Malachi Week 4: Marital Fidelity

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Malachi 2:10-16 Marital Fidelity

Spencer Cary

Transcript

My name is Spencer I'm one of the pastors here I hope you all had a good weekend especially the women who are on women's retreat I hope that was a blessing to you yeah some of you had a little more fun than others and I just want to let you know that my children are good at cleaning up toilet paper so we're going to be in Malachi 2: 10 through 16 this morning you can go ahead and turn there it's on page 467 our blue Bibles uh the text will be on the screen as.

Well as we walk this together as we're continue to walk through these different disputes that God has with his people through his Prophet Malachi I think Americans and Southerners are fairly okay with unsolicited advice and opinions uh for the most part like I think it like if I'm in the line at cookout somebody comes to me and says hey did you know that you can like upgrade your drink to a milkshake for a dollar more I welcome that I say B blessed and highly favored this is amazing that.

For $8 you can get a milkshake a cheeseburger and french fries and chicken quesadilla and sure the long-term Outlook isn't great but the short-term benefit is wonderful I appreciate anyone who's willing to give me such good news on opinions like that I think there's a lot of different areas that if someone were to speak into your life you'd welcome that and you'd be thankful that they pointed out something that was so helpful I do think it has its limits though there's a few different areas that.

If someone's looking over your shoulder and says hey this you go no uh uh mind your business like that's just I think there's a few different areas two in particular are money and romance right so if someone wants to speak into how you spend your money typical God American response is I made that money I'll I'll spend it how well please mind your business like if someone wants to come and speak into your marriage address speaking of your relationship you're like ah no I'm good you You' you've stepped over the line like I think that's kind of two general areas I think that we're not.

Okay with I mean if I'm honest like if someone want to helpfully come alongside me look at our budget and say I've looked at your budget and I have have a few suggestions on how you can cut costs here here and here that my gut instinct would be thank you for your opinion which is my stock way it's like my phrase for saying I'm I'm good with what you have said so some of you have heard me say that to you.

Now you know going forward if I say thank you for your opinion it's I'm good like I'm I'm moving on from this right I just think there's something in us that just doesn't want those two areas to be touched and Malachi says oh yeah well how about I talk about both of them uh intensely for a couple of chapters and that's what we're we're waiting into now is in the next few weeks uh we're going to look at God speaking into the marriages of the people and also the money and the finances of the people and he's coming.

For both of them so this week specifically in this third dispute we're going to see God speaking to the marriages of the people and there's a part of us that's going to want to say mind your business but Malachi is going to say do you belong to God okay then no I'm going to speak into this and I'm going to speak into the relationships amongst the people of God so we're going to see how God addresses the people and their marriages.

And then as the Church how we get to look at this and see how it applies to us today so let me pray for us then we'll walk through this together Heavenly Father we thank you for being able to come and worship you and sing praises to you offer up prayers of Thanksgiving to you and also that we get to receive your word God I pray that you'd help us receive it for it is a difficult word just as it was.

For the people of God thousands of years ago may you help us receive it and walk this out in faith and in Repentance and in worship and delighting in you ultimately because you were worthy of it we ask this in Jesus name amen all right so Chad finished up the second dispute last week where God is uh correcting the priesthood the priesthood at the time was uh conducting a charade they were they were simply going through the motions of worship it wasn't real true heart worship wasn't offering the sacrifices they were supposed to.

But they were facilitating this system and God calls out the priest priesthood for their failures and then he shifts into this third dispute picking up here in verse 10 have we not all one father has not one God created us why then are we faithless to one another profaning the Covenant of our fathers now other versions will say why do we deal treacherously or why do we betray one another that at the beginning of this dispute he is dealing with some of the the faithlessness that's happening to one another that he establishes very early on in Malachi that he is the.

Father of this nation he's the father of the Jewish people that means that they are the family of God and they should treat one another as family but they're not doing this like they are supposed to there's faithlessness happening towards one another and then he shifts this into two specific areas starting in verse 11 Judah has been faithless an Abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord which he loves and has married the daughter of a foreign.

