The purpose of marriage and parenthood. God has a very specific, explicit design for marriage and family life, for the joining together of a man and a woman in a marriage, and then their life together as God would give them children in their home. I'm very delighted to be able to speak on this topic because this is a top button issue. And here's what I mean by that. You reflect back to your childhood when you used to button your shirt.

If you got the top button right, you were golden. But if you didn't get the top button right, when you thought you were done with your work, you were zigzagging up and down, and you had to just undo everything again and start from the beginning. And marriage is a lot like that, isn't it? When marriage and parenthood are right, a lot of things in life fall in place very nicely. But when they're wrong, a lot has to be undone.

And you have to start a lot of things over again from scratch. Only it's not really from scratch, is it? Your shirt didn't have a memory, but your wife and your children have a memory. So when things aren't right in the home, in the marriage, and in parenting, it's worse than starting from scratch. So God would have us to understand what his explicit design is for our marriages and for parenthood so that we would embrace those things and so that we would organize our lives and the family around his design.

Everyone has a sense of the importance of these things, don't we? And everyone also seems to have their own opinion about what it means to get it right, and then how we would get from here to there. After all, it seems like the more books we get on the topic, and there's just an explosion of books on the topic, the worse the statistics on marriage and family seem to be. You would think it would be in the other direction, But we have more books, and we have less satisfying home lives. Just walk into the Christian bookstore, and you'll be assaulted.

You'll be inundated with massive amounts of content on this. But unfortunately, what you find is that they're nine parts secular psychology, and they're one part Bible. My brothers and sisters, this is the wrong ratio. And it's led to devastating effects in the family. And it's a shame, because the Bible has such clear and concise and beautiful teaching on this topic that if we would just turn our hearts back to the Council of Scripture, we'd find ourselves experiencing the joy that comes from simple obedience to the words of God.

We need a marriage and a family reformation in the church, don't we? We need that. We pray that God would give us all that. Here's a quote from Alexander Venet. He's not famous in our time, but he was a very well-known theologian in his time, which was the first half of the 1800s.

And he said this about the concept of Reformation in the church. He says, the Reformation is still something to be accomplished, something for which Luther and Calvin only prepared an even ground and a wider door. They did not, once and for all, reform the Church, but they affirmed the principle and laid down the terms for all future reform to continue the work of Reformation do not consider it complete but return without delay to the large pure spring of all truth, the word of God. Our proposition for the weekend is that all that we need for family reformation in the church is the Bible. We don't need any extra helps, but the Bible has all the content that we need for us to live in simple obedience and experience the joy together that comes from that.

So the next hour is devoted to looking at the flagship passages that address a very narrow sliver of what the Bible teaches on marriage and parenthood. If we tried to touch on everything that the Bible said about marriage and parenthood, we'd be here for a week. So we're just taking this one little slice, and the little slice is the purpose that God has ordained for this institution of marriage and parenthood. Marriage and parenthood are not man's invention. They were designed by God for specific and glorious purposes.

And if we're to be faithful as husbands and wives, as mothers and fathers, if we have any chance of faithfulness, then we have to go back and see what Scripture says about what God designed these things for so that we can organize our homes around this design so that we can see this design fulfilled in our lives and our home lives. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we go to these texts of Scripture, now as always we ask for your help and we desire to put ourselves in a posture of submission before your Word, desiring that that you would be found to be true in all these things and that you would be honored through obedience. Please help us, Lord, to be doers of the Word, not just hearers, not repositories of it, but those who would look at your word, we would embrace it, and then we would gladly obey it. We know that the greatest joy in life is found there.

Help us to be faithful. Increase our holiness, Lord. You desire us to be set aside for a special purpose that the glory of the Lord would be spread in the earth and we we desire it too we we pray that you would help us in Jesus name amen so how foundational our marriage and parenthood One indication of how foundational they are is how long it takes in the Bible before you get to these subjects. Marriage and parenthood are founded in Genesis 1 and 2 so very clearly. You don't even get off the left cover of the Bible before some of the main focus of the texts are around this joining together of a man and a woman, and then God giving them children as a charge and a stewardship.

