Friday: Christian Marriage

Sermon: Sex and the Christian Marriage

Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30

In this week’s lessons, we learn how contemporary culture approaches sex, and see how Christians are to think and act differently, as Jesus taught.

Theme: Christian Marriage

In the final analysis, however, even running is not the solution. For although it will help for the moment, it will not do so permanently. Real and lasting victory requires a more powerful and more vigorous philosophy to defeat it. 

Is there such a philosophy? Certainly there is—only we should say "theology" for it is tied up, as it must be, with the nature and the purposes of God. It is not sex alone, although sex is part of it. It is not abstinence, and it is not indulgence. It is marriage, Christian marriage, marriage on the highest possible plane, marriage as God intended marriage to be, marriage as an illustration of the union of the Christian with Christ. Oh, I know that much of what passes for Christian marriage is not Christian. And I know that even Christian marriages are often joyless, drab affairs. But this is defeat. It is failure. The proper antidote is not hedonism or negation, but rather a high and ennobling grasp of what marriage should be and can be, when a man and a woman are united by God and enjoy the privileges of sex within that relationship. 

We are going to be talking about marriage more next week. But before I go on, I want to say one thing to each of two different classes of people. The first class comprises those who are not married, and there are always many of them. Sometimes when one speaks about marriage, those who are not married get the feeling that they are incomplete if they remain single. But this is not true. As we shall see, the sexual relationship is only a part of being married. And the fullness of sex involves being male and female on a much broader scale, much of which is natural and possible even apart from a sexual relationship. What is more, even as wonderful as it can be, marriage is still only an earthly picture of the greater relationship of Jesus Christ to the Church. And there is always the possibility of wholeness and fulfillment of the whole personality with Him. We all need to remember that. 

The second word is to those who are going to be saying as we go on talking about marriage, “Yes, that is all right. That is what marriage should be. And one should remain pure before marriage and faithful afterwards. But I have not done that, and it is too late for me now." The answer to this type of person is, "No, it is not too late." The glory of the way in which God deals with sinful men and women, as we all are, is that God is able to pick us up where we are, and as we are, and set us in His way which is always a way of blessing. God can do that with you no matter how far you have fallen. I would far rather counsel a man or a woman who has become mixed up in a sinful sexual relationship, than attempt to counsel a hypocrite, a gossip, or a person who is overly proud. For it is much easier to help one who has yielded to the sins of the flesh than one who has indulged in the sins of the spirit.

All that is true, and yet the best way is to avoid the sins entirely as God gives us grace. And He will, if we will yield to Him and allow Him to bless us in our sexual relationships. 

Study Questions:

1. Why is Christian marriage a theological reality, bound up as it is with the nature and purposes of God?
2. How can unmarried Christians sometimes be wrongly treated or regarded by Christians who are married? Why is this unbiblical?
3. For those who have not maintained biblical standards of sex, why is it not too late to hear about proper Christian marriage?

Key Point: The glory of the way in which God deals with sinful men and women, as we all are, is that God is able to pick us up where we are, and as we are, and set us in His way which is always a way of blessing. God can do that with you no matter how far you have fallen.

Reflection: How has God picked you up out of your sin, and put you on His path of blessing?