In his sermon 'The Blessed Marriage (Part 1)', Steve Hopkins emphasizes the biblical foundation of marriage through Ephesians 5, which presents marriage as a symbolic union reflecting the relationship between Christ and His church. Hopkins argues that marriage is defined by God, not society, and is under threat in modern times. The sermon discusses the roles of husbands and wives, urging them to embody Christ's sacrificial love and the church's submission and reverence, respectively. Hopkins highlights that a true Christian marriage is a visible representation of the gospel, serving as a testimony to the world. He stresses the importance of self-denial, spiritual strength, and adherence to traditional marriage vows in sustaining a godly marriage. The sermon also touches on the importance of raising children in the faith and encourages young people to seek partners who share these values. Ultimately, the sermon calls for couples to model their relationship after Christ and His church, emphasizing love, faithfulness, and perseverance through trials.

Stand with me if you would for the reading of the Word of the Lord, the Book of Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 22 through 30 together. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself for no man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cherish it that even as the Lord the church for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones. Let's pray. Father, we just ask God that you would continue, Lord, to work in the lives of your people, that you would give your spirit, O God, to open our understanding as we open your Word and bring glory to your name, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Let's be seated.

How many are familiar with John Gill from the 1700s? Anybody know John Gill? Had the same church where Charles Spurgeon preached a hundred years before Charles Burgen did a full exposition of the of the entire Bible. He's a great great theologian. John Gill once wrote that the marriage of a man and a woman is a figure and emblem of the mysterious union between Christ and His church.

That scriptural truth, long understood by God's people, has been under continual assault in the Western world now for, for I would say over 70 years, some would say even longer. We live in a world today that is attempted to redefine marriage, but marriage is not defined by the world or the age in which we live, neither is marriage defined by the courts of the nation in which one lives. Marriage is defined by God, God who instituted it and ordained it for his glory before time began. Noah Webster some 200 years ago wrote that marriage is, this is in his 1828 Dictionary of the American Language. He wrote, quote, in a scriptural sense, marriage is the union between Christ and His church.

Pretty simple. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul was teaching in Ephesians chapter 6 when he wrote, we, referring to believers in Christ, are members of Christ's body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Believers in Jesus Christ throughout all ages are members of that universal body which the Bible identifies as the church and the bride of Christ, members of Christ's own body. The apostle Paul writing to the church in Ephesus, in Ephesians five, tells us that it is for this cause because we are members of his flesh and of his bones. That's what marriage is.

That a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh." It is a great mystery. It is a great mystery. At one point in Jesus earthly ministry, one of his disciples asked him, said, Lord, how is it that thou will manifest thyself unto us and not unto the world? What kind of a question is that? How is it that you will manifest yourself unto us and not unto the world?

The answer is, quoting Charles Spurgeon on this, that there is a union. There is a union between Christ and His people, which there is not between Christ and the world. The world and all those not in union with Christ through faith in His blood cannot comprehend the mystery, the mystery of the union of Christ and His church, His bride. But a marriage, truly Christian marriage, the world can get a glimpse of it. They get a glimpse of it when they see our marriages, when they see the marriages of those who are truly Christian and whose marriages are pursuing that objective of Christlikeness and to be a picture of Christ and His church.

So in marriage, truly Christian marriage, the world gets a glimpse of this mysterious union of Christ and His church, His bride. I'm just gonna take a quick little rabbit trail here. Think about this for just a moment. God tells us in his word that marriage is a picture of Christ in His church. And then our world comes along and says, here's what we think of your picture of Jesus Christ in His church.

And they institute by law homosexual marriage, which of course is impossibility. There's no such thing. But just think about that, the assault on the picture, the holy union between Jesus Christ and His church. Here's what we think of your union, of your picture of the union of Christ and His church. This is what we think of it.

