As we look at today's text, if
you turn to Proverbs chapter 18, I'll be speaking mainly from
the premise of verse 22, which says, He that finds a wife finds
a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. He that finds
a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
And I believe God is going to end our Proverbs adventure on
Sunday mornings for a season after Easter, where we'll be
looking at some New Testament letters. And so I pray that the Proverbs
has been something for you to consider deeply. How often we
overlook them, I've said this every week during this series,
and I think we overlook Proverbs As in this way, we read them
and we just dismiss them. Oh, that's neat. Yes, I've got
it. Like this morning when we were in chapter three in Bible
study, seeing where the inheritance of the righteous is glory. The
inheritance of the wise is glory. We often think that that's OK.
I've got that. It's good. I'll move on. I have
glory as a as a person who is who belongs to God. But what
is the consequence of such statements? The consequence of that statement
is that really, In a small way, the gospel has been displayed.
How are we even wise? We're wise and through the grace
of God. How do we have an inheritance at all that is not perishable
because of the grace of God? Who is the grace of God? That
is the person of Jesus Christ and God gives and has given. We see this and we should contemplate
the depth and the riches of his grace. We should understand that
the salvation that we've obtained is not because we have had great
mind. It's not because we have come
to some incredible epiphany and a great decision, but it is because
God has given us the grace to open our eyes, to see the truth
and to receive it. And so as we look at a text like
this in chapter 18, verse 22, he who finds a wife finds a good
thing and obtains favor from the Lord, it's real easy for
us to just go, OK, how are we going to spend an hour talking
about that? How about we spend a week A year,
a lifetime. But there's so much there. Unfortunately,
the text in itself doesn't leave much to pull apart from. So we
must understand the foundations of what is being said and we
must pull from the rest of Scripture, from the whole of the narrative.
And then understand how it applies to our lives in certain ways.
Some of you may be sitting here this morning, you're like, I
have no wife. But I'm looking for one. So maybe this is good
for me to hear. I'm looking for a wife or I'm
looking for a husband. Even though Solomon writes his
things to his son, of course, he wouldn't say a man who finds
a good husband would be contradictory to the gospel. It would be a
wrong display of the gospel of Jesus Christ to have a husband
and a husband. How can Jesus save himself? That's what marriage
is, as you'll see in a moment. And so he's speaking to his son.
Had he been speaking to his daughter, he probably could say, and that's
just an assumption, he could easily say, that she who finds
a husband finds a good thing and finds favor from the Lord.
I think it's safe to suppose that. So maybe you're here this
morning, you're not yet a spouse, you're not yet in a married relationship. And so you might say, OK, I can
use what is about to be taught to me as a future thing, something
that I can look forward to and apply to my life in the near
future. But some of you are here today and you've never been married. You don't intend to be married.
Or maybe some of you are not married, either through divorce
or death. And you are not in a position to understand how
this might apply to your life. Well, friends, I'll tell you,
we don't teach pragmatism because the Word of God, even though
it has a lot of practical things, it is not a book of pragmatism.
It is not a book that allows you to walk through in your own
power and in your abilities and rightly set forth a path for
your life. For that is not wise, but is foolish when we set forth
our own path. For the paths of the righteous
are marked by God. There's this way that seems right
to man, but this way leads in death. And so you might say that
each of us have a desire. I hope each of us have a desire
to build our lives in a successful way. I won't define that because
you know what I mean. I'm not talking about in the
way of the world's success. but in a way that we endeavor
to accomplish certain things for the glory of God as His children,
and we want to see those things come to fruition. At every turn,
we consider how our lives are going, how they look, what they
should be, or at least what we think they should be, or at least
what we think we would want them to be. We look at our lives and
we say, I don't like the way my life is. I mean, how many
of you just would be honest and say that you've had that conversation
with yourself in the last week in one area of your life? Man,
I wish I could change this about my life. I wish this was a little
different. I wish I could get rid of this
issue, get rid of this problem, get rid of this person. Well. But unfortunately, that's not
the way it works. It's not about us endeavoring
to get through or away from our problems. It's about us understanding
our strength within our problem. And so not all of us are married
here today. And some of us who are not married or we don't think
this might apply to us will have a tendency to ignore, to turn
our brains and our ears off. We have a tendency to think that
this or feel that this message is not applicable to us. However,
whether you are married or whether you are in or tend to be married
or whether you're single by divorce or by death. Or by choice. Learning about the wisdom of
God in marriage is an opportunity for something. Learning about
God's establishment of marriage and the family is an opportunity,
and it is an opportunity for many things. Yesterday morning,
as some of our men meet every week, we talked about proper
hermeneutics. We did an introduction to the
idea that as we go down in application and the scale of application,
the authority of the Word also goes down. So there's an imperative
authority, an absolute authority that the text itself holds. And
so if we look to try to interpret it, we must interpret it with
the text. We must allow the scripture to interpret itself or we lose
the authority of the scripture. And thus we are actually doing
something that is improper in biblical interpretation, which
is putting our own relative ideas and philosophies behind that.
