are important. Nuances sometimes are important. They can change the way, they can change the flavour of the way that we think about something and it might get us a little bit off track to the way that God had originally intended for us. Emphases are important, nuances are important. saying that because this week I've walked through a little bit of a minefield in the verses that we're looking at today, Genesis chapter 2, and we're going to look from verse 18 to the rest of the chapter. It's a minefield not because of the subject, it's our doing that it's a minefield, it's only a minefield created in a Genesis 3 world, and the pressure for some on getting this subject right is pretty high. pressure doesn't just come from the world around us that have all of these ideas and expectations about what we should believe on this subject, but actually there are differences within the wider church. Here is the subject, manhood, womanhood, marriage and roles. Tell me that that hasn't become a minefield. Within the church, there are descriptive terms given to different ways that sometimes churches or particular people define doctrines of manhood and womanhood. I want to just give a few to you this morning, just as examples. Some take a position called biblical patriarchy. You might not have even heard of that. That would be an elevation The nuance, the flavour of that is an elevation of masculine authority in the home, the church, and it must also be in society. You'll often hear language or rhetoric sounding a little bit like a war against the feminising of men, and believe me, I mean, I hope we all want men to be men, biblically, and women to be women. Don't hear me not saying that. But some emphasize that as a war in society. On the other end of the spectrum is egalitarianism. Maybe you've heard of that word. The eradication of any gender limitation for roles in the home, in the church, or in the wider society. So, one is the elevation of masculine hierarchy everywhere. And the other is a commitment to gender neutrality everywhere. There's another one that I want to bring forward to you this morning, and it's a term called complementarianism. position that holds that God has given distinctive and yet complementary roles to husbands and wives to work in unity to fulfil God's purpose for them. It's depicted in marriage and it is also depicted in the functioning leadership of the church. This is a closer description or a closer label to what our church elders hold and what we would be leading our church in teaching as a biblical understanding of gender relations in marriage in the church, certainly for me. But here's the problem, holding a label, just holding a label in itself, because oftentimes people get very, very passionate about their label, don't we? Holding a label doesn't in and of itself protect us from abusive leadership, mistreatment of women, or the defilement of marriage. Egalitarians, patriarchists, and complementarians have all been guilty of these sins. And quite frankly, I'm overcome with disappointment whenever I hear it happening in the church. you have no idea how recently I've heard it. In our precious Jesus, we should all know better. So, theologian Dr Andy Nasselli wrote about this in an article and he was discussing the nuances and he was particularly looking at the patriarchal and the complementarian positions or labels and the nuances between the two and one little line that he wrote really struck me, said this, God designed both complementarity and hierarchy, that's true, but what matters most is not the label but what we mean by it. Amen to that. Do you want to know how we value men and women in marriage in the church? Let's not get it from a label. I have a label in that way, I have a leaning, what I'm convicted of biblically, but let's not just get it because it's somebody else's label, let's get it from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Let's get it from what God intended for us originally. Here's our thesis as we centre in today. We've been in Genesis for a number of weeks now, and in our portion of Genesis today, on God's creation of Eve. That's what we come up to. We're coming up to the creation of woman. The first ever woman created, and in that, the first ever marriage created. This is going to be a wonderful thing to think through, really. I want to put this to you. In Christ, we who are in Christ, who should be redeemed to what God has originally intended for us, right? So that's why I say, in Christ. In Christ, we elevate the dignity of men and women as demonstrated in the first ever marriage, and it should be pictured in His church. where we're going this morning. As we approach this text this morning, I want you to do something for me. I'm just going to ask you to really try hard to do this with me. At least try. I want you to take off some interpretative glasses that you might have. I want you to take off your glasses of position bias and look at the text. I want you to take off your glasses tainted by your sin of selfishness, what you want for me. I would like you to try your hardest to take off your glasses influenced by the cultural norms around us and the expectations of society. And I want you to take off the glasses that are so influenced by Genesis 3 gender conflict as a result of what happens because of sin. Let's just do our very best this morning, because we're looking at a pre-sin portion of Scripture, Genesis 1 and 2. where we're going to start here is Adam. That's where we've been in Genesis 2 so far, we've just had Adam, no Eve. Adam, perfectly formed, given life by God in a perfectly beautiful garden, it's full of provision, full of provision, beautiful animals, rivers, jewels, beautiful trees, the responsibility that he has to work and keep the garden, and the covenantal relationship that God has set up with him. All of that is Adam, just in the garden, just Genesis 2. And as beautiful as that sounds, this picture is not complete. It's not complete. There's only an Adam. there's only one suitable helper for man to live out God's purpose, only one. Look at what we read in Genesis 2, 18 to 20, then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him a helper fit for him.' Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him." Now, so far as we've walked through Genesis, and particularly in Genesis 1, we have only heard the word good on its own, right? Good, good! Genesis 1 is full of it, every stage of creation at the end of each day, at the end of each consecutive aspect, sequence of the creation order. We've heard God say, he saw that it was what was made and what he made and it was good. And then we had a summary at the end of the creation of humanity on the sixth day, very good. But now, in Genesis 2, we've seen over these last few weeks that Moses has taken us a step back, hasn't he? And we now have a concentrated look at the creation of humanity. God formed Adam from the dust of the earth, breathed into him the breath of life, and put him into the garden. Alone. alone. Gave him responsibility and work and keep the garden, but so far, alone. To serve and protect this garden, alone. God gave him covenant terms, to him, so far, alone. But for man, alone is not good. when Moses writes here, not good, he doesn't mean that God has done something morally wrong, please don't hear that ever, he means that we cannot yet say good about Adam without an Eve in the world, because humanity is incomplete, humanity is incomplete. And let me tell you, I mean, many of you look at me and you can't say much good about Steve without a Trish in the world, right? Now, in saying that, I need to put a caveat here. Adam's role in the garden is impossible without Eve, but Adam is completely human and he's completely man. He's a complete human being. So, I don't want you, if you're single, in here this morning, hearing me saying, if you're single, you're not complete, you're not a complete person, you're not a complete human being. I'm not saying that. Jesus was single, wasn't he? Jesus was the perfectly complete human being in every way, but whether single or married, what we are finding is that Christians see God's purpose for us and we have an incredibly high view of marriage. incredibly high view of marriage. And in Genesis 1, we learned that God was spreading His glory through fruitful multiplication, through marriage and family. We have a huge, high view of marriage. But right here, right now, at the beginning of what we're looking at today, Adam's alone. Now, I know some of you My wife is one. Some of you like to be homebodies, don't you? You like your alone time, yeah? But none of us are made to be alone. I hope you hear me on that. God created a wife for Adam because we absolutely need companionship and community. Marriage is not just about procreation, brothers and sisters, it's about companionship, partnership as well, intimacy, even pleasure. Look at the way that Adam has to realise that he's alone. Just look at the text because we're going to see this in verse 19 and 20. God brought the animals, you see Him bringing them to Him and He made them and He brought them before Adam. Now, I can't help wonder if that was actually a lot like the way that God brought male and female of every kind of animal to Noah when they were going on the ark. Is it the same? Right? Possibly, because he got every kind of land-dwelling, air-breathing animal, every kind, coming past him, and Noah ends up being like a next Adam along the way, the next expectancy of one who is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. I wonder if Adam witnesses two of every kind walking male and female past him, and Adam is given authority by God, it's an authoritative direction that he has to name them. And I'm thinking that takes a fair amount of time, probably, even if it's just naming the basic kinds, the family groups, right? Not all the variations of speciation that we have from animals, just the animal kinds, right? Dog kind, cat kind, not all the different kinds of cats, right? Just the one with all the genetic variability within it that gives us all the species of that kind, right? So cat kind, something, maybe something like a lion or something. Definitely not a domestic cat. They don't happen until after the fall, right? Sorry, Jill. Regardless, right, I'm thinking it takes a bit of time and God is doing this and wow, I think it's probably a pretty amazing scene, just put yourself into it for a moment. I'd love to have seen it, I'd love to have been there and seen Adam doing this in his pre-fall brilliance, with perfect human capacity, studying the glory of God's creativity, walking before Him, and as the representative image-bearer of God, the one who is the vice-regent under God, naming, naming, naming the lesser, lesser and yet magnificent creatures that show God's glory. What an incredible picture that is. They all are walking past, they all have pairing, they all have a mate. because they are reproducing, to reproduce across the earth. But not one of them that walks past him is a suitable helper for him. Do you notice, before Eve comes along, Adam is shown this. He's shown all of these. None of them is a suitable helper. Yeah, you know what, in time he might be able to put a yoke over a couple of bulls and plough a field. He might be able to ride a horse, he might be able to train a dog, but using an animal and having a true companion to truly help him in the understanding of his responsibility is a completely different thing. To someone, to come alongside him and help him in this incredible image bearing that he and this other one would have, nothing, nothing in front of him. A