So please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 1, 26 through 28. We'll be centering our time around five core passages. It'll be Genesis 1, then we'll go to Genesis 2, then we'll go to Malachi 2, Then we'll go to Matthew 5 and see what Jesus says about marriage. And then we'll conclude our time with the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5 and 6. That sounds bad, but I assure you I shall deliver you to lunch on time.

Have fear not. Genesis 1 verses 26 through 28. Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them. God said to them, 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. So we begin with this thought that mankind was created in the image of God. We have this unique privilege of being image bearers that that nothing else on earth has. We have the imprint of God, we have his image upon us, and as image bearers he created us male and female and then he gives us together this two-fold joint mission. In other words, there's two parts to the mission.

It's a two-fold mission, and it's a joint mission. We're not made to do it together, But he joins us together in this mission. It's a two-fold joint mission. And the first part of this, oh, by the way, this is an introduction to the dome clan, we'll move on. But this is my family back in North Carolina.

Janet, my lovely bride of 17 years, and then our six children. And yes, she's as nice and friendly as she looks. She is hospitality on steroids. Our home has never had a stranger. So come and visit us sometime.

Genesis 1, 26 through 28, a twofold joint mission. The first part is be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. Increase and expansion were part of God's original design. And marriage, the joining together of a man and woman, is the platform for parenthood, for filling the earth, for being fruitful and multiplying.

And so fruitfulness is part of God's explicit purpose for marriage. He states it as an imperative, as an imperative, and he states it first. Do you understand the significance of this? We're in Genesis 1, and he's giving a commandment to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. It's an imperative, and he's saying it first.

Does that mean we all have to be Sarah Edwards and have 16 children? Well, I'll leave the application to you. You wrestle with that yourself, but the principle is clear. And for sure we could affirm that what it does not mean is the modern mantra, a boy for me and a girl for you, thank the Lord we're finally through. That does not come from Proverbs.

That is not an idea of the Bible. And we laugh about that. But we should recognize that we all grew up in a baby-hating, baby-killing culture. And the Church has been so severely harmed by it to the point where we're completely insensitive to the clear and Genesis to Revelation counsel of scriptures on the topic. The Bible says that children are a reward.

They're a heritage. They're a blessing. And we're commanded to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth. And we see it right here in Genesis 1. And over the years, particularly over the last several years, I've begun to think very differently about pregnancies in our church.

There's a much greater sense of rejoicing whenever I hear that one of the ladies in our church are pregnant. And why is that? It's because I can see in my mind's eye what it means for the gospel when there's a pregnancy in the local church because I can see out in the future I've begun to think multi-generational I can see out into the future that one day this this baby this little boy or this little girl is going to be moving into a neighborhood, maybe in my community. And they'll be bringing the counsel of God with them. They'll be bringing 20 or 25 years of sitting on their father's knee, hearing the scriptures expounded to them day after day where this deposit is built up over time.

And then God will join them to another in this holy mission. And they'll be moving into a neighborhood to bring the gospel where the gospel hasn't been, among neighbors who might not have heard or who have heard but seen hypocrisy and been turned away from it, who are hurting, who themselves have broken marriages, broken relationships, bad work situations, and no hope. And the gospel will move into their neighborhood because God has given a pregnancy to our church. We need to be able to see out into the future and know what it means when a local church has a pregnancy, and it should cause our hearts to leap and rejoice within us because it means something for the gospel when a Christian woman and a Christian man are given a child. Number two, so the first part of this two-fold joint mission is be fruitful and multiply, fear, fill the earth, fill the earth.

And the second is subdue the earth, have dominion over every living thing. Subdue the earth and have dominion over every living thing. As image bearers of Almighty God, As his representatives made in his likeness, husbands and wives are joined together to bring the good government of God to every square inch of the earth. This is our mission together. We're filling the earth.