And we say, well, this is what it means to me. Friends, it can't
mean something more to you than what it meant for the person
who wrote it. The Scripture can never mean something differently
to anyone else than what the original author intended it for
it to mean. The Bible has one meaning. Every word has one meaning,
and it has an intended meaning, and the author set that meaning
divinely through the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And then
we move beyond that interpretation of what does this mean to me,
to what am I going to do with it? How does this apply to my
life? And if we aren't careful, we'll apply something to our
life in a way that it does have no meaning or bearings around
the Gospel. And it actually loses all power
and has no grounds for even being taught, much less lived by. And
I'll be honest with you, that is the foundation of most apostasy
and most heresy in the world today. Yes, we use those terms. They are real things. Go look
at the New York Times. Go look at some of the articles
that were written about Rob Bell this weekend. From secular newspapers. The man is apostate. Do not read
his material, church. I don't normally do that, but
I have to do that today. Our convention actually is going
to have to make a statement on this man. Because he does not
believe that God is a God of justice and a God of righteousness,
but that God will save every human being eventually. In a
nutshell, it's horrible. We don't teach sin. We don't
teach. We do teach sin because sin is the crux of the reason
the gospel is available. That's the reason the Gospel
is available, because God wanted to show Himself merciful by forgiving
sinners because He crushed His Son because of sin. That lie? He hated it, so He crushed His
Son. Hatred, murder, thievery. So when you see the Word of God,
be careful that you don't think, well, this is no use to me, for
it is of use. And I came up with nine ways
that the Scripture is always useful to anyone, even a child
who has no children, when they read, Do not exasperate your
children. They can see and apply that to
their lives right now. A five-year-old. And I put them
in your bulletin this morning. Dave is not in, so I put that
bulletin together right before Sunday school. So forgive the
blankness. Fill it up. Didn't have the information.
But an opportunity for some amazing things to happen in your life.
Number one, these nine things in introduction, then we'll move
on. Reading the Word of God and today, this sermon today is an
opportunity for God to be glorified. For God to be made much of. For
God's glory to be seen. For Christ to be seen. God's
glory is revealed to the person of Christ who is the living Word.
Who has been established in the pages of this document. Of this
writing. And Christ is seen. So God is
glorified in the hearing and the reading of His Word. Why?
We could go there forever. We could preach two or three
months on that issue itself. God is glorified because God
is the author of the Word. He is the author of the Word.
He is also the power behind the Word. And He says that it is
through His Word that people come to faith. It is not through
our apologetics. It is not through our testimony.
It is not through the things that we've experienced in life.
It is not through the things that you will experience or feel
as believers. It is through the power of God
in the Gospel. It is the hearing of the Word
that opens the ears of those who cannot hear. and allows them
to see for the first time, and then forever, the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. Where God takes what is dead
and blind and deaf, and He brings it to life, and gives it sight,
and helps it hear, and then it becomes a child. And He adopts
that child, and that is how God is glorified through the teaching
of His Word. So, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and
obtains favor from the Lord, hallelujah! Because God is glorified
in the hearing of that Word this morning. For it teaches us about
who He is. And when God is glorified, it's
an opportunity for God to be worshiped. You worship God because
of His glory. That's why we worship Him. The
holiness of God displays His intrinsic worthiness. And so
God's glory is best wrapped up in the fact that He is holy and
righteous, and that He is the God of grace. And so as you learn
that, if you learn that there is even one thing that God says
will find favor, In him. We need to understand what that
thing is. So are we saying, oh, if you find a wife, then God
is pleased with you. Yes. So we must define because
we know the gospel does not say if you get married, then you
are saved. We know the gospel teaches something totally different.
For by grace, you are saved. Through faith, not of words that
no one can boast. So what does it really mean?
Well, that's what we're going to look at this. It's an opportunity for God to
be worshiped. And it's also an opportunity for you. It's opportunity
for you and I to receive something. And here's what we receive when
the word of God is preached. Even if we don't think it's applicable
to us today, we receive joy. The fullness of joy comes from
knowing God more intimately. The fullness of joy comes when
we are reminded about His graciousness and His mercy. The fullness of
joy comes when God establishes in the heart of His children
the absolute presence of His Holy Spirit and we are able to
look and so throw away the problems of this world and to walk in
joy, bow before His throne and say, Oh Lord, I worship you and
I am pleased with all that you are. That is joy. Isn't that
really what the whole world wants? To be happy? Happiness wanes. Joy is eternal in His name is
Jesus. It's also an opportunity for grace. The grace of God is
given through His Word. Paul, he opens his letters. Grace
to you. He closes his letters. Grace
be with you. He tells Timothy in second letter
to Timothy, he says, Timothy, be strengthened by the grace
that is in Christ Jesus. That grace is given through the
words of the apostles, through the words of the prophets, through
the words of the saints who have written them down by the Holy
Spirit. And now it is the power of God that moves in us. So God's
grace. What does that mean? I've already
got God's grace. I'm saved. So what? Are you walking
on what you got yesterday? Or are you living for the now
in the glory of God? Is God's grace sufficient for
you now? Or are you having to remember
a testimony of ten years ago? Friends, grace is forever, never
ending, always new. His mercies are new every day.
