Genesis 1:28

July 18, 2021

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

Or, Making Marriage Great Again

Genesis 1:28

Introduction

The Revelation series is finished, and I probably won’t start a new book study until September. There are a few things I desire to preach about until then. Marriage is one of them.

Marriage has been on my mind a lot recently, and the wedding yesterday was certainly a part of that. My upcoming message at the youth retreat is about what the Lord Jesus would have us do in our relationships, and this message is a version of something I spoke to them a couple summers ago. It especially relates to the kind of church, made up of the kind of families, extending into the kind of community, we pray God would make us into.

For young people (like the 27 single gals waiting to catch the bride’s bouquet), for parents raising those young people, and grandparents talking with all of them, we are not raising kids as much as we are raising reinforcements.

Though the song has problems, the chorus of a song called “Daughters,” rightly considered, is convicting:

So fathers be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers be good to your daughters, too

—“Daughters” by John Mayer

So let’s think through this together, starting with two questions.

Who do you know who has the best fellowship? This requires that you have some idea about what makes some fellowship better than others, but I trust you.

What is the result of that fellowship? This answer doesn’t need more than one or two words.

I don’t mean this exercise to be tricky. The answer to the first question is a no-brainer. Those who have the best fellowship are the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. The result of their fellowship was to create human beings. Their joy and love multiplied, it spilled over, so that even more persons could taste some of the joy and love of divine fellowship. The earth, the heavens, time, Twitter, Tik-Tok, Instagram, What’sApp, old-school water-coolers, and corporate coffee pots, back patios and front porches, tables full with bread and wine, are all a result of God’s fellowship overflowing into the human race. Before social media was social man, and before man was the Trinity.

We can state it more succinctly: God’s blessed fellowship was fruitful.

He did not make us because He was bored; His existence was perfect and glad and happy, He is “the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11), “the blessed and only Sovereign” (1 Timothy 6:15). He did not make us so that He would have someone to domineer; His authority draws us up and in. Eternally blessed/happy Persons created a world for the practice of happy people.

Building on that, here are two more questions.

What human relationship is most like the best fellowship?

What is the result of that fellowship?

There is also no debate about the answers to these questions in the Bible.

Qualification: I really do need at least one volunteer from every household, and from every Life to Life group, to be sort of a designated discussion helper here. What I am about to say has ‘uge potential to be misunderstood, either accidentally because it’s a new concept or purposefully because you already think you oppose it.

The answer to which human relationship best enjoys Trinitarian fellowship is the first relationship created by God from the overflow of His goodness and joy: the husband and wife. Their fellowship is more intimate than any other in the world, or at least it could be if it is blessed. Among no other friends can it be said that the “two become one,” a physical and metaphysical truth.

The result of that fellowship is not a home mortgage, a Magnolia themed decor with shiplap as far as the eye can see, fancy dinner date-nights without the hassle of finding someone not only to ask out but who will say yes. The result of that fellowship[...]