We're being fruitful and multiplying. And then we're subduing the earth. And we're having dominion over every living thing. The government of God is so good, isn't it? Isn't this where the greatest happiness in life is?

Is it that the government of God would be brought. This is where joy is. And God is wanting to spread the joy of His kingdom under King Jesus. He wants to spread it. And this is how He does it.

We're bringing the government of God to every square inch of the Earth. And this is a big mission. This is a glorious vision. And if we ever get bored, or if we ever find ourselves with excess free time, then we need to reset our thinking. Because we're not here just to make sure that our retirement account is the right size so that we can spend our golden years in leisure.

We're here to see the government of God expand so that the world would know Christ, their faithful creator, the Good Shepherd. And this was to be a cord of three strands. God is joining together a man and a woman, and He is going to be with them in it. Verse 28 says that God blessed them. God blessed them.

This union and mandate, it originates with God. And then it continues forward with his blessing, under his blessing. Genesis 3, verse 8 says that God was with them. And this is the exact quote. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

This is God's original design that we're talking about. He did join them together, and He was walking with them in the garden in the cool of the day. What must that have been like? And so the design was that They would fulfill the mission in fellowship with their maker. And this was disrupted in part by the fall.

But it never ceased to be God's design and intent. He always intended to be part of the equation, not just a husband and wife, but a husband and wife and Christ. Mark Lederbach is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in our community. And he says this. And he's wondering out loud what it would be like, what family life would be like, what the earth would be like without the fall.

He makes this point. What would have happened if they had remained pure, obeyed God, and fulfilled the task to be fruitful and multiply and to rule the world and subdue it. What kind of people would have filled creation? What would Adam and Eve's fruitful oneness have accomplished? The answer, at least in part, is a world filled with God-honoring, sinless worshippers united under one purpose, to subdue and rule the world for the glory of God.

One can conclude then that while the union of the man and the woman and the procreation of offspring are immediate ends of marriage. The ultimate purpose is the experience and expansion of the worship of God in all the earth. Is that our mindset when we think about our marriages? You know I think about my own life and how many of my hours are just consumed by the daily cares of life. And it's so easy to lose this perspective where we only see three inches in front of us.

But we need to extend our gaze out onto the horizon so that we see this, that while the union of the man and the woman and procreation of offspring are immediate ends of marriage, that the ultimate purpose is the experience and expansion of the worship of God in all the earth. That just opens the view to a beautiful panorama, where we can see that what God is doing in us is more than laundry. It's more than fixing meals. It's more than changing diapers. But There's something about this that is intimately connected with the gospel.

Turn to Genesis 2. Turn the page. This is the same account, but it's the second pass, and God gives us more detail. Genesis 2, starting in 20, going through 24. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." As in Genesis 1, we see again that this mission requires co-laboring. It's a big mission. And it requires co-laboring. And it can't be done by an individual contributor.

And this is what God is showing to Adam in Genesis 2. There's not a helper comparable to him, suitable for the mission. And in that light, God makes the woman as a helper to the man. This is his design. Note that this is before the fall.

There's been no sin on earth, and God, in His providence, in His sovereign plan, makes a woman to be a helper for Him. And that's why, when Paul is making the argument for male headship in the New Testament, we'll look at two passages quickly here. His argument is solely based on the design of God and the creation order. 1 Timothy 2, 11 through 14. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression." He says much the same in 1 Corinthians. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. For man is not from woman, but woman from man.

Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. The arguments for a husband's headship and a wife's submission is an argument from creation order. The design and purpose of God in creation. It's not an argument about culture, it's not an argument about education, it's not an argument about any other thing, but it goes back to the purpose and design of God in the very beginning of the Bible. We also see here in Genesis 2 that marriage has a very technical definition.