Here's a newsflash for you. When we get to heaven, there
will be more learning and more grace and more mercy and more
worship every single day. Every single second, we will
grow more and more intimate into an eternal God that has no end. So just keep getting bigger and
bigger. And the grace of God is the power
of God to be able to give you the ability to stand under failure,
to be able to stand under pain, to be able to stand in the midst
of fear and persecution and death and look in the mirror of suffering,
walk in the valley of death and say, Oh God, I can't take it,
but you are enough. And therefore I'll walk and I
continue to walk. And when I can't walk, your grace
will pick me up. And when I don't think you're
there, you are. That's grace. And so the word
of God always gives an opportunity for grace. It also is an opportunity
for faith to be strengthened. How can you get stronger in something
if it's not challenged? How can you become stronger if
you don't grow in a little bit deeper way every moment of your
life? You don't. We develop entropy. We develop
the inability to move, the inability to believe, the inability to
praise, the inability to study, the inability to do anything
worthwhile because our faith isn't strengthened. When God's
Word is taught, whether you seem to think it's applicable or not,
it is applicable to you, for you can have your faith strengthened. It also is an opportunity to
understand, to understand new things about God. which builds
an opportunity for intimacy, because the more you know about
God, what does Jesus, the living God, say in John? This is eternal
life, that they know you, God, the Father and the Son whom you
have sent. Eternal life is knowing God intimately
through Christ. So that understanding brings
that opportunity for intimacy. You learn something new or you're
reminded of something fresh that you needed a reminder of when
the Word of God is preached. Do you know what it means to
have favor from the Lord? Do you know what it means to
obtain favor from God? Well, that text tells us in chapter
18, verse 22 of Proverbs. And it moves right back around
in opportunity for knowledge and opportunity for glory. God
gets the glory and then we get glory. We get glory because we
are the children of God. And through suffering, we've
obtained a glory, which is an inheritance of eternal life that
is eternal. Eternal life, we sort of you
know what that means. It's the opposite of eternal
death. Forever and ever. We have Christ. Forever and ever,
we have grace. Forever and ever, we have mercy.
Friends, that's glory. We receive the glory of God as
our own. So listen. Here, church, trust in Christ
and worship through the hearing of His Word. Don't ever dismiss
even the most boring of oratories as something you could have done
without, if it is God's Word that's being preached. Be discerning. Everything I say, you ought to
be discerning. You ought to test it. You ought to be thinking
right now, how does he know what he's saying? Where did that come
from? You ought to study it and you ought to write about it and
throw away the junk and confront me with it. With humility. We must not always concern ourselves
with how Scripture will endeavor to be used for our own issues. That's the problem right now
inside our churches, is that we use God for our own benefits. He's just a genie in a bottle
to us. Paul teaches that Christ alone
stays with us in our issues and that they are most of the time
never going to cease, but that His grace is sufficient. So learn
to listen and learn to grow in areas other than how to use God
for your own purpose. That being said, I want to tell you that it would
be very easy for me to preach to the women of the world today.
In the context of Proverbs, as we see a father writing to his
son divinely inspired through the power of God's Spirit, we
see many ways where he's shown his son how certain types of
attributes in wives are not pleasant. And it's funny, as I went through
and I put every verse that I could find and I just read through
the whole of Proverbs, And I put every verse that I thought was
relative to the marriage relationship. And I found so many that was
negative toward a nagging wife and a bad wife. And then I got
to Proverbs 31 and it just sort of built all that back up. So
it would be real easy for me, just because of the statistics
of the issue, to preach bad toward women today. Women, don't do
this and don't do that. You see, that's not what God's calling
me to do. And I don't think that's what God intended through the
Proverbs either. It's a warning. To his son. And it would be easy for me to
preach to women so that they might agonize over their role in the
commands of God to be a certain way. It would be very easy. Maybe I'll save that for Mother's
Day. Today, I want you to hear me.
I want you to hear me well, and I will speak as a husband to
my brothers. I will speak as a husband. If we are, as men, to lead our
homes in a Spirit-filled way, our brides, if we were to live,
as men, in a Spirit-filled way, as Christ has called us to do,
our brides would live the way the Scripture tells them to.
