Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids

Where did marriage & sex come from?

 

We’re not going to start with the Bible today, we’re going to start with another ancient account: the Epic of Gilgamesh. Its one of the oldest known writings in the world, it comes from ancient Sumeria in modern-day Iraq. Later it was Babylon, but early on, soon after they invented the little old thing we call ‘writing,’ our ancient ancestors began trying to explain the world. And what could be more foundational than sex?

 

Here’s how it came to be.

the descriptions of Enkidu the first man (from the Epic of Gilgamesh)

His whole body was shaggy with hair,

he had a full head of hair like a woman,

his locks billowed in profusion (like Ashnan, who I assume is the ancient Fabio)

He knew neither people nor settled living,

He ate grasses with the gazelles,

and jostled at the watering hole with the animals *you don’t need to have a Ph.D. in linguistics to see that “jostled” means he was having relations with that animal.

 

And so, the gods in their infinite wisdom sent a savior...and who might that be, well naturally, a prostitute...

“She spread out her robe and he lay upon her,

she performed the primitive the task of womankind.

His lust groaned over her;

for six days and seven nights Enkidu stayed aroused,

and had intercourse with the harlot

until he was sated with her charms.

 

It says later that the first man, drank the beer-seven jugs! – and became expansive and sang with joy! He was elated and his face glowed.

He splashed his shaggy body with water, and rubbed himself with oil, and turned into a human.

 

Now I know what you’re thinking some of you are saying, that explains a lot about men. Disgusting eating habits, the animal sex drive, only tamed by a woman that uses her sexuality as power. Some would say, that’s a fit description of the modern man, actually if you watched the Super Bowl ads last week you’d have to say that being a man boils down to just the same to things, beer and sex. In the ancient Near East, the cradle of civilization, the explanation for why men and women get together boils down to animal lust.

 

That was the predominant view, the cultural mythology of the ancient world. This is the stuff your neighbors believe. This is their religion. At least if you lived in Israel. If you lived in ancient Israel, the story you grew up on was radically different from the neighbor kids. Israel had their own story, the Berekith, it just mean the ‘in the beginning’ (in your Bible its called Genesis). And it was written in the same time frame as the Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh story.

 

Their story starts the same way, you have a man, you have animals, but their relationship is strictly professional, by that I mean Adam, our first human is given the responsibility for animals. Here, too, the first man searches for a counterpart, and significantly, he finds none, not among the animals, nowhere. But after that, the story is nothing like the Epic of Gilgamesh.

 

Let’s read, Genesis 2:18

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19    Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.   But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23    The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Gen. 2:25    The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

 

Seeing that it was not good for man to be alone, God creates another of the same kind, from the same matter. Its not animal sexual instinct pulling them together, there is a gravitational pull that’s stronger than twins separated at birth. They were made for each other. That explains something of our sexuality. Its a pull strong enough to pull a person away from his biological lineage (parents) in to union of flesh, more accurately a ‘reunion.’ And when they come together they actually look a little bit like God himself. Profound! Sexuality right from the heart and mind of God. That’s why Christians put a higher value on sex than anyone else. Sex is God’s creation, its a part of what it means to be human.

 

But there’s also this idea, repeated throughout the Bible, that sexuality outside of marriage is wrong, that God is against it. Throughout the Bible we get restrictions on sexuality. Why is that? Why does something that God creates, celebrates, values have a restriction? The majority of adults in the US today wouldn’t agree with those restrictions. So, why? So, why would God care? The answer is found in why God invented marriage.

 

We’re going to talk about 6 reasons for marriage today. Four of them come right from this passage we read. One is a general observation, and the last comes from a New Testament book we’ll read at the end.

 

Here’s the first:

1. Marriage ensures that God’s goal of unity happens.

Marriage is when two people who are very different, very individual are made into one flesh. Our culture says marriage is a legal arrangement, maybe a 50/50 contract with some civic benefits, an arrangement of convenience, but God is looking for something more: a connection that goes to our deepest parts.

 

The word here is echad, oneness. Its the same word used to describe the oneness of the three-part God. Central to the Bible is the claim that their is one God. But its a oneness of three parts: Father, Son & Holy Spirit, living in an indissolvable union. Earlier in Genesis we’re told that humans are created in God’s image, male and female he created them. When men and women come together, its a reflection of our Maker

 

Sex isn’t enough oneness to make that happen. But if you add to sex a lifetime of self-sacrifice and service you have something transcendent, something that looks like God.

 

We were made for that type of relationship. We were created by a self-sacrificial God with a deep need for self-sacrificial love. And lifelong commitment is the beginning of self-sacrifice: “I’ll be here when I don’t feel like it, I’ll love you when the sparks are gone, I’ll love you when you’re old and grey.

 

But society says sex is about me. Sex is about getting, sex is about self-satisfaction. But God didn’t create you to be satisfied by an orgasm. He doesn’t want you to stop there. You’re more than an animal. He wants you to move beyond sex to the kind of long-term fulfillment and connection that comes from learning to give, serve, love another more than yourself.