God may the Lord cut off from the tent of Jacob and any descendant of the man who does this who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts and the first area he's going to address is the intermarriages that have happened amongst the people of God they have married the daughters of foreign Gods now there are Skeptics that will lch on to this and see see your God is against interracial marriage your God is an ethnocentric God and that's completely misreading the text this has nothing to do with Jewish people marrying Persians this has everything to do with marrying someone who does not worship the one true.

God that is embedded into the Old Testament law this teaching that says you shall marry someone who also loves the Lord with all their heart with all their soul with all my you should absolutely enter into marriage only with those who have the same Faith this is in Deuteronomy 7 it's in multiple places but we're going to just see one in Deuteronomy 7 it says you shall inter you shall not intermar with them giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters.

For your sons for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will destroy you quickly so it's this teaching of do not marry foreigners who worship foreign gods don't do this the people are far too weak in their faith they're far too weak to marry someone who doesn't share the same God I mean they this in Deuteronomy when they received that law that's just after.

God did this miraculous wonderful work bringing them out of Egypt that we got to walk through in Exodus last year and he brings them out and they immediately they're not even amongst the people of the the surrounding Nations it's just them and their God in the wilderness they worship a golden calf he says do not settle the land of Mary forn wives because you were far too weak to do this now the reason they would have wanted to do this and the reason why this was common at the time was.

If you're going to settle into a new area if you're going to be with people who are not of your own it was advantageous for you to marry off your daughters your Sons because that helped establish trade that helped establish treaties that helped establish covenants with other people so that you could live in peace with another and so that everyone could Prosper so there was a financial advantage there was a Prosperity advantage to actually marrying someone who worships a foreign God.

But it came at the cost of their own faith and the reason we know this is because of the whole rest of the Old Testament like the whole rest of the Old Testament is the people of God inter are Maring with the foreign people and worshiping their gods and setting up asholes and and making sacrifices to ba and giving child sacrifices sacrificing their own children to the God Malik all these surrounding Gods from around the surrounding Nations they get pulled into that worship I mean Nehemiah.

When he's addressing this which is really just before the the prophet of Malachi Nehemiah when he's addressing this uses Solomon as the prime example he says in Nehemiah 13 He says did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women among many nations there was no King like him and he was beloved by his God and God made him King over all Israel nevertheless foreign women made even him to sin and he says Solomon who was the wisest King we ever had Solomon who was a great king the the downfall of Solomon and ultimately the splitting apart of the Kingdom of Israel in Judah came down to the fact that he chose to.

Establish relationships with foreign countries foreign peoples by bringing in their daughters and marrying those wives and ultimately he worships their gods and he says if Solomon has fallen into this what shot do y'all have what are we thinking what are we doing here who you want to marry is not your free choice does not matter if you love them does not matter if you think it's going to gain you some financial advantage it's going to establish some treaty with a different people the most important aspect of who you marry is who they worship that is the most important aspect of marriage who they worship.

Because marriage is not just a two-party Covenant it's not just a two-party agreement it is a three-party covenant it is man wife and God and that's clear throughout the Scriptures God is the centerpiece of marriage and the reason why is because marriage ultimately is a picture it's ultimately a smaller picture the bigger picture which is God's love for his people the marriage reflects that bigger reality God's love for his people Ephesians 5 so beautifully teaches that when it begins with husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up.

For her that ultimately marriage is this picture of God's sacrificial love that God loves his people so much that he gave up his son to be crushed for his people that sacrificial love of God for his people gets to be reflected in marriage it is bigger than than ourselves and that is why from the Old Testament into the New Testament the teaching is the same when you get to First cor or second Corinthians 6 Paul teaches the same thing from the Old Testament in.

Verse 14 and following he sayso not be unequally yolked with unbelievers for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what Fellowship has light with Darkness what Accord has Christ with bellal that's another name for Satan what portion does a Believer share with an unbeliever what agreement has the temple of God with Idols we are the Temple of the Living God and he says don't be unequally Yol don't marry someone who is not a Believer don't marry someone who does not love Christ like you do and he has pretty Sharp Images here what partnership is righteousness with lawlessness fellowship with uh light with light versus Darkness Christ versus the evil one you're sons of.