Marriage is one man and one woman joined together for the purpose of this commission. Therefore, a man singular shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife singular. Now, of course, there are places where homosexuality is condemned in the Bible. But we don't even have to make it to those places. For those who embrace the Bible, this issue must be settled no farther than Genesis 2.

It is settled in Genesis 2 as God himself defines what marriage is. It is a man singular taking a wife singular. So homosexuality is out by virtue of God having the right to define the terms. And polygamy is out by the virtue of God having the right to define the terms. And we see that marriage is the reason for a man to leave his father and mother.

The NASB renders it this way. For this cause, a man would leave his father and mother, for this cause. That is the reason why a man would leave his father and mother. It's for marriage. It's to be joined together with a co-laborer, with a helper, to embark on, to accept a joint commission from God and then go do it.

And this joining, this marriage results in complete unity. Genesis 2 calls it one flesh. Not a business agreement between people, but an actual joining together, an intimacy unlike any other relationship that will ever know this side of heaven. One flesh, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Turn your Bibles to Malachi 2.

Malachi 2. In Malachi 2, God is speaking out, because the Israelites have trampled on His purpose and His design for marriage. And so God, in His mercy, is sending a message to His people through the prophet Malachi. And he's talking about marriage. Malachi 2.

Malachi 2, starting in verse 10 through 16. Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another? By profaning the covenant of the fathers.

Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution, which he loves. He has married the daughter of a foreign God. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does this, being awake and aware, yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts. And this is the second thing you do.

You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying, so He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one?

He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously." Verse 11, Marriage is called the Lord's holy institution which He loves. Our topic for today, marriage, is called the Lord's holy institution which He loves.

Wow! How foundational is this? It's his holy institution, he loves it. And so wrong marriage, which we see in verse 11, he is married the daughter of a foreign god, so we see this marriage of unequal yoking of the children of God marrying the children of idols. Wrong marriage and broken marriage, which we see in verse 16, for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce.

Bring the judgment of God and cause Him to ignore our offerings. When we marry wrongly or when we break our marriages, It causes God to ignore us, to disregard our offerings, and it brings judgment. 1 Peter 3, Peter says this, and I just love this. Husbands, likewise, dwell with them, dwell with your wives, 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. Peter had Malachi ringing in his ears, and he sees in Malachi when the people embark on wrong marriage, unequal yoking, or they break their marriages that their offerings are disregarded.

And so Peter brings the same admonition to the people of God that we live with our wives in an understanding way that we give them honor, that we live with them as the weaker vessel, that we live with them as being heirs together as the grace of life so that our prayers won't be hindered, so that God won't disregard our prayers. I love that phrase, heirs together of the grace of life. Where did we get this concept that marriage is a tense union of competing interests where one would rule over another in an inappropriate way and one would usurp in an inappropriate way not the design of God at all. The design of God is that we would live together with understanding as heirs together of the grace of life. So we see from Malachi that wrong and broken marriage brings judgment in both an individual and corporate sense.

What does this mean for our nation? We know what it means in an individual sense. We've all seen the carnage that comes from wrong marriage from broken marriage. But have we seen it in a corporate sense yet? Yes, I believe we are beginning to see it.

Many of the wrongs of our land come from the judgment of God, because there's a corporate sense in which we marry wrongly, when believers are willing to yoke together with children of other gods, and when we break our marriages, where the divorce rate in the church actually in some cases exceeds the divorce rate in the world. We can only expect the righteous judgment of God. God is serious about marriage because He's serious about the purpose of His marriage. It's all tied up in His glory. If His glory is to be known in the earth, then we must have right marriages.

We must have a Christian man and a Christian woman coming together, understanding that they're being joined together in a two-fold joint mission. Verse 15. The purpose of marriage is stated as plainly as you'll ever see it anywhere. And why one? Why this oneness?

Why this joining together? He seeks godly offspring. It isn't just any offspring. Any group of knuckleheads can get together and fill the earth with people. It's godly offspring.