companion in God's image, nothing in front of him. Don't miss the profound significance of verse 20. Look at verse 20, but for Adam, for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. This is expectation, anticipation should be rising up as you read this text. We're looking for something especially wonderful. something to be a glorious, fitting completion of God's work to bring about the spread of God's glory across the whole world. Nothing else in all of creation is suitable for Adam and there's this incompleteness of his situation and it's absolutely proven to be incomplete, he realises, but secondly, God created marriage. a way that epitomises, it points to, the value and beauty of, and in this case, Genesis 2, we're talking about the creation of Eve, women. Women. Look at verse 21 and 22 with me. So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And here is God making this incomplete situation complete. The end of verse 20 says, there was not a helper fit for Adam. And I think the next verses could just easily be summarized this way from verse 21 to 23, so the Lord God made a helper fit for Adam. Among the plethora of creatures, Adam is alone in his role and responsibilities as the sole image bearer. Adam needs what is described as a helper fit for him to do what he can never do alone. Not any helper. a fitting helper. So, before we really look at verse 21 and 22 this morning, we've got to go back and look at these words in verse 20 to understand them. Helper and fitting, helper and fitting, those two words. Listen, unfortunately, our society and our own sin-cursed, self-centred hearts have defined or described this word helper as something like an undesirable term. I think, in fact, we've confused helper and thought about it as a rank rather than a role. And let me suggest to you that is the wrong way to think about it. So, I'm asking you to take off your culturally biased glasses for a moment, if you've got them, and consider with me helper in its Genesis 2 context. We have this, the woman, the wife that God is creating for Adam is being described by how she is going to be a fitting partner for Adam. Genesis 1 has already told us her status. Genesis 1 has already told us her value, her equal value, her rank is equal to Adam as being an image bearer in God's image. He created them, male and female, he created them in his image. That's where our value is, that's where our value is. We have equality of value, men and women created in the image of God. That's their equal status of being, equal value and worth. And Adam sees, before Eve comes on the scene, that there's no creature on earth that matches that. But we still have this problem with this word, helper. We look at helper and we think, oh, Eve is made for some menial task. Listen. Eve is not some mere servant in an aristocratic household, as if she's not actually a part of the home or the family, she's just merely the help, right? The word for help in the Hebrew is the word ezer, ezer, has glorious overtones. It is even used of God. Psalm 121 verse 1 and 2, I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. Look at that, God helps. 1 Samuel 7, Samuel, when the Philistines were coming upon Israel, and God gave them victory. He delivered Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, and Samuel sets up this stone in praise of God, and he calls this stone Eben-Ezer. Ezer is the word for help there, Eben-Ezer, Ebenezer, which means the Lord has helped us. That's why in the hymn, Come Thou Fount, you know that line many of us write. Here I raise my Ebenezer, here by thy great help I've come. Here I raise, the Lord is my helper. By his help alone have I come. How often do you hear us pray? Even from the pulpit in our prayer time, help us, Lord, help us, help us. Is God somehow lesser because we ask this? Is He beneath us because we ask this? No. We are saying we can't do it alone. We need God. Now, I know that horizontally, it's infinitely less a need with each other than we have in the infinite need that we have vertically with God, right? It's completely, as far as that's concerned, there's an infinite difference. But on an infinitely less horizontal level, man needs his wife. I wonder, guys, if we actually say that to ourselves and believe it. We do. We do. God has created us this way. Please, let's stop at, we need to stop looking at leading and helping as ranks rather than roles. In rank, please understand something, Jesus outranks every one of us. But listen to the humility of Jesus in His role to come and help us in the greatest help He could give, salvation. Mark 10, 45, even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. My dear brothers and sisters, how we have misrepresented helping. Oh man, how we have done that. how we so easily overlook our need for help, how important it is. And you know, you might say, well it's all good for you, you're standing up, you're the one preaching, you're the one talking to us and we're listening, we're the ones taking this, but I might be standing in front of you and preaching the word from my mouth, but I am under no illusion to say that the ministry of the word in our church, preaching whoever is doing this, is impossible without help. Deacons who administer, who look after our church building, others who play music, others who administer our fellowship times, some who clean, some who design artistically, people who arrange care for others, all of us who take a meal, those who counsel, those who simply encourage and pray. It's helping the central importance of the ministry of the gospel in our church. We all need to help for that. For the spread of God's glory. Adam's role in the garden was to lead in the spread of the beauty and goodness and glory of God in the world. Now put yourself in Adam's shoes, being told to work and keep, come