God and if you're not in Christ the Bible says you're Sons and Daughters of Disobedience what what are we you don't have a share with them they don't love God they worship idols and this teaching gets pulled into the New Testament because the Covenant of marriage is not just man and wife it is man and wife and our covenant God now for us maybe you're single and you you desire to be married and maybe you've made a list of things that you value in a spouse maybe you're like I you know I want him to be financially secure and to have a good 10year plan or I want him to brush his teeth I I.

Want her to laugh at my jokes and her laugh not be annoying like I just I I don't know whatever that is for your list like I don't maybe you got a list of things where it's like I I want this and I want that I want this I want that I'm not going to compromise on this or that or this or that but let me tell you something if Jesus is not at the top of that list if at the top of your list isn't do do they love Christ and not just say they are a Christian.

But love him and display him with the fruit of the spirit that they they are committed to the people of God in the local Church that they he that he is uh or she is uh immersed in his word and loves him if that's not at the top of the list of whom you are going to marry then I'll just be honest you're doing it wrong that do they love Christ that is the most pinnical question so much so that if you have that as the question every anything else on the list is he tall enough is she is she fing the blank that those pale in comparison to Christ.

And so much so that that some of those other things become less important because it's not that this man loves Jesus and this woman loves Christ I don't care if he's not 6'2 he's worth that so have that as a category so deeply in your mind as you're thinking through this because what will inevitably happen is you'll start to justify who you want to marry you'll start to make compromises you'll say yeah he says he's a Christian and I mean you he got burned by the Church he's Church her from a few years ago.

But like you know he does want to read his Bible and you he kind of part goes hard in the weekend but like I don't know like I can probably win him over a little bit I can probably win her sway her a little bit over you know if you if we progress into this then I we know we I'll start reading the Bible with them we'll pray together like when we get married like I'll I'll get them involved in our community group it'll be fine we'll work we'll work it out.

And while God in his grace does sometime use spouses to lead their other spouse to Christ that does happen I would also say that that is very much a cautionary tale because it also goes arise so often and there's so many ways that if you choose to marry someone that does not love Christ where your values are ultimately going to be petted against theirs in ways that you didn't see coming I mean very practically when you go to raise children one day.

When you go to raise children one day and you want to raise them in the faith and you want to take them and bring them here on Sundays you want to uh let them be involved in kids City and in student Ministries it's going to be very hard if you've married someone who says Nah I think I'm going to take him hunting this Sunday I think that's more important is our father son experience so I'm going to take him hunting this Sunday it's going to be very hard.

When you're trying to uh teach the Gospel to your children and and help them know who Christ is and he or she is undermining that at every turn and I got a buddy whose whose wife left him and clean I mean just cleaned his clock and the divorce and took the kids and she recanted the faith and she absolutely done everything to seow doubt in in her in in her in those kids' Minds with not just him but with Christ and he gets them once every two weekends and he does everything he can to display Christ to them.

But that's a reality you need to Grapple with before you choose spouse do they love Christ deeply if not then you're going to be in a difficult situation now if that is your situation the Bible does give us a word on this gives us a helpful uh Scripture from 1 Peter 3 it says likewise wives be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

When they see your respectful and pure conduct so we do have some some wonderful wisdom here for what happens if you're in a marriage where someone doesn't believe the Gospel and I'll be honest this is this is even more difficult for women because we teach that that that men are supposed to lead in marriage therefore she's supposed to follow him in submission in marriage and if he doesn't value Christ that gets r really tricky it's very difficult but we have a word here that says you wi the moed by the conduct meaning that you make.

Jesus look good in the way that you live and the way that you love your husband the way that you show respect and the way that you that we have a word here that says you get to display Christ and I think this is also down the line applicable to husbands as well that if you are married to someone who's not a believer that you get to display Jesus make Jesus look good by how you love your wife and when you do this there will be opportunities.

For you you to declare who Christ is but that's difficult and the reality is is that if you are single you should not sign up for that and if you are married you should absolutely take the words of First Peter and run with it as a as a life Anthem I'm going to display Christ in my marriage to my children I'm going to display Christ in my marriage to my spouse I'm going to pray unceasingly for my spouse I'm going to I'm going to love them.