I really believe that. I really believe that. And it's
not our fault if they don't. However, it would make it much
easier. Most wives have to endure the demonic attitudes of their
husbands rather than actually live underneath their grace. He who finds a wife finds a good
thing and obtains favor from the Lord. What is this telling
us? It's telling us a lot of stuff, and I've done my best,
and my head is not together the last few weeks, but by God's
grace, I will help you see what I think I see here. First of all, if wife is a good
thing, Then marriage must be a good thing. Marriage must be
a good thing. Proverbs 31, great text. Maybe that's what I'll preach
on Mother's Day. Make all the mothers feel good. An excellent wife, who can find,
the question says. She is far more precious than
jewels. Listen to this, husbands. The
heart of her husband trusts in her. And he will have no lack
of gain. She does good to him and not
harm all the days of her life. That's why life is a good thing,
for it was intended for a good purpose. Marriage was intended
for a purpose, that it is a good thing from God. You know how
marriage is looked upon today in society? As a problem. As an unnecessary commitment.
Not a display of the gospel. Not a display of the glory of
God. Not a display of grace. and redemption,
but it's a problem. More people choose to not get
married and have families than to get married. And what's really sad about the
church is that most Christians in most Christian marriages end
in divorce. I heard a friend of mine say from
the pulpit last Sunday that Fifty percent, I think he said, fifty
to fifty-five percent of the marriages he's done personally
as a pastor in the last ten years have ended in divorce. Statistics show seven out of
ten marriages in the church end in divorce. Wow. Marriage is a good thing. Why
is it not a good thing in the hearts and the lives and the
eyes of men today? Hebrews says to hold marriage
with high honor. Because marriage is wise. That's
the whole issue of Proverbs, right? To obtain wisdom. The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is what it's all about.
Learning to use the knowledge that we have rightly. Learning
to apply it rightly. Learning to make much of God
rightly. Wisdom is knowing Christ. Christ
is the wisdom of God. And then when we know Christ,
we become the righteousness of God. Because Christ imputes that
righteousness to us. He gives that to us. His righteousness
becomes ours. It's credited to us. So marriage
is wise. It is wise because it is valuable.
An excellent wife who can find she is more precious than jewels.
And the heart of her husband trusts in her. We put our trust
in our wives, men. For they are from God. And it is a good thing. A wife, in other words, is favor
from the Lord. A wife is a blessing from the
Lord. A wife is a gift from the Lord. God gives good things to His
children. Romans 8, 28, even what one might
intend for evil, God uses for good. And God causes all things
to work together for those who love Him and are called according
to His purpose for good. He causes it. And so you may
be here this morning, husbands, wives, you may feel that in your
life, your spouse is just, just, man, if I could just cut this
string, my life would be better. It would not be better. And the
heartbreak and the pain and the things that you are experiencing
now, God can and will cause it to work for your good. Here's
the problem. Here's the difference. We don't
think that. We don't believe that because we think our good
is making ourselves happy. Our good is not necessarily giving
us what we want. Our good is for the glory of
God. And that we rightly worship Him and love Him and adore Him
and live for Him and lay ourselves down for Him. For when we love
each other, we are loving Him. And when we hate each other,
we are hating Him. 1 John. We went through that for
a long time. So marriage is a good thing.
Marriage is a wise thing. A wife is a favor from the Lord.
God gives good things in Genesis 2. And then the Lord God said,
it is not good that the man should be alone. So that means that
it is good to have a wife. Why is that? Friends, don't take
this so Practically in its context, don't say, oh, well, then it's
bad that I don't have a wife or a husband. That's not what
the Scripture is saying. The Scripture is saying that
there is a good reason God ordained marriage and that you and your
heart of hearts, whether you're married or will ever be married,
you ought to understand the importance of marriage because it is a picture
and a symbol of God's redemption. House and wealth are inherited
from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. I guess the question is, do you
see your spouse as a good thing? Do you see your spouse as a good
thing? Do you hold to God's establishment of your marriage and treat each
other as a good thing from the Lord? I mean, do we treat each
other in our homes as good things from the Lord? Do we treat each
other in the church as good things from the Lord? Or do we just
treat each other as though it's just some junk we need to put
in a yard sale and get rid of? The sooner that old sofa's out
of here, the better my living room will look. Men, is God honored and worshipped
in the way you treat your wives? The way you love your wives? If she's a believer and you're
a believer, guess what? You're treating your sister like
that. Are you treating your sister
the way that Christ commands you to treat your sister? What if the brothers of this
church, some of us have had this conversation, what if the brothers
of this church began to hold each other to the standard of
Scripture of how we treat our wives because they're offended
that we treat their sisters wrongly? How long would you stick around
here? So men do it. Because real men
do that. Wimps don't. Name calling. I didn't call anybody
a name. I just made a generalization.