into covenant relationship with God, the God of the universe, and find yourself crying out, I need help. Now put yourself in Eve's shoes, coming to Adam. I am God's gift of help for you. helper. The other word is fit, a helper fit, fitting for him. The second word, fit, is equally important. In the Hebrew, it's actually a compound word. What I mean by that, it's two separate words made up to be one word, and it's two words, one is a preposition and one is a noun, and it's actually really cool. The preposition part of this word means as or like, the same, but the noun part of this word actually means opposite, or corresponding to, or distinct. And so, the word means, fitting, means same, and yet distinct, same, corresponding to. It's in the very definition of this word that we can get the idea of complementarity. The same and yet distinct. Complementary. There is a complementary distinction because there is sameness and yet there is distinction. Listen. And without that it doesn't work. You've got to have complementary distinctions for something to work properly. I hate the cold. You know, if I had have known what winters were like in Cincinnati, and I know that we don't have the harshest winters, right, but compared to Brisbane, Australia, we do. And if I had have known that, I may not have come. But we did. But I hate the freezing cold. After 15 years of living here, you'd think I'd get used to it, but I haven't really. I learned quickly not to face the freezing cold with bare hands. They've been frozen too many times, and I've made the mistake of putting them under hot water afterwards, you know. I've done that sort of stuff. I needed something complementary, but distinct from my hand to help me. So one of these that looks a bit like a hand, right? But it's opposite to my hand. But really, it's a perfect fit. And there's no way I'm facing the freezing weather without it. Complementary is important, it works. Complementary has enormous scope. the task ahead of being fruitful and multiplying and having dominion and spreading God's glory. There are different aspects of our complementarity. If you even look in the text, you'll see them. There is physical complementarity. How do I know that? Because they're told to be fruitful and multiply. That doesn't happen without physical complementarity. Listen, Adam doesn't want another Adam. That would be not complementarity, that would be self-idolatry. needs an Eve and without her there is no fruitfulness or multiplying, not just physical complementarity, but role complementarity. God had already given Adam authority as a leader, you see it in different aspects of the text, the fact that he is receiving from God the instructions to work and keep in the garden, it's his responsibility. He is receiving the instructions of the covenant with God that he's to keep. He is told to name the animals. Naming something is an authoritative position. God is giving him that under God's ultimate kingship, but he's giving Adam authority. He even names, you'll see in this text in a minute, he even names, he's even told to name the woman, the woman. He names her woman, Adam does. He's clearly a leader. Who needs a helper? This is where our culture steps in. Those glasses I've told you to take off. Here is where our culture steps in. Why should Adam get to be the leader? How dare you keep me down? So take the glasses off. Because all you're doing is undervaluing the selfless glory of helping. to say, why do I have to serve a leader? Well, let me tell you, if you're saying that, you've also confused the self-sacrificing nature of what a leader is supposed to be. This is how Paul explains leadership in marriage to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 that we read earlier. Husbands, love your wives, how? As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. our leader, as our groom, the church's groom. Jesus loved us to the point of sacrificing His life for us. The roles of leader and helper are both selfless, they're both sacrificial in their own way. You don't go from being sacrificial to non-sacrificial, you go from being sacrificial to sacrificial if you want that. all to sacrifice, we're all to be selfless, and we're undermining God's roles for us. There is no way you're going to read in Genesis 2 here and think of despot and slave, it's just not there. When we assume roles contrary to God's created order, what we are trading is selflessness for self. God created a selfless complementary union for the purpose of His glory. Now, in one last consideration of complementary, what is complementary? We've had physical, we've had roles, I think if we're honest, we could go beyond physical and roles, couldn't we, in what's complementary between men and women, husband and wife? I hope you know that we can, just in our masculinity, just in our femininity. I couldn't help but meditate a little more on this, this week. Look, I've been married for 35 years. Someone give Trish a medal, right? I do, I mean, I'm a slow learner, but I do know that there is something different about my wife more than physicality and roles. The complementary distinctions between me and Trish are far-ranging. There is a beautiful femininity to my wife that I need in situations in so many areas that my masculinity needs. I don't need to take on femininity for me, I need her femininity. Are you hearing that distinction? It's a big distinction. Let me tell you, particularly in the light of our wicked hearts since Genesis 3, Paul has to tell men in 1 Timothy 2, don't come into the church angry, but come in raised hands in praise to the Lord. Because we can just be that way. If our masculinity led in our sinful hearts without the influence of our ladies' femininity in our homes and churches, they could become ugly, brutal places. God knows what we need. so he