 

Its really not good for man to be alone, he ends up living by himself or (worse yet) for himself. Its good for him to live for another, to give himself to another, because...

 

God uses marriage to shape our character

Now this almost goes without saying, but if you take two people and bring them together trying to make them one flesh (even if you try to make them roommates, even if you try to get them to share a bathroom or a remote) some things are gonna have to change. (a few of you ladies, are uh-huh, dang right things are gonna have to change). (pop songs)

 

You bring two people together, they’re going to have to let go of some things, most notably the innate human quality we call selfishness.

 

One of the greatest revelations of marriage is “no, the whole world is not exactly like you,” and “no, you are not the center of the universe.” The way you do things is not necessarily the best way to do them, the way your family does things is not necessarily the only way to live.

 

And that’s part of the plan, that each leaves something behind. Their father & mother, their background is left in the background. Each person brings their strengths & weaknesses to the table. Along the way, tensions rise and tempers flare and habits break until the man is changed (or dead).

 

This was God’s plan, that man shouldn’t be alone, man should not stay the same. Man was a good creation, but not good enough. And its the same for women.

 

You see the chief problem humanity has always had is this compulsive desire to worship ourselves. To live for ourselves. And God intends that sexuality will lead you out of your false religion into a life of self-sacrifice. And its kind of a big gamble for God, because sexuality is powerful. As any father or mother knows, once your child has discovered the power of sexuality, you’re not sure you want to ever let them out the front door again! Because sexuality can either go really right or really wrong. Sexuality is powerful. Its like Matt mentioned last week, you don’t lightly hand a child a chainsaw. You could do some real damage.

 

But sexuality cuts both ways. Sexuality has the power to change us. When put in the context of lifelong commitment, our sexuality has the power to carve, to cut, to chisel away all of worst traits. Lifelong vows kept have the power to strip away our selfishness, to form us into truly good people. Giving people, sacrificing people.

Marriage isn’t just about learning to get along; you could do that with a roommate. Its actually God’s tool to shape your character.

If you’ve ever met a couple who gave themselves to this over many years, you’ll notice something incredible: a strength, a tenderness, a mutual admiration that allows a person to be so much more than they could have ever been alone. Sexuality without marriage can’t do that.

 

3. Marriage is God’s plan for total vulnerability

Without a committed relationship, the vulnerability God wants is impossible. As the texts says the first lovers were naked and unashamed. And that’s not added to the text for artistic flair, so every generation of painters could paint nudes with a perfectly-placed leaves in front of their parts.

 

It speaks of the kind of openness and vulnerability God wants for us: the lack of coverups, lack of protection, lack of any need to portray ourselves as anything other than what we really are.

 

The thing about being naked. It doesn’t matter if you have fashion sense, you are what you are. (If your a Seinfeld follower you also know the other thing about being naked, there’s no place to put your hands: no pockets, beltloops, nothing.) Its awkward. Even with a lover.

 

What God had in mind was ‘naked & unashamed:’ a relationship of complete trust, absolute confidence.

 

Which has been almost impossible since the Great Evil came into the world. Because of evil (or what the church calls sin), their are risks involved in letting people see everything: your weaknesses, who you really are. We usually learn that in kindergarten: the pain of rejection, criticism. We learn to hide, cover, protect ourselves.

 

So in order for God to change us, to make us into new creation, to restore what was lost, vulnerability has to be recovered. And what’s the crucial ingredient for vulnerability? Safety. I need to know that I won’t be hurt, I’ll be accepted regardless of the truth, I need to fear no rejection, reprisals, abandonment. Which requires a commitment that is difficult to break, a promise that I’ll stay till death regardless of what comes up along the way. That is why we say “till death do us part.”

 

Without that its unreasonable to expect vulnerability. Its not reasonable to ask your girlfriend to truly let her guard down, to reveal it all, to ask your boyfriend to trust you completely, to fully enter into the relationship.

 

The statistics back that up: sexual relationships without marriage have a high likelihood of ending, quite often at the first sign of trouble. Sure, marriages end (though not as frequently), I would argue that its a lot easier to end a marriage in modern society than God intended.

 

When we’ve hooked up, dated around, played the field, vulnerability is always injured. More than once I’ve talked to friends (this is part of my own story) who are frustrated, even heartbroken after finding out the person they love has already given themselves away.

 

And we can say, “grow up, don’t be so old-fashioned, its 2010.” But inside, we know that it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Its not perfect. That’s why we’ve got to reassure ourselves: “I’ve got no regrets.”

 

We think sex won’t affect anyone, but the truth is it affects the one person we will love more than anyone else in our lives. If we find that one person, it will affect them. They’ll always feel that something of the vulnerability, the openness, the joy of discovering has been taken away.

And you know, in God’s grace, he always works out, we move on, but its never quite what it could’ve been. And so God says wait. Don’t cheat yourself out of perfect vulnerability.