It's absolutely horrifying when you think about it. The biblical marriage is a living, breathing testimony to all the world of the grace of God in the redemption of His people. When a husband, as we see in our opening text, mirrors the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus in the laying down of his life for his beloved bride, the church. They get a glimpse of it. It's a testimony to the world of the grace of God and the redemption of His people.

When a wife mirrors the church's willing submission to her Lord, it is a testimony to the gospel. The relationship between Christ and his bride, the church, is reflected in biblical marriage. When a husband and wife live out this picture and when they understand their roles. Because you see, we're told, here's your role, oh man, is to model Christ in His sacrificial love for the church, for His bride, the church. That's you.

That's what you're to be modeling. And then to the woman, you're to be living out this picture and understanding that when you submit yourself to Christ, or when the church submits herself to Christ, the church reverences Christ, she's subject to Him, She loves and obeys Him as her living head. You're modeling this. You're modeling this. Christ loves His bride, the church.

He cherishes her as His own flesh. He gives Himself up for her. He lays his life down for her, and he washes her in the Word. We just read in the opening text. The church again submits herself to Christ, the church reverences Christ, she's subject to Him, she loves and obeys Him as her living head.

The husband who is modeling this, who cherishes his wife, who lays down his life for her, paints a gospel picture for all the world to see of the self-sacrificing love of Christ and the redemption of his beloved bride. The wife, on the other hand, who reverences her husband, who submits to his authority, reminds all onlookers that they too are obligated to live in subjection to Christ and His Word. You see how modeling Christ and His church is a picture proclamation of the gospel to the world, and you haven't even opened your mouth yet. You haven't even told them about Christ yet, and yet your marriage is already kind of preaching in a way to the world. Marriage is a picture proclamation to the world, in the words of Dr.

Sproul, of God's glory and our responsibility when we fulfill our duties as husbands and wives." After God instituted the first marriage in Genesis chapter 1, The creation mandate was given. The creation mandate was given to Adam and Eve. They were told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. I see lots of families that are going for that today in this church, being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth. And man was to subdue the earth to the glory of God.

It was all placed under a man to subdue to the glory of God. That mandate to fill the earth and subdue it to the glory of God has never been rescinded. Unlike the world around us, the biblical husband and wife view children as blessings. You see, in the world, that's not the case. Maybe when I was growing up, it seemed like it was still the case, maybe in the 60s.

I was very young. Even then, there was just such a great departure. But the biblical husband and wife view children as blessings, as precious blessings to be brought up in the instruction and admonition of the Lord. The scripture talks about them as being like little arrows, if you will, guided to hit their intended target as both a husband and a wife fulfill their God-ordained roles working together to tear down strongholds in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. When husbands and wives model this, model Christ and his church together, we are called to live out of this picture of Christ and his church, and if we're blessed with children, to nurture them and instruct them in the things of God for the glory of God.

So there are many young people here that are seeking to be married. Lots of teenagers and 20-somethings in the church now that are seeking to be married. When you're pursuing that spouse, young men, When you're looking for that young man, young lady, you know, keep these things in mind. That marriage is to model, to be a picture of Christ in his church. Is that young person that you are maybe thinking about, drawn to, is this one of the things, are these the kinds of things that draw you to that person?

Kind of a Christ-like, church-like, you know, person. At this conference we were just at, there was a lot of messages on that, on young people and pursuing a marriage. If anyone has an opportunity to look up, you know, church and family life and look up some of the messages, I really recommend one by Dr. Joel Beeke, he was really good, several of them were very good, and also by Scott Brown, but you might look those up if you weren't able to attend. One thing that we have to never forget is that it takes supernatural power to fulfill the biblical role of husband and wife as we seek to live out this picture of Christ and his bride, the church.

Biblical marriage is lived out in the power of the Spirit, not in the arm of the flesh. Christ said, apart from me you can do nothing, You can't do anything. But he also said, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. So we need to be looking to Him continually. That strength for the spiritual strength to carry out the things that he has commanded us with regards to marriage and the picture of Christ in his church.

