July 17th, 2016
Pastor Waldschmidt
The 6th Commandment
Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father and
from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Genesis 2:18-24
The 6th Commandment
MARRIAGE- God’s
Protective Shell
In the name of Jesus, the Foundation of all of families,
dear fellow redeemed;
A couple of weeks
ago I bought some charcoal at Menard’s.
The clerk forgot to stop the automatic roller at the checkout counter
and so the bag got to the end of the counter and the roller kept on
pushing. The bag ended up catching on
the edge of the roller and tore the bag.
It wasn’t a big hole in the bag but one of those pesky ones that left a
trail of charcoal dust on the counter and out of the store to the car and into
the trunk.
God’s gift of
marriage is the protective bag for the family.
As we look around our world, this gift of marriage is being twisted,
torn and pierced on every side from inside and out-sometimes we see rips in
marriage, other times little tiny holes that cause problems. Trails of hurt and destruction can be seen in
almost every family I can think we can think of. We could talk all day about the way that the
6th commandment is being broken in our world and in our lives but
maybe it would be good for us to step back today and look at God’s gift of
marriage and the blessings he has in mind- what God wants the family to
be. God’s gift of marriage and family provides a
protective shell in this world.
As
pastors we sometimes debate about preaching a sermon on a specific topic like
marriage, since I would imagine that perhaps only as many of 50-60% of the
people here today are married. But I
think marriages are somethings like farmers.
Everyone sort of takes farmers for granted. Though all of
us may not be farmers, we had better be concerned about how the farmers
are doing because that is where our food comes from. So it is that though all of us may not be
married, it certainly is important to know how marriages today are doing and
what God says about marriage, since marriages are a big part of the fabric of
our lives.
In Genesis 1’s
account of the creation we hear, “God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” I’m somewhat of
a plain person. My wife laughs at me
because I order chocolate or vanilla ice cream at Baskin Robbins 31 flavors and
I scrape the catsup, mustard and onions off of my hamburgers at
McDonald’s. But our God is a God of
exciting variety. Instead of making a
string of robot clones, God created them male and female. That variety would not stop with Adam and
Eve. We’re told “God blessed them and
said, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” In the midst of all the variety, God in his
wisdom chose that a marriage consist of one man and one woman. In chapter 2, God says, “For this reason a
man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.” So there would be a commitment to a
lifelong union. In other words, a
promise to stay together for life. “They
will be one flesh,” the Bible says. Jesus explained in the Scripture, that this
union is a lifelong union when he said in our Scripture lesson, “What God has
joined together, let man not separate.” Marriage would be a protective shell
were husbands and wives could come and find comfort and peace and joy. Into some of those marriages God places
children dear to him. Jesus showed how
he wanted a stable safe place for children when after Jesus said this, he went
on to take the children in his arms and blessed them.
One man, one
woman and a promise to stay together for life with God’s help. These are the basic pieces of a marriage. Did you notice that love isn’t mentioned here
as God institutes marriage? Oh love
certainly is understood in two people who promise to stay together for
life. But certainly in every marriage
there are times when the love “feeling” that husband and wife have for each
other reaches new heights and other times when it sinks to new lows. There might a few times when my wife loves
me more the day that we were married and
I know for sure there are days that she loves me less. I’m sure that there are days when my wife
doesn’t love me very much, like when I snap at her, or leave my socks on the
floor or butter my toast over the counter and the crumbs go flying
everywhere. “Love” comes and goes but
the promise, the commitment remains the same.
That’s commitment by two sinful human beings would seem to make the protective
shell weak and vulnerable, but with God’s help that commitment gives marriage
Are you finding
yourself in a marriage where it seems the love is at a low point? That doesn’t mean the marriage is over. The promise is still there. The Savior upon whom you built your marriage
is still there. He promises his
help. Husbands, we need to take the
lead, as Paul says, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.” As husbands and fathers we need to stop
thinking of ourselves and put the interests and welfare of our wives ahead of
our own, like Jesus put our interests ahead of his own.
