another. This love of belonging together will make you feel comfortable in your relationship. It will also make you feel safe and secure in your marriage, for you know no matter how badly things may go for you in the world, and though everyone else may reject you, your mate will take you in and be a refuge and haven for you.
Love as a delight in one another is also needed in every marriage. Adam felt this delight when Eve was brought to him and they were married. He literally said, after seeing the other creatures had a companion and he did not, “This one, this time, is bone from my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Oh, was Adam elated with Eve! His words for his wife were filled with excitement, rapture, joy, and delight.
This same delight in one’s spouse is evident throughout the Song of Songs, in which husband and wife delight in each other. Proverbs 5 upholds this delight also, where it says to us husbands, “rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely hind and a beautiful doe – Let her breasts satiate you at all times. Be intoxicated with her love continually.” Husbands, note the word “intoxicated”. Does your wife and her love for you so delight you that you reel and feel intoxicated by her?
This love of delight in one’s spouse has been labeled as “romance” over the ages. I personally do not like the term romance for marriage. First of all, the Lord’s Word describes this love as a delight in one’s mate. Secondly, delight in one’s mate maintains the proper emphasis of what this love is like, not confusing it with an emotional situation or atmosphere. Thirdly, romance is the equivalent of the Greek word eros, from which our English word erotic is derived, as well as the pornographic erotica. Eros denoted lust. It was used for lovers caught up in fornication and adultery. The Greek eros was so steeped in lustful, sinful passions and illicit sexual behavior that God’s inspired Greek New Testament never used the term. Fourthly, the English word romance primarily means an adventurous, fictitious, fanciful tale of the knights of old and of love. For these reasons the term romance is certainly not a fitting term to describe the love of delight in one’s mate which God designed for marriage.
When the Lord had married Adam and Eve, he said husbands and wives “will become one flesh.” “One flesh” denotes the sexual love and desire within marriage. The Lord designed and planned sexual love for married men and women. His command to be fruitful and multiply encouraged the sexual love of husband and wife, which is pure in his eyes. Through such sexual love the couple express their deepest feelings of love for one another.
All of the loves we have identified to this point are emotional loves. There is a spiritual love, however, which is most important. When Adam and Eve were created and then married, they were in the image of God. Like God, they were holy. They loved with a perfect love of the spirit which was unselfish, concerned and committed to giving and doing what was best for each other. The Lord planned this love for every marriage. God himself is this love and he awakens it within his Christian people. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the love the law demands for God and one’s neighbor. This love loves by obeying the commandments and doing what is right and good, not only for the person next door but for one’s spouse, who is one’s closest neighbor.
This spiritual love is the bedrock of your marriage. It is mate oriented, not selfish. It is a love of concern and caring. It desires to do what is right and best for your mate. It does not fluctuate, fade, or die. It cannot be quenched. It carries you and your mate through thick and thin, through the hard times of life as well as the good times. Does this describe the love in your marriage?
You have now observed the types of love within marriage. How did your check list check out? Did you find some were strong but others could be enriched? Did you learn that to honor Christ in your marriage you can foster these loves for one another? And the next time you tell one another “I love you,” do you know what you mean and what your spouse understands? Do you mean an affectionate friendship, a sense of belonging, a delight, a sexual desire, or a spiritual love? Or do you mean “All!”?
Amen.
1. Companionship
2. Belonging
3. Delight
4. Sexual
5. Spiritual
Text: Genesis 2:18-24
18 Then the Lord God said, “The man’s being alone is not good. I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed from the ground every wild animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man gave names to all the domestic animals and to the birds of the sky and to every wild animal of the field. But for man he did not find a helper corresponding to him.
21 Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at the place.
22 And the Lord God built a woman with the rib that he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said, “This one this time is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This one will be named woman, because from man this one was taken.”
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will cleave to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Sermon:
A marriage counselor once wrote of a wife who complained, “My husband does not love me.” When asked about this, the husband said, “Of course I love her. She ought to know that. I told her that twenty-five years ago.”
May none of you married couples let a day go by without saying to your mate “I love you.” Those three little words are all important. Husbands, perhaps, have more difficulty saying those three little words than do their wives. But husbands, what your wives crave more than anything else from you is affection, which you express when you tell them, “I love you.”