And when times are hard and we have different values and he doesn't want this she doesn't want this I'm going to surround myself with Christian Community my group is going to be praying for me my group's going to be praying for my spouse but I'm going to stay in this because of the second big thing that Malachi addresses and that is that divorce is actually not an option and that is the second part of this the second part of this dispute with the marriages of the people and that is divorce picking up in.

Verse 13 and the second thing you do you cover the Lord's altar with tears with weeping and graning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand so there this is a lament from the people like we're offering worship we're doing the we we doing the things we're bringing it to you you're not finding favor upon us oh God and they end up asking why verse 14 but you say why does he not why has.

God not shown favor on us in our worship why is God not uh shining upon us why the Persians still rule over us what is happening why oh Lord and it says but 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 Covenant did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit and their Union and what was the one God seeking Godly Offspring.

So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth for the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the Lord the God of Israel covers His Garment with violence says the Lord of hosts so guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless all right that's a difficult text for various reasons that we're going to get to in a moment and it's vague at parts to kind of figure out what he's doing here let's start with the clearest implications from this text and what he's saying in.

Verse 14 he says because the Lord was witnessed between you and the wife of your youth to whom you've been faithless though she is your companion Your Wife by Covenant and what he just said was was a condemnation of the divorces that have happened amongst the people of God that you have been faithless to the wife of your youth you have divorced the wife of your youth that is what he's calling out here and then verse 15 it says did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their Union and he brings up that truth we just walked through it's a three-party covenant that my spirit was there.

When you join together I'm with you and you're breaking this apart this is Genesis 2 language the two became one flesh and God is with them in that Holy Union and you're breaking it apart that's not supposed to be and he goes on he says and what was the one God seeking Godly Offspring so guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth he says in this one flesh Union you're supposed to stay together you're supposed to have a Godly Offspring a Godly Legacy of faith that carries on from generation to generation to generation and this bless one flesh Union and here is where this gets.

Pretty difficult verse for the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the Lord the God of Israel covers His Garment with violence says the Lord of hosts so guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless all right there's a lot going on here I want to be frank with you this is one of the most debated verses in the entire Bible okay so we got back up a little bit and understand how we get here.

So the Bible is translated mostly Greek and Hebrew a little bit Aramaic all right that's the original languages It Was Written in and they those Scriptures were recorded down and manuscripts the original manuscripts are lost to time however there's a very rich tradition of scribes copying down these Scriptures for thousands of years and it's guys there are more copies of the Bible around the world more manuscripts around the world than any other ancient document it's not even remotely close there's a rich tradition and what's crazy what's Wild is is that over 99% of all the different scripts and Scriptures that we have across the world from written in different centuries copy down and copy down.

And copy down over 99% of that when you line all of those words up they match every single I mean you I have a a community in Alexandria an ass syat Community here that wrote and recorded Scriptures for years and for years and for years when you line them up they line up like 99% just wonderfully dot for do Mark for Mark that's it's amazing the Holy Spirit has guided this for so long so wonderfully so reliably but every now.

Then every now and then you get two different texts and they say something different just a little bit so much so that's like actually they use this word here but this community used this word here but when you line them up together it's actually the exact same thing so we know that that's exactly what this means and there's a group of people that are huge Bible nerds called textual critics that devote their lives to these languages to make sure that we're understanding this is what the original text said we're able to trust our Bible.

So well but every now and then in the rarest of circumstances you're going to see two different textual Traditions that line up and you're going to go oh okay what's being said here is two different things and there's a whole like Rich tradition of how to figure out what was the original meaning what was the original thing saying and verse 16 is one of the RAR circumstances where it's like oh boy this is actually something where there's two different meanings here and I want to walk through them the.

First here is what we read in the ESV the ESV says for the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the Lord the God of Israel covers her garment with violence says the Lord so what's being taught there and what's being displayed there is that when a man divorces his wife he shows a great Act of hatred towards his wife he shows a great lack of love a great hatred towards his wife and ultimately covers the Garment of violence and that's the euphemism.