If you attached it to your chest, that's your problem. Maybe the Lord did that. So, a wife is favor from the
Lord. Wisdom finds favor from the Lord. Look at, well, you don't have
to look, but listen to Proverbs 8. For whoever finds me, wisdom
speaking, whoever finds wisdom finds life and obtains favor
from the Lord. But he who fails to find wisdom
injures himself. All who hate wisdom love death,
love death. What's the connection here? between
he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from
the Lord, and whoever finds wisdom finds life and obtains favor
from the Lord. It's almost the same language. Why? What's the
connection? The connection is this. Favor comes from wisdom, which
is understanding and intimacy, knowledge of God and intimacy
with God. Favor from God comes from wisdom. And a good wife
is like wisdom from God. Favor from the Lord is life. Don't you love that word? I haven't
defined it yet on purpose. Favor. Because I want you to
sit in all your presuppositional ideas about what it means. And
then I'm going to share with you what it really means. Favor
from the Lord is acceptance. It's another way of looking at
it. Life and acceptance that God is pleased with you. God is pleased with you. Wisdom
is Christ. And he who finds Christ receives
favor. So therefore, favor is better
known as grace. Grace. You see what I'm saying? Grace
is not just this past thing that gave you the opportunity for
salvation. Grace is the power that saves
you and that sustains you. And the gift of marriage and
the gift of your spouse is a gift of God's grace. It's part of
God's grace to you. I used to say that all the time
and I didn't know why and I didn't know how to explain it. I think
this text proves it to us. So a wife or husband in marriage
is God's grace displayed in shadows, displayed in shadows. And so
in the reality, how we relate to each other in our homes will
be the best example of how we truly understand the gospel.
Listen to that again, how we relate to each other in our homes
will be the best example of how we truly understand the gospel.
It will reflect how we really understand the gospel. It will
reflect the comprehension and the depth of our knowledge of
God's grace. We will understand more of God's grace when we are
in marriage. So is the wisdom of God displayed
in the marriages today, especially in the church, the people of
God, the professors, those who profess to have Christ as their
Lord and Savior? Turn with me, because I have
to, to the book of Ephesians. Chapter 3. I'm going to deal
with a few verses there and then I'm going to deal with a few
verses in chapter 5. The Proverbs begs us to understand
wisdom. Wisdom. He who finds wisdom finds favor.
He who finds wisdom has found grace. The grace of God. You
know, the opposite of that is that he who does not find the
grace of God is a fool. I don't want to go back to week
one of this, but turn over to Ephesians chapter 3. Look at
verse 8. To me, though I am the very least
of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ. An excellent life is far more
precious than jewels. The grace of God is for me to
preach the gospel to the Gentiles, which is the unsearchable riches
of Christ. And to bring to life, verse 9,
for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages
in God who created all things, so that through the church The
manifold wisdom of God might now be made known. The wisdom of God might be made
known to the rules and authorities in the heavenly places. Verse
11, this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized
in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And whom we have boldness. And
access with confidence through our faith in him. The grace of
God establishes a relationship with His people through the person
of Jesus Christ that would be impossible otherwise. And it
is that grace that empowers us to see that and to see ourselves
in light of God's holiness. It is that grace that is displayed
in the marriage covenant that you'll see in just a moment in
chapter 5 of Ephesians. He who finds a wife finds grace, which is a good thing. And I
guess the overarching question for today is, do the marriages
of the body of Christ display the wisdom of God and the gospel? Do the marriages of the body
of Christ display the wisdom of God and the gospel? So that's
the purpose of the church, to display the wisdom of God that
is in Christ, and He alone makes it possible to save such wretches
like us. So now let's look at marriage's
purpose in light of this understanding. Let's flip over to Ephesians
5. Marriage is a picture of Christ. So finding a wife displays the
essence, really, of Christ finding you. That's what it's teaching
us. It's the Gospel and Proverbs,
chapter 18, verse 22. Christ finds you and that's grace
from the Lord. And you find life and wisdom
in Christ. There we go. There's a synopsis of what I'm
trying to say today. And so in turn, the shadow of marriage
is an exact little commercial of that reality. And where are
we taking the truth of marriage in our own hearts and minds today?
And is that reality being played out in our homes? And thus is
the reality of our homes being played out in our church. Ephesians 5, Husbands, verse
25, Husbands, love your wives as a simile, as Christ, just
like Christ, or the way Christ loved. Husband, love your wives. as Christ loved the church. And
now Paul paints a picture of how Christ loved the church.
Listen to this picture of how Christ loved the church. As Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be
holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands, should
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. For no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it." Underline that in your Bible.
Just as Christ does the church because we are members of His
body. Therefore, quoting the creation,
In Genesis, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. If we stop there, we could speculate
a lot, but Paul makes it clear in verse 32. This mystery, see
the mystery in chapter three, the mystery of God is made known. It was hidden for the ages. Now
it's made known through the church. The wisdom of God is displayed.
Why God did all that he did, why he said, let there be light,
created all that there was. so that it could be displayed
to the church, and now the marriage is a little tiny picture of the
reality of the eternal church. Verse 32, this mystery is profound,
and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However,
let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the
wife see that she respects her husband. And you know what really makes
the point? For years, in my own marriage, and in counseling,
and from the pastoral perspective, How do I communicate this? How
do I get people? You tell them what to do. You tell them to
cherish their wives. You tell them to respect their husbands.