 

4. The power of sex is dangerous without commitment

We’re used to thinking about our lives in separate categories: sex life, emotional life, spiritual life, physical life. But that’s not a real distinction, the truth is we’re deeply connected. So connected that it keeps scientists searching for ways to explain it. That’s the worldview of the Bible.

 

And so people will try to tell you sex is just physical, but that’s not a reality. With any sexual partner, there’s a “one flesh” attachment that happens at the physical level, but it doesn’t stop there. When the attachment is broken, there’s a cost at the emotional/spiritual level, a part of our inner being is injured, even deadened. If that happens over and over, opening up again becomes more and more difficult. Its as if one piece of our heart is with that former partner, or pieces are with formers partners. Its hard to get them back.

 

So when the time comes to give ourselves to the person we most want to spend the rest of our lives with, there are often problems at deep emotional/spiritual level. Occasionally in the church we find ourselves having to pray to break bonds between people because of a relationship that never should’ve happened, that’s haunting them years later.

 

And that’s not just in the church. That’s a fact in clinical psychology. Its on TV every day. You remember Jerry Springer. The whole point of his show is to expose people that cheat on each other and their weeping and gnashing of teeth: throwing things, crying, pulling hair. Its like staring at an accident. And Mr. Springer always comes out at the end with a nice talk to tidy things up: “don’t try this at home!”

 

The truth is sexuality is powerful, it can hurt people, its like playing around with chainsaws. And so God says keep it between two people that are committed for a lifetime.

 

Marriage is also important because

Marriage protects women & children

All throughout the Bible God’s concern for widows & orphans is prominent. When marriage isn’t practiced or easily broken, the chief victims are women/children, or sometimes in divorce its men.

 

Here’s what the stats say: the majority of men will not remain with a woman if she has his children before a marriage commitment is made, there’s a strong chance that he’ll take advantage of her and ignore any children.

 

Unwed mothers are far more likely to be living in poverty than married mothers.

 

Single mothers are 10 times more likely to be on welfare.

60% of kids born outside marriage are likely to be poor compared to 30% born into a marriage, they’re also far less likely to have a relationship with father or receive financial support.

 

Marriage was God’s greatest idea to protect women and children.

 

As marriage has been weakened in the modern world, we’re finding that our social programs can’t make up the difference.

 

And so God continues to say, keep sexuality in marriage. Make it difficult to divorce, I never intended for the challenges of parenting to be faced alone.

 

Here’s the last thing: why God made sex for marriage.

6. Marriage reflects something about Christ and the church

Ephesians 5:25-32, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

 

God intends marriage to be an object lesson. He’s not just talking about marriage, but Christ and the church. The connection is a profound mystery.

 

Paul writes, “Christ loved the church...” he loved the church by laying down his life...a commitment unto death...his desire is to be united with the church to become one, not to rule the church, but to live in unity with the church for eternity. The result is a church that is full of faults will one day be radiant, holy and blameless through self-sacrificial love, becoming all that God intended through the enduring commitment of love.

 

Godly marriage is an object lesson of that.

Christ never loved another, never gave himself to another, he’s wholly devoted, and so God’s desire is that we remain wholly devoted

 

What about marriages that aren’t like that? Some are bad, abusive, dangerous, a lot of them aren’t what God intends, many people aren’t even trying. The fact that people aren’t living up to God’s ideal for marriage doesn’t invalidate God’s design for marriage.

The whole invitation of Jesus states: you’ve lived with bad examples but you can choose better.

And our world is desperately in need of better examples. Not only that, our culture is hungry for self-sacrificial love. Sexual consumerism robs us all.

 

What if I never get married? The reality is not everyone will marry, some of us choose not to, some of us don’t. Its simple statistics, there are not enough men to go around. (I know, some of you thought the problem was there aren’t enough good men, but there’s not enough, period.) God compensated, there are more men born, but men lead such risky lives, that pretty early in life the women great outnumber the men.

 

So, if you’re not married, you never marry, what’s God plan? How will I experience that change God works through relationship? You need to know this wasn’t some odd exceptional thing in the New Testament. Paul, the greatest missionary of the church, actually urged Christians not to marry. If you’re strong and wise, if you want the best kind of life, don’t even marry. Paul says, God’s purpose is for you to give yourself away in special service to Jesus and his cause. You can actually give yourself (even more of yourself) because you don’t have to worry about the mechanics of marriage and kids.

Paul says, the point is not to live for yourself, its extra service. And deep relational fulfillment will still be found within a loving community. If you’re single just for now, or whether you plan to stay single the rest of your life, you need to know that God has a purpose for you now, and its not wishing and waiting for that special someone. He has so much more for you.

But if we engage in sex outside of marriage, we’re hurting ourselves, we’re depriving ourselves of something valuable, we’re hurting the person we may one day marry, cheating someone else’s future partner, we’re frustrating God’s plan.

 

Upcoming Events Calendar