"The Sixth Commandment: God's Gift of Marriage" Genesis 2:7-25

The 7th Sunday After Trinity                                   31-July-2022
Sermon Text: Genesis 2:7-17
Sermon Theme: The Sixth Commandment: God’s Blessing of Marriage!

I.N.R.I. What was the first “not good” of our Creation? Satan’s lying words? Adam’s acquiescing silence? The woman’s taking and eating of the fruit? Sin bringing shame, guilt, and death? Mankind running with Satan..running away from their Creator and life? What was the first “not good” of our Creation? None of these. The first “not good” took place on the sixth 24 hour day of the existence of all matter. As history teaches God gave you a body and soul - life. The Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and kneeling down into the dirt breathed life into Adam. Genesis 2 records the history of the sixth day and tells us of the creation of Adam, the beautiful garden the Lord entrusted to his stewardship and dominion - but it also tells us of the first “not good.” Listen, “Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Man’s helper wasn’t to be found in any other creature, so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, opened up his side and took a rib, to build for him a wife. Waking from his sleep the Creator married the first man and woman.
    Marriage isn’t a human construct, cannot be changed by a supreme court, marriage is knit into the very fiber of our creation. The Lord’s Word defines this blessed estate: Gen 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The Lord blessed marriage saying, Gen 1:28 "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." It is only after man and woman are married that the Lord God would declare His creation, “Very good!”
    “I have compassion on the multitude,” The King of Creation spoke to His disciples. Hungering for God’s Life bringing Word they had been in Church for three days listening to Jesus preach. Their church was in the wilderness, but they lived by every Word that proceeded from the mouth of God in our flesh. Jesus as a loving Bridegroom has compassion on His Bride - The Church. He is concerned for her physical life - He provides daily bread for her in the wilderness. Seven loaves and a few small fish become an abundant feast for 4,000 with seven large baskets of left overs. Our Father in Heaven blesses us with daily bread through the flesh and blood of His only begotten Son Jesus. Our Creator generously supplies daily bread even to all evil people, but as His children we should receive it with thanksgiving. What is meant by daily bread? We confess: “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children,..” Marriage and the family are gifts of our compassionate Creator. Learn from Him: The Sixth Commandment: God’s Blessing of Marriage!
      LSB pg. 321 (6th Commandment). What is the 6th commandment? What does it mean to “adulterate” something? According to Webster’s dictionary it means: “to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element.” How is the Creator’s gift of a family corrupted or debased by foreign inferior substances or elements? W.D.T.M.? The 6th Commandment, like the 1st, has no negative phrases in its explanation. In the first commandment our Creator instructs us to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. Now in the sixth we are to fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life.
      What does it mean to fear and love God in relationship to our human bodies and the sex they are given from conception? LSB pg. 322 - 1st Article A.C. 1st para. Expl.. Our maleness for all conceived with XY genes from their parents, or our femaleness for all conceived with XX genes from their parents - is the reality of how God creates us and calls us to serve our neighbor. Biological science knows we don’t choose our sex or gender - it is hardwired into our genetic code from the moment our conception. Being male or female is a good gift of our Creator. He created us in His image, so that like Him - the Lord and Giver of life - life might be created, nurtured, and cared for through marriage. Where do we serve our neighbor with our bodies and the sex we are created and called to be? LSB pg. 322 - 1st Art. A.C. 2nd Para. Exp. Our Father provides all we need to support this body and life - among the chief blessings are “wife and children.”
      How then is this blessed estate of family “adulterated”? History records murderous Cain’s descendants perverted marriage by practicing “polygamy.” Taking more than one wife. Sadly a practice that after the flood the patriarchs adopted following pagan culture. The Jews in Jesus’ day didn’t practice polygamy outrightly - they had a subtle serial type of polygamy. When they grew bored with their wife, they’d write a certificate of divorce and send her away. Remember what Jesus, the Truth, tells them when they ask if they can get divorced for any reason? Mat 19:4-6 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,' (5) and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH' ? (6) So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." Marriage and the family is “adulterated” when we try to build escape hatches into this life long union. The destruction of the family and human sexuality in our nation began with the lie of “no-fault divorce.” The self-serving lie that children would be happier if parents walked away from their commitment to each other - rather than struggling through the rough spots with Jesus’ forgiving and healing love. The lie that marriage is just a relationship that we can fall into and out of - Jesus teaches us that it is a one flesh union - two have become one - divorce doesn’t make two again, but mutilates that which God created for good.