It's the increase of God-worshipping, God-obeying offspring that come before him as a thankful people, acknowledging his lordship. This is what God is seeking. Not just a world full of people, but a world full of people who are happy to be under his kind and good government. And this is why wrong marriage and broken marriage incur the displeasure of God, because both of these things subvert His design and His purpose for marriage, which is godly offspring, which is the beauty and glory of the gospel being communicated effectively from one generation to the next. Now turn your Bibles to Matthew 19.

Matthew 19, starting in verse 4. Jesus here is being asked about the lawfulness of divorce. And He uses the passages we've already looked at in Genesis. So when Jesus is questioned about marriage, where does he go? He goes back to God's design and purpose for marriage, which are explicitly stated in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Let's look at this, Matthew 19, verses 4 through 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? 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. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate." Jesus affirms what the Old Testament teaches about marriage, and he underscores the special God-designed nature of marriage.

He says, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female. He goes right back to the beginning in God's design. When Jesus wants to orient his hearers and point them in the right direction, he takes them right to God's design. How then, how can we possibly have any hope of knowing how to navigate in marriage and in parenthood without understanding so clearly what God's purpose and design is, and without designing the hours of our day to be consistent with that purpose and that design. This is about hours of the day, after all.

It isn't about us increasing our understanding of God's design and His purpose. That is good, but it's not the end point. The end point is that the hours of our day would be allocated to seeing accomplished in our homes what God has said that he wants. And Jesus says that divorce is a rejection of God's means, marriage, marriage is the means, to his ends, filling the earth with faithful image bearers. So the ends is filling the earth with faithful image bearers, and the means is marriage.

And Jesus says, when you divorce, you have despised my purposes. It's a casting off of God's design. It's a despising of His purposes when we break faith with the wife of our youth. Finally, turn to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, starting in 22, and then we'll read through chapter 6, verse 4.

Ephesians 5, starting in 22. Ephesians 5 starting in 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, So let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, that you may live long on the earth. And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord." What a great summary statement of where we've been so far in scripture.

Paul covers almost all of it here. And again, he tracks it back to Genesis 1 and 2. He's summing up what the teaching of scripture on marriage and parenthood is. He says in verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And it's founded in Genesis 2.

Woman was made as a helper to the man. And so Paul says, situate yourself to your husband as a helper. Verse 28 and 29, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. This is Genesis 2.

Now this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. They shall become one flesh. So Paul just extends the argument. He says, you want to be nice to yourself, be nice to your wife. You're one flesh.

Do yourself a favor. And then in chapter 6, verses 1 and 4, Paul's comments on child training. Bring your children up in the training and admonition of the Lord is malachi. It's the producing of godly offspring. Colossians 3, 18 through 21 is a parallel passage.

It says almost the same thing. There's some slight variances, but it's very, very similar. And you see the same flow. It's Paul talking about the relationships of husbands and wives, and then immediately flowing into this parental relationship with children. Well, that's not just a flow of logic.

It's more than that. It's that God's intent is that marriage is a platform for something. It's a platform for filling the earth, for being fruitful and multiplying. And then this family unit, having dominion, subduing the earth for the glory of God. Paul is affirming that a key purpose for marriage is godly offspring.

The two are inseparable. You can't talk about and think about marriage without talking about godly offspring. You can't talk about and think about children rightly coming up before the Lord without talking about marriage. They're joined at hip. And they stand together.

And they stand together. I'm not all choked up about the topic. I'm just a frog in my throat. We have another session this afternoon exclusively devoted to child training. So I won't tackle these first four verses of chapter 6 in any detail.

But make no mistake that the context for these principles is bringing up godly offspring. Now, I will offer a couple of points here. One is that Failing to secure honor and obedience in your children derails God's purpose and design for parenthood. Did I lose anybody there? Failing to secure honor and obedience in your children in your home derails God's stated explicit purpose for parenthood.