created Eve in all of the wonder of what a woman is, and that's what we're seeing in this text, and that's one of the reasons I'm actually not a patriarchy guy. Let me say that a little bit more. It's just some of the rhetoric that I hear in that group sometimes is, is the nuance or the emphasis of masculine domination rhetoric in that camp that doesn't always capture the fittingness of what God has given to man and his wife. Now, I'm not saying that there's not biblical hierarchy, I'm not saying that men need to be men, of course they do, absolutely. it's often in the patriarchy camp that emphasises masculinity to the extent that often that nuance buries the complementarity under hierarchy. And we need to be careful. Well, how does that flow out? Well, there's some in that camp that have even restricted their wives not being able to come under the direct ministry of the church without their presence. That's not leadership and helping in complementary distinctives, that's dominating control. We are simply not there. Not in the way we teach fatherly leadership in the home, not in the way that our biblical complementarian view of male-only eldership works in the church. Our complementarian leadership in the church is one that reflects the fittingness of Genesis 2. We seek to serve and to listen and involve men and women as we shepherd the flock. Because it's not my church, it's Christ's, yes? So now look carefully at how God does make this fitting helper for Adam. Look at verse 21 and 22. He puts Adam to sleep. That's like God giving him an anaesthetic. He takes from his side or a rib, and the EESV says, and made it into a woman. Made into a woman, made. That word for made is a word that means to build or fashion or develop here. So for Adam, who was made from dust, Something from Adam is taken from his side, so basically, still from the same lump of clay, same essence, and if you're a builder or a developer, you take that in its raw material and you develop it into something wonderful, and here she is. And look at what God does then. He brought her to the man. Don't step over those words. He brought her to the man. She's from Him, she's for Him. God brought her to Him, His wife. A couple of weeks ago, was great, we had a weekend, there was two weddings from couples in our church on the same weekend, it was fantastic. I had this opportunity, anybody who saw them did, had this opportunity of, well I had twice this opportunity of seeing a father bring the bride to her husband. There were others that walked before and it was like, they're not it, then in the white and the... this. And it's almost like we've got this same thing, this procession, this same procession, you know, here are a bunch of creatures that are magnificent and beautiful but they're not it. And if I played music to reading this text of Scripture, it would be, here comes the bride. and God brought her to him. The animal's not suitable, but he brought Eve, his bride, to show him who is a suitable helper. And look at Adam's poetic response. Then the man said, this, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. Woman, in Hebrew, ishah. because she was taken out of man, man in Hebrew, ish, ish and isha, man and woman. and Adam says, at last. Actually, literally, the translation is, this time, this time, and I like that translation. Why? Because Adam, just remember, Adam has named and seen every creature that God has made, and they've all walked past him, and in this expectation that he doesn't, he's alone, he doesn't have one, and now, this time, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, like me, fitting, fitting, like me, someone who will understand what it will be to reflect God's glory, someone who will understand what it means to spread God's glory across the world. Look at this poetic attraction. And I want to suggest to you, I want to suggest to you that it's something more than, yes, she's beautiful. I mean, yes, she's beautiful. But if you're limiting Adam's attraction to external beauty, I think you've missed the context of the fitting helper that Genesis 2 is putting the anticipation and the expectation of. I just think you're missing that context. She's like him to fulfill God's purpose for them It's more than, bazinga, she's gorgeous, right? It's more than that. God has supplied another as the pinnacle of creation to reflect himself, to share it, share it with Adam, to help Adam, from Adam, for Adam, to enjoy God together in reflecting his glory. That is the context of attraction. are we so superficial when it comes to attraction? Why? Why are we so superficial on the outside is what hits us. We need to ask what our attraction would be like if we took on the attraction of the context of Genesis 2. The attraction of a helper for me to live for God's glory, that attraction. the beautiful gift that that is. We need to ask ourself what our attraction would be like if we were like that. The attraction of a wife or a potential wife that is more than physical appearance. She is the helper in unity and partnership to be like us and different to us for the glory of the reflection of God in the world. Single guys, I'm just pleading with you for a moment. Start knowing who you really need. Who you really ought to be attracted to. Have a more, single girls, have a more attractional view, a higher view of the glory of being a helper. Married men, can you please re-evaluate your view of your wife and see her as something so precious in the gift of a helper that some of you might not be leading. Married ladies, how about valuing your helpfulness in new and beautiful ways? Because marriage is more than attraction. And you say, oh yeah, you're just saying that. No, it's in the next verses. It's more than attraction, it's a covenantal relationship that is a one flesh union, and it can only