I know that many
of you have green thumbs. You know just
how to take care of plants. You know if
this one needs a little sun or if that one needs a little water. So it is with God. He knows just what his creatures need. “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the
man to be alone. I will make a helper
suitable for him. Now the Lord God has
formed out of the ground all the beasts if the field and all the birds of the air. 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. So the man gave names to all the
livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” God gave Adam the privilege of naming all the
animals, but the Lord also had another blessing in mind for Adam as all the
animals were brought before him. “But
for Adam, no suitable helper was found.”
God wanted Adam to see that all of the other animals had their mates,
yet there was no one like Adam, no one for Adam
to share his life with. God brings
out in Adam a longing for a blessing of marriage, the blessing of
companionship. The loving Creator in a
unique and special way made a companion for Adam. “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 closed
up the place with flesh. Then the Lord
God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man.” With the same love and care God used in
fashioning the man, the creator now carefully makes a woman. Then the heavenly match maker, “brought her
to the man. Then 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.” In a spouse, God blessed Adam with a
companion- someone to laugh with or to
laugh at dumb jokes, someone to cry with, someone to listen to dreams and
fears, someone who can most of the time tell what he was thinking and maybe
even finish his sentences. In a very
real way, God unites Adam and Eve in one flesh.
“For this reason
a man shall leave his Father and mother and be united to his wife and they will
become one flesh.” Another blessing God
gives us in marriage is the “becoming one flesh” in the sexual union. Sometimes, people think that God is somehow
against sex. No, God is the one who
invented and created sex. But God
created sex to be used with in a framework.
The framework of marriage. I
received a new weed eater for Father’s Day.
That thing works great for trimming the lawn, but not so good for
trimming my hair. If I use it for that
I’m not using it according to the manufacturer’s directions. That’s true for God’s gift of sex too. If we use that gift outside of marriage then
we get hurt and hurt others. That’s why
God says “Marriage should be honored by
all and the marriage bed kept pure.”
Did you
hear the excitement in Adam’s voice?
This was something special! Yet how
people poke holes in God’s special gift of marriage- how we poke holes in God’s
gift of marriage. Maybe it is with how
we talk about our spouse-“the ole ball and chain.” Maybe it is by the things watched on computer
screens -images of things that God meant to be protected, images of bodies
created to be God’s temple- plastered across the internet. When it comes right down to it sins against
the sixth commandment are very much sins of selfishness. I want this and I want that. I want to be happy now and I don’t even want
to think about the cost- the hurt to others, the hurt to my God. You and I sinners one and all have not done
what God demands in connection with the sixth commandment or any other
commandment. We deserve only God’s wrath
and punishment. We come to God with the
prayer, ”nothing in my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling.” And God for Jesus sake receives us. Like prodigal sons and daughters, He receives
us in. He throws his arms around us and
speaks words of forgiveness in the ears of our hurting souls through his word
and in his Holy Supper.
God could
have sent Jesus into this world in an armored bubble or a stone fortress. Instead of that, God placed His Son into a
family. God used a family to protect
him- to keep him safe as he went about his work of being the Savior. Jesus never got married or had children, God
had something else in mind for him.
Jesus would kept that perfect respect for God’’s gift of marriage for
us. His thoughts were always clean and
pure thoughts for us. His death paid for
all of our sins against the 6th commandment in what we have said and
done and thought. His love moves us to
love others- to not be selfish, to put
others ahead of ourselves. It moves us
to work at having our homes be a homes of comfort and protection.
Marriage
is a neat gift from God. More than that
it symbolizes our relationship with our God.
Paul talked about that in our Scripture lesson today when he talks about
marriage, “This is a profound
mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Marriage is a picture of the protecting shell
God puts around us. He loves us and
takes care of us.
If you are married here today, make a promise in your heart today that with God’s help, your marriage will be a marriage that God ends by closing your
or your spouses eyes in death. Young
people when you stand before God’s altar make your marriages the kind of
marriages that bring back again the 50
and 60th wedding celebrations. Let’s all
of us work at standing out from the world in love and purity in this world that
needs Jesus.
Marriage
and family stand as God’s protective shells when we can get come out of the
wicked winds of the world and take a break.
Marriage and family need to be protecting in this world where the devil
has his pitchfork out. Seems
impossible. But we have a God with us who
loves us and is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. He protects us. Amen.
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