And they go, I really need to do that. And they go home and
they try it. And the very labor of trying to do that causes more
fights than there were before. Causes more discourse in the
home than there was before. Why? Because of Ephesians 6.
The schemes of the enemy. And so we stand firm in the protection
of God or we go in there trying to do it ourselves. Ephesians is full. I get Dr. Meyer to come and just do a whole
series on. First marriage, I want you to
see is temporal. It's temporal, that means it's
not eternal, it is a temporary thing. Why is it temporary? Because
it points to an eternal thing. It's like kids sometimes when
I was a kid, we used to get the Sears catalog. You remember that
thing? And in the Sears catalog, they
had one that came out in Christmas called The Wish Book. Yeah. And The Wish Book was usually,
they usually didn't send just one, they sent several every
week, starting around Easter up to Christmas. And The Wish
Book, you walked in there and oh this, and you'd circle it,
and you'd circle this, and you'd circle this, and you'd fold down
the pages. And it was easier to see the pages you hadn't folded
than it was to see the pages you had folded. As kids, this
is my Christmas list. And of course, my parents would
go, well, son, you better get a job. And then we got creative and
we began to cut these things out. Cut them out, put them on
our mirrors and our dresser, our bathroom, cut it out, put
it wherever we could see it, that we could continually be
reminded of what we long for. Sort of like when you're engaged
or you're in a relationship with someone that you hope to marry
soon, and you have their picture. You're not together, you're living
apart, you have your own lives, but you're looking forward to
that day when you become one flesh and you get your lives
and you put all that life together in one little spot. And it's
called chaos. And you have each other's picture.
Remember when you were teenagers, maybe you had a picture of your
girlfriend or your boyfriend? sitting on the dash of your car
or the mirror in your bedroom, and you look at it. Or you had
a yearbook, or you had a ring, or you had a necklace, or you
had a jacket, or you had a sweater, or you had a football, or you
had a rose, or you had something. And you'd look at that and you'd
say, oh, I just can't wait to see them. Now, how absurd would it be when
the moment came for you to be united in marriage, and that
when the Father came down and said, who gives this bride to
be married? The pastor and the father says, I do. And the bride
comes up the steps and the guy says, wait a minute. And he takes
the picture out. He says, hey, best man, can you
hold this? You can sit down, woman. That's what I'm really in love
with, that picture. Hold the picture. I want to marry the
picture. That's ridiculous. But that's what marriage is.
Marriage is a picture. It's a substitute to the real,
which is Christ. So he who finds a wife finds
favor. It's another way of saying that marriage is a picture of
the gospel and that grace comes and is established, not foundationally
given, but it's established in its visibility. It's established
visibly through marriage. So we need to look at marriage
that way. We need to see that God has done these miraculous,
mysterious things with husbands and wives and put them together.
And then they have children. And then it's a whole new game.
It's a whole new sermon next week. They have children, but it's
temporary, even though it's highly important. Second, first, marriage
is temporal. Second, the body of Christ in
comparison is eternal. The body of Christ is eternal.
And the body of Christ in this life is built out of families
who shatter the gospel. Now, we aren't eternally in the
right state, we aren't eternally in the presence of God right
now as the church, but this is not going to end. Yes, the sermon
will. And I won't be sermonized in
an eternity, praise God. Because the true will be there.
We won't have to look at the picture. You won't be listening
to somebody like me talk because Christ will be there. It's the
truth. The same way in that our relationship here, we get up
and we go home back to our own families, which are temporal,
and we come here for a little taste of eternity in some way.
That's why I have no idea why so many people do not love the
body of Christ. It makes no sense at all. It's
not saying, I hate oxygen. I wish it would go away. It's
ridiculous. For it is the grace of God as
you get it and get it, and it soaks into your soul. The more
grace you get, the more you want to share. So the body of Christ is eternal
and the family builds the body as a shadow of the gospel. Therefore,
our relationships in and toward marriage are a perfect, supposedly
perfect display of God's grace toward us. They should be. And this grace that God has ordained
in marriage gives us opportunities. Just like the Word of God, I
started out with little nine, ten opportunities of what the
Word of God is, even in application, if you don't see an application.
There's opportunities in marriage. God's grace gives us an opportunity
to do several things. First, it gives us opportunities
to show forgiveness. Two people, two lives, two wills,
two passions. Coming together. Two sinners,
double trouble. Exponential sin. Got my sin,
my wife's sin, and then our sin together. Times two. That's to
the fourth power in my book. I'm not a mathematician. Friends,
sin by itself is enough. And then it compounds what an
opportunity to show the grace of God and the wisdom of God
and forgiveness. Wow, I forgive you for what you said. Because
it's not about me feeling good about me. It's about me showing
Christ. Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do. Opportunities to show forgiveness.