For cruelty dishonoring her so that's one way to read this text then there's another way to read this text and I want to read a few different versions that capture this different idea starting with the nesb for I hate divorce says the Lord the God of Israel and him who covers His Garment with violence well that's different God hates divorce and he hates the man that that hatred is extended towards the man who covers his wife with a garment of violence who who ultimately dishonors her like this the ne captures that as.

Well I hate divorce says the Lord God of Israel and the one who is guilty of violence says the Lord who rules over all the NLT which is a which is a solid paraphrase of the Bible says for I hate divorce says the Lord the God of Israel and then it shifts a little bit it says to divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty so it moves a little bit away from God's hatred towards divorce to the man who does it to God's haes divorce and this act is a Act of hatred towards his wife.

Now God hating divorce and the man involved in it and this being an act of hatred towards her spouse are actually two different meanings and the rarest of circumstances in the Scriptures you got to figure out okay well which one because those are different and I'm not going to shock you here I'm not a textual critic scholar I know some of yall were thinking that like this guy he's just so wise no I'm nowh like that that is so far above my pay rate like I even.

If I tried really hard like I I was in classes with some of those guys in seminary and I was like I'm I'm I ain't doing that like I've got no business in being in classes with these guys so we're not we we're not skilled enough to look at this and go I you you know I based on the original language A or B okay and what happens is sometimes in these rare circumstances in the Bible what we'll do is okay.

Well I need to pick one and I want to go in my gut and I don't like the idea that God hates divorce and hates the one who's divorced so I'm I I don't I don't know about that I I'd rather go with the other option this is an act of hatred so what do you do in situations like this I think you first look at the context of the passage and kind of see what's clearly being taught and then you back away from the text and you take the text against the whole teaching of the Scriptures and you realize that actually I think both of those have truth to them I think.

If you look at the whole of the Scriptures I think you're going to see God does hate divorce and also it is an act of Cruelty towards the one who's involved so let's look at context directly and then we'll kind of back out a little more so one thing that's very clear from directly from Malachi divorce was not a part of the original plan for marriage there's a reason God used uses Genesis language here did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit and their Union in.

Verse 15 there's a reason that shows up this was not a part of the original design oh Jewish people you're doing this and you're not you're not you're not in line with how God originally designed this to be this beautiful Covenant is meant to last a lifetime it's meant to reflect something bigger than yourselves so so marriage is meant to be it it divorce is not a part of the original plan the second that's very clear from this context divorce and their context harmed women it harmed women.

Now some commentators will push this and they say well what's actually happening here is that the people of God when they settled back into the promised land they weren't like you know the elites they weren't part of the social you know they didn't have all the money and Prestige and what the some of these men were doing some of these Jewish men were divorcing their Jewish wives so they could marry Persian wives of Greater status to advance and I think that's a fine way to.

Look at this I don't know if you could really say that with certainty that that's exactly what happened here but what is clear is that divorce harmed women you can see that historically you can see it in the Scriptures it it it made them it it took them like back then it's not like that not not a lot of women could survive on their own without a husband that just that just was the reality so that harmed their ability to provide.

For themselves if they were widowed and and they divorc that stigmatized them stigmatized them greatly so they might not get remarried that that also meant that if they didn't have sons they didn't have social security because that was your Social Security back then if you didn't have sons you didn't have a way to provide for yourself so divorce harmed women it was indeed an act of Cruelty towards your wife and there was a lot of you see this being pulled all the way into the time.

When Jesus comes along of woman being divorced just for you know because she burnt the food I mean just some some heinous things that were happening happening so I think in the direct context you can see that very clearly but when you zoom out and you look at this in the context of the rest of the Scriptures I think it becomes pretty clear that God actually he does not like divorce this is not a part of his original plan and when.

Jesus is being challenged on this in Matthew 19 this is what he says so clearly he says verse 6 so they are no longer two but one flesh what what therefore God has joined together let not man separate and he's pretty plain with this let let no man separate this don't tear what has been brought together the marriage is meant to be a lifelong Covenant that God's ultimate desire is for that marriage to continue now I know when I say all of that some of you who know your Bible are like wait a.