    How else is marriage and the family adulterated in our culture? Pornography introduces a foreign substance into the one flesh union of marriage. It robs children of their childhood perverting the gift of sex. It makes our bodies and minds “slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.” Enslaving us in sin. Paying out the wages of death. It isn’t new, when the ancient Roman city of Pompey was unearthed from volcanic ash - its murals, statues, and pottery were considered too pornographic for public display.   In 2017 it was reported that people spent 4.6 billion hours watching pornographic videos on just one site on the internet. By the age of 11 the average child has been exposed to internet pornography - 93% of boys 62% of girls are exposed to porn during their adolescent years. The vast majority of porn viewed by those under 18 is by children under 10 years of age. Parents guard your children - monitor their screen devices - check and recheck them. Pornography not only degrades women, it degrades what it really is to be a man, a husband, and a father. Guard their hearts. LSB pg. 324 - 6th Petition -W.D.T.M? Guard your heart! Our sinful flesh remains our sinful flesh and perverts the gift of sex into self-gratification turning marriage into a competition and not a call to die to self and rise to live for one another.
    Is sex evil? Let me ask - is it good to have a fire in your house? We don’t want our home to burn down - so fire mustn’t be good. This past month we didn’t need any more heat in our homes, but come January if there is no fire in your house - you will freeze to death. Fire is good in our homes if it is kept in the proper boundaries - the furnace, water heater, gas stove and oven. Taken outside of those boundaries it causes destruction and death. Sex is a good gift of our Creator God if it is kept in the proper boundaries - what is the proper boundaries of sex? It isn’t love. LSB pg. 321 6th Commandment? It life-long commitment of marriage. Husbands and wives love and honor each other.
    How do husbands live out the high and holy vocation of husbanding their wife? LSB pg. 328 T.O.D. quotes two passages for men: 1Pe 3:7 Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” What does God the Holy Spirit teach? Men understand that your wife isn’t like you - nor do you think like her. Understand that the Lord God created her to be the heart of your household. Treat her as the most precious vessel in your home. Protect her by continuing to nurture your faith together as a family - in daily prayer and reading out loud the Holy Bible to each other. Secondly the Lord instructs, “Col 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.” Your wife needs “love” to thrive - this is the self-giving love -agape - love that Jesus had for His Bride the Church - He died for her - to make her holy and clothe her with His righteousness. Like Jesus, husbands are freed to die to self, and rise to live with forgiving love to build up his wife. Christ-like compassion.
    Wives are instructed to fulfill their holy order and position in “Eph 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” As a wife needs love to thrive within the marriage union, a husband needs respect. A wife who respects her husbands position as the head of the household within their family - molds and builds a boy into true manhood. The Church’s subjection to Christ Jesus’ life giving Word is the picture of a Christian wife towards her husband. The second verse quoted relates to this respect: 1Pe 3:5-6 For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, (6) as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.” Trusting the Lord Jesus - wives are freed to trust their husbands loving leadership within their household.
    How else is marriage adulterated? A young woman came home and announced that she was quitting college after the first semester. Her parents hopes and dreams for their daughter were shattered - how could she throw her life and career away - to be a “WIFE”? Luther’s hope in his day was: 217 Now, I speak of this in order that the young may be guided so that they desire the married estate and know that it is a blessed estate and pleases God. For in this way, over time we might cause married life to be restored to honor. There might be less of the filthy, loose, disorderly behavior that runs riot the world over in open prostitution and other shameful vices arising from disregard for married life. 218 Therefore, it is the duty of parents and the government to see to it that our youth are brought up with discipline and respectability. When they have become mature, parents and government should provide for them to marry in the fear of God and honorably. God would not fail to add His blessing and grace, so that people would have joy and happiness from marriage. 219 Let me now say in conclusion what this commandment demands: Everyone should live chaste in thought, word, and deed in his condition—that is, especially in the estate of marriage. But also everyone should love and value the spouse God gave to him [Ephesians 5:33]. For where marital chastity is to be maintained, man and wife must by all means live together in love and harmony. Then one may cherish the other from the heart and with complete faithfulness. For harmony is one of the principal points that enkindles love and desire for chastity, so that, where this is found, chastity will follow without any command. 220 Therefore, St. Paul diligently encourages husband and wife to love and honor one another. 221 Here you have again precious, indeed, many and great good works. You can joyfully boast about them, against all churchly estates chosen without God’s Word and commandment. Amen.