And that's godly offspring. And so does provoking your children to wrath. When we have hypocrisy in our home, When we use our headship in a heavy-handed way, which provokes our children to wrath, then we're derailing God's design and purpose for parenthood. Our calling is to give God what He desires, godly offspring, by exerting ourselves to bring our children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord, because he said that's what he wants. Now Paul introduces something new and wonderful that we haven't seen in the previous passages about the purpose of marriage, that it pictures something profound and mysterious.

Verse 32, Paul says, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. John MacArthur says this. It's a note in his study Bible. In the New Testament, mystery identifies some reality hidden in the past and revealed in the New Testament age to be written in scripture. Marriage is a sacred reflection of the magnificent and beautiful mystery of union between the Messiah and his church.

Completely unknown until the New Testament. Marriage then is a picture, it's a sacred reflection, as MacArthur says. I think we should add that to our vocabulary. Marriage is a sacred reflection of something. It's not just good economically.

It's a sacred reflection of something to display to the world the profound mystery of Christ and His love for the bride. In that light, how we conduct ourselves in our marriage matters a lot, doesn't it? Because now it's not just about view of us. It's a view of something else. It's a sacred reflection.

And to the extent that our marriages are marred, The picture of Christ and his love for the church are marred. Do you understand that? To the extent that we present a distorted image to the world, it's intended to be a sacred reflection. To the extent that we distort that reflection, the image of the love of Christ for His church is marred. There is much at stake on how we conduct ourselves in our marriages.

Marriages intended by God to be a powerful, evangelical tool. It's a tool for evangelism. Not the only tool for evangelism, there are words as well. But when people come into our homes, there should be a beautiful combination of our words that express the gospel explicitly and people's need for Christ. And also a demonstration of God's love for the Church.

It's a sacred reflection. So how should we conduct ourselves in our marriages then? In a way that's consistent with how Christ loved and continues to love his bride. We look to Jesus for the example. We look to Jesus.

And we're to act out the gospel in this marriage. It's a play being played out before mankind where we're acting out the gospel in our homes. And what does that mean? It means that a wife submits to her husband. And Paul says this in the most definitive terms.

Verse 22 says this, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And the scope of this headship that a man has in his home is breathtaking and to any man who has a brain in his head it's terrifying the scope of his headship. A wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. Why? Because her husband is as wise as the Lord?

Because her husband is as good as the Lord? No, because they're displaying something together. They're displaying something. They're putting on a play for the world. And it's about Christ and His love for the Church.

It's about the communication of the gospel through words, yes, but also through a sacred reflection. And a husband loves his wife. And what does this look like as he acts out Christ's loving headship over the church? Verse 25, he gives himself for his wife. The cross is the perfect demonstration of how a husband should be operating in his home.

It's the cross. The cross is the summary statement for how a man operates in his household. He gives himself for her. We have a wrong view. We have a wrong view when we think that I get to be the boss.

There are many, many days where I would trade spots with my wife, gladly, because I feel the weight of what it means to have headship in my home and to understand that the cross is the summary statement. I'm not a boss in a corporation. I'm the head like Christ was the head. He went to the cross. This is how we conduct ourselves in our homes, men.

Not only does he give himself for her, he sanctifies her, he sets her apart for a holy purpose and he joins together with her in this joint two-fold mission and He cleanses her with the water of the Word. And He does this so that He can present her glorious, without spot, and holy. And this is for the glory of God. And finally, he nourishes and cherishes her as he would his own body because she is his own body. God has joined together and man shouldn't separate.

And so the act of nourishing and cherishing your wife is an act of tremendous self-interest, men, isn't it? Isn't this our experience in our homes? That nourishing and cherishing our wives isn't just for them, but it's also for us. No man ever hated his own body. Man and wife become one flesh.