God's grace in marriage is an opportunity to repent when you
need to be forgiven, even if you're not forgiven. There is
no offense in this world like our offensiveness to God in sin. So what keeps us from running
to Christ when we know we are sinning? That's repentance. Why can't
we repent to each other? Why can't we repent to our spouses?
We've been given grace. That grace can be the power of
our marriage. We can talk to each other the
right way. We can speak and love and affectionately
give. And we treat them as though they've
never done a thing to us. That's forgiveness. They've never
done a thing to us when they do it over and over and over
again. And we go, I forgive you. What
are you doing? I've never seen this before.
I forgive you. What are you doing? I forgive you. And we repent
the same way. For we are an offense to God,
but God allows grace to rule. We are called to repent and believe
on the name of Jesus Christ for salvation, for saving faith,
or we will perish. And anyone who teaches another
gospel than this, according to the word of God, is a liar and
a thief and the truth is not in him. And honestly, he should be stopped
in his tracks. If you know of a brother or sister
who believes that way, please gently and humbly stop them.
Teach them the truth of God. So it's an opportunity to show
forgiveness. Marriage is an opportunity to show, to repent. for repentance
to be seen and for us to repent toward each other. And it's an
opportunity for grace to prevail through trial. For the power
of God to empower His people to actually be able to take what's
happening. Enduring the conflict in the
home is a mark of grace, friends. Listen to me. Enduring disobedient children
is a mark of grace. Enduring. I think Billy Graham's wife said
this, I'm not sure. But I think she said this, and
if she didn't, forgive me. But it's been said, if two people
agree on everything, one of them is not necessary. Really. To the grace of God. Marriage. It's an opportunity to show forgiveness,
repentance and opportunities for grace to prevail through
trial. It's also an opportunity for us to be instruments of life
with our words. Lastly, we spoke about words,
we talked about words, were either words of life or words of death.
We will be held accountable to every word. We can speak life
to each other and give grace with our words as they reflect
the heart that God has created in us or We can tear each other
down and destroy each other. The difference is how do we view
each other in light of God's grace toward us? Do we see our
spouse? Do we see marriage as an establishment
of God and where grace wins? We can offer truth and give healing
to the hurts and to the offenses instead of talking and blasting
away to appease our own desires and pride. Most importantly, marriage is
an opportunity to reflect Christ in our anger towards sin by not
being angry toward each other. Be angry and sin not. The only
anger that can come out of your heart that is not sin is to be
angry at sin. Any anger other than that is
unrighteous, wicked anger. Any anger! And boy, how many times a day
do we have to repent of that. Mad at the fool who pulls you
in front of you in the freeway. Mad at the guy behind him hawking.
Mad at the kids because they're talking too loud. Mad at the
kids because they don't speak up loud enough when they're trying
to tell you something. Just irritated all the time. Because it's all
about what I want, what I need, how I feel, and what's bothering
me. But it's not about that at all. Aren't you glad Christ didn't
do like we do on the cross? This nail hurts. These things
hurt. I'm bleeding. Take me down from here. I can't believe you
people do. You know, I'm trying to save you. Why are you calling
me names? Don't you know I'm the savior of the world? And
you're dividing my clothes? What's wrong with you? See, we
say that same stuff to each other, to our spouse. Humility is king in the heart
of the one who's in need of grace. Because they remember from the
heights from which they've fallen, as John says in Revelation. Or
Jesus, actually. We repent, and therefore we can
reflect Christ in our anger. We can be angry at sin, and we
should be angry at sin. We should never laugh at sin.
We should never make little to do with sin. Even a lie, well,
that's alright. It's not alright! God hates that lie so much, He
killed His Son! It's not alright. But we're no
longer bound to the consequences of that as His children. We are
free. So our anger is never poured out on the good thing that God
has given us. He who finds a wife finds a good thing. Why do we
pour our anger out toward them? Sometimes it's expressed. Sometimes
it's bottled. Either way, our anger is there
and it's pointed in that direction. It is not right. Oh, may we repent,
really, of such horror, of such ruin toward our wives. and toward
our husbands. A wife is a good thing. A wife
is a good thing from the Lord. Men, we are not the lords of
our wives. We are not the boss of our wives. We are not called to train them
like circus dogs. We are called and commanded to
love them as Christ loved us, to die in their stay. January 15th, I performed a wedding
right here on this platform, and I'm going to read to you
the charge I gave to the groom. I'm going to change it and we'll
put it into the plural. Men, you have an amazing calling
ahead of you to lay down your life for your bride. This means
that just like Christ, you must lay down your life, you must
cherish and suffer for her, and forsake all things, forsake all
plans, forsake all hopes, all dreams, and all people, so that
she is lifted up, built up, carried up, made much of, even when she
doesn't deserve it, even if she rejects the very life that you
try to give, even when she is unlovable toward you, you lay
down your life. This is what Christ did for His
bride, the church. He gave Himself up. He deserved
not to die, but we do. We stand against Him. He is sinless. He is God who became sin. So
we might be called the righteousness of God. Your provision for your
wife is not money. It's not houses. It's not security.