But when you say “I love you,” what do you mean and what does your mate understand? How do you define love? Defining it is not easy. Try to define it now. Have your spose write out his/her definition too. Later, after you finish reading this sermon, the two of you compare your definitions. You are likely to find that when you say “I love you” you do not both mean the same thing.
From asking couples to define love I learned they have different definitions for it. This led to the poem that introduces the eighth chapter of my book on marriage, Deepening Love – For Marital Happiness:
“Known to all, but ill defined,
Is this thing named ‘Love’
That lovers call divine.
By what name do you know it?
‘Sharing?’
‘Caring?’
‘Fondness?’
‘Sex?’
‘Romance?’
‘Friendship?’
‘Endearment?’
Is any one of these its rightful name?
Or may it be: ‘All!’?
Love is difficult to define because our English language has but one word to convey its numerous concepts. The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures have a variety of terms for love. This sermon text of Genesis 2:18-14 reveals those concepts of love within marriage. And now, I invite you married couples to: “Check Out The Love In Your Marriage.”
Marriage is a most blessed gift of God. It is such a blessed, loving relationship that God has used it to depict the loving relationship we believers have with Jesus. As blessed as it is, none of us has a perfect marriage however. We all fall short of the perfect love God requires of us in our marriage. This is so because we have a sinful nature that is selfish and inclined only to evil all the time. Thus we do not always love our spouse as we should but at times act from selfish motives and inflict hurt on our mate. Simply stated, we husbands and wives sin against one another and against God at the same time.
Sin in our marriage is a serious offense. The penalty for our sins against our spouse and against God is hell. But let us thank God for the greatness of his love for us by which he saved us from the eternal punishment we deserve through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross. “In this is this love, not that we on our part have loved God, but that he himself loved us and sent his Son as the appeasing sacrifice for our sins.”
God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, which has blessed us with eternal salvation and life in heaven, will move us to love him by living according to his commandments in our marriages. This means to honor our Lord we will love our spouse as he wants us to, which will enrich our marriages at the same time.
But this raises the question: What kind of love do we need to have and to hold toward our spouse to serve God and to honor Christ who redeemed us? Let’s find out by analyzing the first perfect marriage and what the Bible tells us about love in marriage.
On the sixth day of creation after the Lord had created Adam, he said, “The man’s being alone is not good. I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.” Adam was alone. To end his loneliness the Lord said he would create a woman and bring her to him to be his wife. A purpose and blessing of marriage, then, is companionship and friendship.
Being close companions and friends is the first type of love needed in every marriage. Friendship and companionship are the foundation on which the marital relationship is built. A man’s and a woman’s relationship begins as friends, builds from there, and leads to marriage. Without friendship a husband and wife have nothing between them except a great emptiness. In checking out the love in your marriage, are you and your spouse the best of friends and companions?
This love as friends and companions is observed in other parts of the Bible as well. In the Song of Songs the wife says of her husband: “This is my beloved and this is my friend.” At the same time the husband calls his wife “my darling,” which in the Hebrew means a female friend, or a beloved female.
You wives will be interested in knowing more about Titus 2:4, which urges you to love your husbands. The single Greek word for “love your husbands” can be rendered as “love your husband as a friend”. You are to be your husband’s friend and companion who holds a natural, warm affection for him.
This love as friends and companions will enable you to communicate and to share the intimate things in your lives with one another. It will also lead you to spend enjoyable and meaningful time together. It will make your marriage both a sharing and sociable relationship, the very things you desire.
Returning to Adam, while he was alone the Lord had him name the other creatures. While naming them Adam observed that unlike the other creatures he did not have a companion who belonged to him. But when he saw the woman the Lord had created for him, he said, “This one this time is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This one will be named woman, because from man this one was taken.” Immediately he realized she belonged to him. She was his helper who corresponded to him.
The Hebrew term for the English phrase “ccorresponded to him” is a word used to indicate things that correspond to each other and are alike and are set opposite of each other for comparison, like a salt and pepper shaker. Like a salt and pepper shaker belong together, out of all the creatures the Lord had made only the man and the woman belonged together. They corresponded to each other and were the counterpart for each other. They were a matched pair.