We need to understand something else that's very important about biblical marriage. Biblical marriage like the Christian life is about living and dying, living unto Christ and dying unto self, living unto Christ and dying unto self. Not the typical thing you will read in the world's marriage manuals. The passage before us, which I plan to expose at verse by verse next week, presents us with the model of Christ and His church for marriage. A model that is absolutely impossible to even begin to imitate without self-denial on both sides.

To love our wives as Christ loves the church, an imperfect church, to submit to an imperfect husband as unto the Lord. This requires strength from above and it requires us to daily live into Christ more and more and die to ourselves more and more. To live into Christ is to continually set aside our wills for his will and die to self more and more as we take up our cross daily and follow Christ. And you know, Don Stubblefield before he died, he said this over and over again, you have to remember that the cross is an instrument of death. When we talk about taking up our cross daily, We're talking about an instrument of death.

The Apostle Paul said I die daily and of course he faced death daily but he also exemplified one who lived under Christ. His entire life was to live under Christ and to die to self and we can follow Him in that. The death of self is the life of a happy marriage. The death of self is the life of a happy marriage. I had intended originally to go forward with the exposition of the passage, but decided actually this morning Instead I wanted to do this.

I hope this is helpful for For those in the congregation and visitors here today Do you remember the vows that you made the day that you were married? Some people have them written down some of them have them recorded. Do you remember the vows that you made the day that you were married? Some people have them written down, some of them have them recorded. Do you remember the vows that you made?

Sandra and I, in 1984, we took traditional vows. Vows in which wonderful and precious promises were made. The traditional vows of Christian marriage go something like this. I, I know a lot of people write their own vows today, but traditionally was I so-and-so fill in the blank, take you to be my lawfully wedded spouse. The man would vow to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in joy and sorrow, in sickness and in health, to love, to honor, and to cherish till death do us part." And the woman would vow, there's variations of this of course, but something like, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and obey, in the old vows, till death do us part.

I just want to look at these for just a moment. The first vow is a promise to have and to hold, to have and to hold each other. In this vow, a husband promises to have and to hold in an intimate sense none other on earth but his wife, till death will impart him from his wife. 1st Corinthians 7 2 says to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, that is in an intimate sense, and let every woman have her own husband. In the same way the wife promises to have and to hold no other, to have and to hold in an intimate sense no other but her husband till death parts them.

Hebrews 13, 4 tells us that marriage is to be held in honor and the marriage bed kept pure, with a stern warning to those who are unfaithful to their spouses that God Himself will judge them. How many take this vow so lightly? The Scripture says it's better not to make a vow than to make a vow and then to break it. And these promises are made from this day forward, From this day forward, promising to have and to hold each other till death do them part. We cry out to God for our family every day.

Sandra and I get on our knees. We pray for our family every day. These are married. They're serving the Lord. They're faithful to their spouses.

We have many at home still, you know. And actually, I was talking to Dr. Beeke at the conference, Joel Beeke, and I was telling him about how he inspired me to this thing of praying with my wife, not only in family worship time every day, but getting along with my wife and praying, I don't know how many years ago, six, seven years ago or whatever, and that really inspired me. And Eric and I have talked about this many times and he was saying you know so when you're when you're crying out to God you say you're crying out to God for your children that are not yet married because you want them to be married you want them to raise up children for the glory of God like the ones that are already out there in the world they're serving the Lord that's great but don't forget to pray for those who are already married like they're just everything's cool now he's like you don't be don't remember to cry out to God for them. You know, it just really struck me here again, wow.

We kind of, I guess, forget maybe, or we just think, oh, it's all fine now, they're married. But we live in a nation where There's unfaithfulness that is rampant. We need to be crying out to God for our children, for our children's children, for the marriages in the church, for all those who claim the name of Christ, that they would be faithful to their spouses. And I send this out on the text loop probably at least once a year. Oh, how wonderful it will be if you can lay your head on your deathbed pillow one day and be able to say I was faithful to God and I was faithful to my spouse to the day I died, till this day.