It's not fulfilled dreams, but repentance and forgiveness and
solid worship in light of suffering and pain. When health leaves
either of you, you hang on and suffer together. When the money
goes dry, you hang on and sacrifice what you don't have together.
You never forsake. You never walk. You never leave.
You cleave. And Christ cleaves to His bride.
Even when she runs away, He patiently endures the suffering of pain
and calls her back to Him as though she has never left because
she is pure, because He paid the debt with His own flesh.
Do you see sanctification here? What bride does not want this?
What bride does not want to be drawn to such a groom out of
a spontaneous and supernatural affection? As you two, husband
and wife, continue on your path together in this life, your lives
in Christ will draw each other closer to Him. And this is a
process. This is God's plan. This is growing
into Him who is the head of your home and your church, Jesus Christ. And that was Stephen and Holly
Lewis wedding. And yeah, I said that just like that to his face
standing right here at his wedding. Cherish your wives, husbands.
Respect your husbands' wives. And you do so for the glory of
God and out of the honor of God who saved you through forbearing
your sins on the back of His Son. So in closing, I want us to just
look in. Look inward and look at how we view the Gospel. How we relate to each other. I used the example last week
or the week before, I can't remember, about how as we're children sometimes
and you're having these family meetings and everybody's mad
and hollering and yelling and screaming and the phone rings
and mom's just so pleasant. How we can turn that off We can
choose to be hostile toward one another. We can choose to love
each other because God has empowered us to do so. Our feelings, we cannot help.
But how we respond with those feelings, we can help in the
power of grace. So does our view of marriage exhibit grace? Does our view of marriage do
what I said in the beginning of this text? Does your view
of marriage today give glory to God? See the application? Does your view of marriage cause
you to worship God more intimately? Does your view of marriage give
you joy? Does your view of what you've
learned this morning empower you with the grace of God to
be able to make it through wherever you are? Is what you've learned today
an opportunity for your faith to be strengthened? Maybe you can give that grace
to someone else who's in need. Maybe you come this morning and
you have a better understanding of what God has done and is continuing
to do in the world today. Maybe it's an opportunity for
you to be more intimate with Christ, because whether you ever
marry or not is not the point. The marriage is a display of
the relationship that Christ has with you as his children. It's an opportunity for glory. You were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
by the Spirit of our God. And he who finds a wife finds
a good thing and obtains grace. Is that grace the power that
rules your heart? Is the gospel of Christ the bonding agent for
every area of your life? If you see today that it's not,
and probably for all of us it's not in every area, I hope no
one's perfect in here. We need to have them up here
teaching us something we don't know. But as we're all sinners
on the same plane looking for grace, We can admonish one another
to walk in the light of that. Pray and repent. Cry out for
mercy. Pray that God would give you
the power and the grace needed. And be filled by a Spirit that
you might walk in the newness of life. See, we have new life. It's not an old life we got when
we became believer. It's a new life that's new today.
And it will be new tomorrow. It will be a new life. It's a
new life that's continually being renewed in the glory of God. And so today, as we finish, are
you believing in the sun? Are you believing on the sun?
Are you repenting of your sin actively, presently, continually?
Are you believing continually every second of your life? Are
you placing your faith in Jesus Christ? Is your heart bound with
affection toward Christ as the greatest thing that could ever
come? Repent, believe on the name of Jesus. Find salvation
in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. Repent and
believe on Christ. And join a church and be baptized
and experience the grace of God in a real way while we wait to
see Him forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for Your Word. And God, for the grace that You
give so powerfully, so clearly. And God, it is with everything
within me wants to try to just work creatively to explain things
so simply that they become just minutia. Father, You've promised in Your
Word that it is Your Word that gives life. So, Father, let Your
Word give life. Let Your Spirit be the life giver. God, we pray that You would save
Your people, that those who sit here and unbelieve God, that
in Your sovereignty, Lord, You would open their hearts to see
the reality of what it means to be a follower of Christ. And
that it's not anything they can do to accomplish that, Father,
that it is Your work alone, grace alone, that enables us to be
able to see the glory of Your Son and to believe on Him and
turn from our sins Empower your children to turn. Empower your
church to continually repent and walk in forgiveness and repentance
and forbearing with one another. Continually give, through grace,
the power that is needed for your church to walk in the newness
of life. Father, even the children who
are here in this room today, God, who may not even be listening,
may your words stick into the ears of their minds and bury
into the soil of their heart And when you make that heart
fertile, Father, may it grow. And we thank You for that privilege,
for that great mercy that You've given us to cause us to be born
again to a living hope in Christ. For it is in His name we pray
today. Amen.