be so because of complementarity, and that's where we're going to finish. Look at the next verses, the covenant of marriage is beautifully reflected in Christ and the church. Genesis 2, 24 and 25, therefore, therefore, because of this incredible complementarity, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Look at how closely entwined God wants this complementary union to be. There are covenantal terms here. It's a covenantal bond. you might say, Steve, the word covenant isn't there. No, but it's how the rest of Scripture talks about it. Let me give you an example, the prophet Malachi rebuked Israelites for their frivolously low view of marriage. in Malachi 2.14, within there he says this, "...because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by..." Look at that word, covenant. What is that covenant? You will leave mother and father and be joined to your wife and become one flesh. You're binding to what you had before, your parental family, it's overruled now by being bound to your wife. You've formed a new family, even without kids yet. You are one unit, one flesh. You're the complementary union that God has foremost established, foremost established. Some parents need to hear that, don't we, right? not saying we can't advise and help our sons and daughters when they get married, it does mean that we can't dominate, interfere, expect and intrude. One flesh is such a descriptive term, isn't it? And it can't just be physical, although it is, but emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, in every facet of life, every stage, every calling and vocation, every relationship, oneness. We are one, never to be broken. That's the intention of this, never to be broken. And that's why Jesus refers to this verse, this verse in Genesis 2, when he talks about God's expectation for the seriousness and permanency of marriage. Matthew 19, 6, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Now, this is where I just have to acknowledge something. I know we live in a Genesis 3 world. it's heartbreaking. Some of you have gone through some heartbreaking things. There's divorce because of a Genesis 3 world. Some of you have sadly experienced that tragedy. And the reality is that Christians do see it as a tragedy. We don't celebrate it. It's not an unredeemable tragedy by the grace of God, thank God. But also, it's not an easy way out, is it? we look for the permanency of a beautiful covenantal union that reflects God's glory in everything that He created. The most beautiful of that union that we've ever seen in this world between two human beings is in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, before sin comes into the world. And that's why I want to end with this last verse today, because you see something beautiful in it that you and I have never seen and frankly, we won't experience until eternity till the new creation. Verse 25, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed, not ashamed. Trish and I have grandkids and every now and again we have a little human, his name is Reed, who wants to run around the house without clothes. And I want to say, have you no shame? Now here's the reality, they're not perfect, they're born as sinners, but there's something about them that so far they haven't really learned of the devastating realities of sin that bring shame. They're gonna learn that, because we've all learned it. They have no reason for mistrust or embarrassment, no confusion. But in a sinless way, that's Adam and Eve in the garden. complete trust, complete confidence in each other, complete joy. It's only from Genesis 3 onward that you will see all through Scripture's nakedness actually becomes a depiction of the shame of sin. The union between Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 is completely without that. It needs to be redeemed because of sin, doesn't it? there's a way that it has been redeemed because it's seen in the bride with its groom who is the Redeemer. Let's finish in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 31 to 33 this morning, where we read from this morning. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let his wife see that she respects her husband. Writing to the church in Ephesus, Paul talks to husbands and wives about their roles and relationships. He reflects it back to this marriage covenant in Genesis 2. He's directly quoting Genesis 2. But look at what he adds. the marriage covenant reflects Christ and His church. Our church, it's part of the bride of Christ, we're the bride. And the way our church is structured in its leadership, the way we know ourselves to be the bride of Christ, the way we long to serve and love our Lord as His bride, it's all reflected in what God originally created in marriage in Genesis 2. And as we look at Christ and His church, we see a far better picture of what marriage can ever be in this Genesis 3 world, because we see the perfection of Jesus, and we see His covering for His sinful church, His righteous covering. Christ loves His bride so much that He gave Himself up for her unfaithfulness, and He covered her with His righteousness. He took all our sin, He placed it on Himself so that in her place He could pay her debt, restore her to reconciled relationship with God. And Christ in the church is the perfect picture of the sacrificial love of a husband for the sake of God's glory and the committed loving submission of a bride living with her husband to expand God's glory across the earth. The greatest fulfillment of marriage ever, the picture that shows the absolute value and beauty of men and women, husband and wife. In Christ, we elevate the dignity of men and women as demonstrated in the first ever marriage and pictured in His Church. Let's pray. Lord, I pray for every husband in this room that he might look at his wife with new eyes.