What a wonderful thing that would be. And of course there's repentance. God also grants repentance. People say, you know, is He the God of a second chance? More than that.

Yes, more than that. He gives us His Son. You know, we have the forgiveness of sins through Him, and the good news is that we can start again when we've failed him. The second promise in the traditional wedding vows is for better or for worse. Some days are gonna be better, a lot of you know this, some worse.

But no matter how many days and years of your lives unfold, you're promising each other that nothing will part you, okay? 1 Corinthians 13 speaks of Christ's love for us, for this church, a love that never dies, a love that suffers long, a love that bears all things, a love that endures all things, a love that does not fail. In Romans 8 we read of the love of God for his people that has been revealed to us in Christ that nothing in heaven or earth or hell below shall ever be able to separate us from. It reads Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing.

Nothing that has ever been, nothing that ever will be, no power on earth, no power in hell below, nothing present, nothing to come, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of our Lord. Wow. And that love, the love of Christ for his people is the love that we're to imitate in our marriages. Can you say that today to your spouse? Nothing will separate my love from you by the grace of God.

The third promise, the traditional wedding vow is for richer for poorer. Some husbands and wives go further apart when financial trials come. I've seen it. Some wives pull away from their husbands in the face of financial challenges. Some husbands become distant from their wives.

Others draw near to each other as they draw nearer to God. They don't fall away from each other, they fall into each other's arms. And they cry out to God together in their distress, and God hears their cries and carries them through every storm of life. Their anchor holds because Christ is their anchor. Now imagine God, you know, who never moves.

He's always the same yesterday, today, forever. Here's God, and then here's the husband and the wife. You're now in this situation of trial, of distress, might be financial, might be some other issue, and you're driven to your knees, and you're driven closer to God. As you, too, grow closer to God, you may have seen this before, What's happening? You're growing closer together.

You're growing closer together. That's what happens with the Christian husband and wife. They grow closer together as they're growing. They're being driven to God and to Christ. We need you God, we need your help.

We're coming to you. We're drawing near to you God. And as they're drawing near to God, they're drawing closer to each other. One of them is not saved. One moves closer to God.

Another is distant. And we've seen that over and over again. But the Christian husband and wife, they don't fall away from each other in times of distress and trial and adversity. They fall together into each other's arms and cry out to God of their distress and they draw near to God and they grow closer together and their anchor holds because Christ is their anchor. Christ honoring husbands and wives know that all things work together for good to them that are the called of God according to his purpose.

The fourth promise in the traditional marriage vows is in joy and in sorrow. In every marriage there is inevitably going to come eras, times of both joy and sorrow. In God's providence, He ordained both sorrows and joy to His glory. And knowing that all we endure in this life is ultimately for the glory of God, shouldn't that be enough for us? That it's all for His glory.

But it's difficult. That great hymn of old, Hauferma Foundation, says, when through the deep waters I call thee to go. And we're all going to go through deep waters. You're going to go through deep waters. You may have already been through deep waters.

We've been through deep waters. Loss of loved ones, terrible distresses. When through the deep waters I call thee to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow. For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. Amen.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flames will not hurt thee. I only design thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine. Psalm chapter 30 promises the people of God that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. As I said a moment ago, some husbands and wives draw apart in times of trial and difficulties, while others, by God's grace, draw nearer to each other as they draw nearer to God, cleaving and clinging to each other in Christ's love for life.

Knowing that the grip of His tender and loving care, Because of the grip of his tender and loving care, we can face whatever he brings our way. The fifth promise is in sickness and in health. I don't know what people do. I don't know how they get through when they don't have a loving spouse, husband or wife in their time of sickness. Many in this congregation have been gravely ill.

I was in the hospital just Eight weeks ago, five days, blood transfusions. Praise God a Chinese natural herb saved my life. Yeah. But I always like to remind newly engaged couples of the story of the marriage of B.B. Warfield and his wife Annie.