When the Lord had brought Eve to Adam, which was the first marriage, he stated an axiom for all future generations of men and women. He said, “For this reason (to be married as Adam and Eve were) a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.” The sense of belonging to one another is seen in the man’s leaving his parents to cleave to his wife. In the Hebrew the Englsih phrase “to cleave to” means to adhere to, to be glued together. In marriage the man and woman become bonded together like two boards that are glued together. This sense of belonging to one another is portrayed in the Song of Songs where the wife says of herself and her husband, “My beloved is mine and I am his. . . I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”
The above text and the Scriptures show us that in marriage a love as a sense of belonging together and to one another is needed between a husband and wife. Is this how you feel in your relationship? This love of belonging to one another will do several things for your marriage. It will keep you committed, loyal and faithful to one another, warding off temptations of adultery, which breaks this belonging together and to one another. This love of belonging together will make you feel comfortable in your relationship. It will also make you feel safe and secure in your marriage, for you know no matter how badly things may go for you in the world, and though everyone else may reject you, your mate will take you in and be a refuge and haven for you.
Love as a delight in one another is also needed in every marriage. Adam felt this delight when Eve was brought to him and they were married. He literally said, after seeing the other creatures had a companion and he did not, “This one, this time, is bone from my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Oh, was Adam elated with Eve! His words for his wife were filled with excitement, rapture, joy, and delight.
This same delight in one’s spouse is evident throughout the Song of Songs, in which husband and wife delight in each other. Proverbs 5 upholds this delight also, where it says to us husbands, “rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely hind and a beautiful doe – Let her breasts satiate you at all times. Be intoxicated with her love continually.” Husbands, note the word “intoxicated”. Does your wife and her love for you so delight you that you reel and feel intoxicated by her?
This love of delight in one’s spouse has been labeled as “romance” over the ages. I personally do not like the term romance for marriage. First of all, the Lord’s Word describes this love as a delight in one’s mate. Secondly, delight in one’s mate maintains the proper emphasis of what this love is like, not confusing it with an emotional situation or atmosphere. Thirdly, romance is the equivalent of the Greek word eros, from which our English word erotic is derived, as well as the pornographic erotica. Eros denoted lust. It was used for lovers caught up in fornication and adultery. The Greek eros was so steeped in lustful, sinful passions and illicit sexual behavior that God’s inspired Greek New Testament never used the term. Fourthly, the English word romance primarily means an adventurous, fictitious, fanciful tale of the knights of old and of love. For these reasons the term romance is certainly not a fitting term to describe the love of delight in one’s mate which God designed for marriage.
When the Lord had married Adam and Eve, he said husbands and wives “will become one flesh.” “One flesh” denotes the sexual love and desire within marriage. The Lord designed and planned sexual love for married men and women. His command to be fruitful and multiply encouraged the sexual love of husband and wife, which is pure in his eyes. Through such sexual love the couple express their deepest feelings of love for one another.
All of the loves we have identified to this point are emotional loves. There is a spiritual love, however, which is most important. When Adam and Eve were created and then married, they were in the image of God. Like God, they were holy. They loved with a perfect love of the spirit which was unselfish, concerned and committed to giving and doing what was best for each other. The Lord planned this love for every marriage. God himself is this love and he awakens it within his Christian people. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the love the law demands for God and one’s neighbor. This love loves by obeying the commandments and doing what is right and good, not only for the person next door but for one’s spouse, who is one’s closest neighbor.
This spiritual love is the bedrock of your marriage. It is mate oriented, not selfish. It is a love of concern and caring. It desires to do what is right and best for your mate. It does not fluctuate, fade, or die. It cannot be quenched. It carries you and your mate through thick and thin, through the hard times of life as well as the good times. Does this describe the love in your marriage?
You have now observed the types of love within marriage. How did your check list check out? Did you find some were strong but others could be enriched? Did you learn that to honor Christ in your marriage you can foster these loves for one another? And the next time you tell one another “I love you,” do you know what you mean and what your spouse understands? Do you mean an affectionate friendship, a sense of belonging, a delight, a sexual desire, or a spiritual love? Or do you mean “All!”?
Amen.