And in this way as a man and his wife act out the glorious mystery of Christ and his bride the church the great co-mission, two-fold mission of Genesis 1 joins up with the Great Commission of Matthew 28. This is Matthew 28. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Amen. Marriage and parenthood are about the propagation of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. That is the purpose of marriage and parenthood. It's a sacred reflection.

It's about the propagation of the gospel. So being fruitful and multiplying. Filling the earth and subduing it. Bringing everything under the good government of God. Through going and making disciples of all the nations and baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that he commanded in this generation and the next generation and the next generation and the next generation till the end of man.

This is the purpose of marriage and parenthood. And isn't that big enough? Isn't that a grand enough vision for ourselves to give ourselves wholeheartedly to? It is. And so in conclusion, God created marriage and fatherhood and motherhood.

He created marriages and He placed children into these marriages with a specific and a glorious purpose. And we'll never faithfully execute our duties and our obligations as husbands and wives and fathers and mothers until we understand and embrace God's design for marriage. But when we understand it and we see that marriage isn't about laundry and meal preparation and making it through to the end of the month, but that we see further out and we see it's really about the gospel, about the good news of Jesus Christ going forth in our generation and in many future generations. When we see marriage like that, then we can begin to organize our lives around it and rethink and re-choose how we spend the hours of our day. The biblical vision is worthy of giving our hearts to.

It is a big enough vision to give ourselves to it. And we should exert ourselves. There should be much blood, sweat, and tears given to making sure this is right. Because this is a top button. It's a top button.

If we get this right, we'll find when we get to the bottom that things are aligned. We won't have to go tear everything out and try to start over again. Years ago, probably 10 years ago, out of Promise Keepers, I remember Tony Evans saying this. I don't remember anything else from that Promise Keepers, but I remember this quote very vividly. And he was talking about a man and a woman relating in the right way in their home and thinking about their home as being for the propagation of the gospel.

And he said this, when I have a vision this big, I don't have time to be worried about why my needs aren't being met. When this grand vision is before me and I've grasped it, I don't have time to think about my self-interest because we're going somewhere. We're engaged in the great mission of God, and it's consuming my time. And I don't have time to sit around and think about why every little thing isn't arranged for my personal happiness. Could it be that many of our dissatisfactions exist because we have been negligent in these duties.

Could it be that many of our dissatisfactions in this life, these things that just irritate us on an ongoing basis, are because our vision has been too restricted? We don't see our homes as the place where the gospel is communicated through a sacred reflection. So we've been negligent, we've been lazy, we haven't exerted ourselves where we should exert ourselves, and it's brought on this dissatisfaction, quite honestly, because we had too much time in leisure and we weren't engaged in the mission that God has put before us. So what is this design? Well for marriage this design is for fruitfulness, this design is for bringing everything under the good government of God starting in our homes.

And for marriage, it's this one-flesh union that is a compelling picture of Christ and his bride, the Church. And for parenthood, the design is that we would give God what He's seeking, that we would give Him godly offspring. The bringing up of children that God gives us in the training and the admonition of the Lord. Brothers, I have an exhortation for you. Grab hold of this wife of yours that God has given you.

He's given you a helper and take her to this destination. It'll be the most exhilarating thing that you ever do. Understand that you're joined together for this purpose. It's a great joint two-fold mission to fill the earth and to bring it under the good government of God. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, all the clarity of scripture is beautiful. I thank you for it. And I pray that you would make it clearer and establish it in our minds every minute. And God, I pray that you would bless us. We know that without you, we can do nothing.

But we also know that when we turn our hearts towards your purposes, that we find great help from the Lord is there. So this is our confidence that we would, in a very frail way, turn our hearts towards you, hoping, hoping to be met with power from heaven to do it. We know that you have blessed Adam and Eve and that you desire to bless us in this mission that you've given us. That we would be a court of three strands joined together with Christ to see his glory expand. We pray, Lord, for your church, this bride that you love, who you are one with.

And we pray that you would help us to be faithful and to be a blessing in your church. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.