Is anyone familiar with that story? So on their honeymoon, they're outdoors, they're walking, I think it was on a beach, and they're caught in this horrifying thunderstorm. And we don't know really from the account whether Annie was directly struck by lightning or not, but what we do know is that Annie Warfield was never the same after that night. She had to have special care for the rest of her life. So you think about that, here B.B.

Warfield was, he was supposed to be touring, going and touring, famous theologian, he's gonna be speaking all over the world, gets married on his wedding night. His wife is hurt terribly by this lightning bolt. She's never the same, and he has to care for her now the rest of his life, and so he stays home, and he cares for her. And instead of walking with her many times, he's carrying her. And then they're twenties.

I ask every young man who gets married, I ask them this question when they're about to be engaged. And I'm doing some of that counseling. I always ask them this question. So tell me if this girl that you're planning to marry, okay, If she were involved in a car accident tomorrow and she were thrown out of that car and her face was scraped off and she lost one or both of her legs, would you still marry her? And if you hesitate, if a young man hesitates for a second on that point, you're not ready to be married.

You're not ready to be married. The love of a man for his wife or a wife or a husband when something terrible happens to their spouse or their, the one they're engaged to or pursuing for marriage, grows, does not diminish. In times of great trial and affliction. He grows. I saw someone sent me a music video many years ago that began with a scene of a young married couple, and as the scenes of their lives unfolded, a time of strife came in their marriage, and there was arguing, and I'm going to talk about that next week in a message, controversial, but I don't believe that there should be arguments in marriage.

And yes, you can live in a marriage without arguing with each other. You can. It is possible. I'm not talking about perfection. I'm not a perfectionist.

I'm talking about as a standard for your life. But there's this arguing and the voices of a husband and wife being raised against each other, and it's very sad. And then the following scene focused on a small child, their child, who was witnessing this husband and wife, now father and mother, treating each other really badly. And the child was crying. And then at the end of the video the scene fades to 50 years later to the scene of an elderly man spoon-feeding his sick and dying wife who was lying on the bed in their home.

And they both had sweet expressions on their faces. They had overcome and conquered all. As I close, the final vows are promises to love and cherish each other until the day of death. It's God's intent. That's His intent for marriage, that we would love each other to our dying day.

Life is fleeting. One day we're married, the next day we're raising a family, God gives us children, and the next day one of us is caring for the other on a dying bed. It's fleeting. It's the blink of an eye. Jesus loved his own and he loved them to the end.

We read in the Gospel, John, oh that we would model his love for us and love our spouses, each of our spouses, each our spouses, to the end. In the Song of Solomon, we read, Love as strong as death, a most vehement flame. Oceans of water cannot quench it. All the money that a man could gather in his lifetime won't come close to being able to purchase it. To try would be utterly futile, I paraphrase.

I pray that will be the testament of the love every husband and wife in this room has for each other. A love as strong as death, vehement, always burning, unquenchable, because it is patterned for us in the love of Christ for His church, for us. Christ, who suffered and died for us and rose again for us, that where he is we may be also. Amen. Let's pray.

Oh Father, thank you for this time in your Word. Thank you for your mercies. Lord, I pray that you would grant every married couple in this room a life together of happiness and joy, even in the face of sorrows and sickness and trials and adversity, and that we would all together in Christ, every couple together in Christ, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, Lord, would just grow in that picture of Christ in His church that we have presented to us in Ephesians 5. Lord, we just pray for grace and mercy, for strength from You, who alone can help us as we seek to model Christ in His church as we see in your word. We love you, God, and we pray, Lord, as we approach this table, the Lord's table is set apart from all others, Lord, that you'd help us, God, to reflect on the things that we've heard.

And Lord, we all have room for improvement. Help us, God, to confess our sins in our marriage, in relationship to our marriage. And Lord strengthen our marriages. Strengthen them Lord by your grace for we ask it in Jesus name amen. Amen.