Second though I I think the New Testament gives us like like two different two different uh reasons for a Biblical divorce and that is correct we've taught on this in the past this is not the first time we've taught on the subject matter and we've gone more into detail on our in our Matthew 19 sermon on this about some of these allowances there's the porn clause in Matthew 19 which is dealing with gross sexual immorality and then you've got in uh 1 Corinthians 7 abandonment by an unbelieving spouse these are two that we we've taught on in the past.

But I don't want to spend time in that because we've done this before and I'd point you to those sermons because m Malachi isn't nuancing here Malachi is speaking very plainly here he is arguing against divorce and the harm that it causes and that is a faithless act now I understand I understand that teaching that a is deeply unpopular in our culture and B is not done at a vacuum meaning it's not done in a neutral environment we don't have like we have pre-loaded experiences and opinions like I I get that I I I know it's deeply unpopular and the reason it's deeply unpopular is.

Because marriage in this culture is so much about happiness it's it is about your personal uh happiness and joy and that and that is the air that we breathe it's in all the the media that we consume it's in the stories that we live in that marriage is about personal happiness and when marriage fails to make you personally happy then get out move on you don't want to live a whole life that's not happy move on to something that brings you more happiness and that's the very air that we breathe in the context of the marriage that we understand in our culture.

Therefore preaching this right here makes that deeply unpopular and I also know it's not done in a vacuum if you're like me some of you are children of divorce and I mean my parents got divorced when I was four and two Christmases is pretty sweet but outside of that it kind of stinks it's pretty painful it's hard there's a lot of just of suffering that comes along with that for the years that follow and the years that follow into adulthood right and I'm also know that that some of you have walked through divorce and the pain of divorce and I understand how difficult this is and we don't approach this neutrally at all.

And while it is very difficult Malachi is not nuancing and I think it's for a reason it's to feel the force that really shows up in verse 16 for the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the Lord the God of Israel covers her with a garment of violence says the Lord so hear this guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless we want our soul our spirit to be so United with Christ that he guards us from this Folly that he guards us from this path that he defends us that he keeps us guards us I mean we we want to embody what Ephesians 5 teaches to be.

A people that understands that God's his God's place in marriage in the first place but what that means is is that we have to trust God over our own cultural instincts over what we want we have to actually trust God and that is hard to guard ourselves in your spirit and to not be faithless requires trusting God's word when we don't want to because here's the reality if you get all of your romantic desires if you get to marry the man or the woman that you want to marry even though they don't love Christ.

And if you get to end the marriage that you don't want to be in if you get those things ultimately you will get what you want but you will engage in something that is faithless towards Christ and you miss the point all together and the plea from the Scriptures here is don't don't trade your faith in for a fiance don't trade your freedom in your faith in for some for a freedom that that ultimately will not satisfy don't do it It ultimately displays a level of unbelief where we just don't trust God's word I don't care what God's word says I don't care what the Bible says you don't know my situation you don't know.

How hard this is ultimately is a step of Faith to trust God and persevere in a marriage that is difficult ultimately for our good it is difficult to walk in singl and finally find someone who likes you and and and makes you feel good and then to have to look and see they don't belong to Christ and make that decision I can't be with this person it takes a faith to trust God that ultimately his word is better than our own desires and that's difficult it's very difficult I mean you ask pastors I I'm right.

Now I'm taking classes and I'm reading all these pastors who are in these counseling books and it's just like it's clear the most difficult situation that a pastor is probably ever going to face one of the most consistently difficult situations is going to be marriage and divorce hands down this is extremely difficult but we can trust him and we can believe that he is good and that what he holds out in front of us though we don't want it ultimately is good and we can as that text ends as this dispute ends guard ourselves and our spirit and not be faithless I want to end with going to 2 Thessalonians 3 and I want to.

Read this and I want to pray this over our Church because this passage has some some some connections and language to this difficult dispute that I think is helpful to receive I'm going to read this first and then we'll pray I'm going to pray this over Us 2 Thessalonians 3 3-5 it says but the Lord is faithful God is faithful y'all he's faithful towards us even when we are faithless he will establish you and guard you against the evil one that our.

God does he would defend us from the evil one who would love to Snuff out the flame of faith in our lives he will guard us verse four and we have a we have confidence in the Lord about you that you are doing and will do the things that we command that God has a confidence that ultimately we will walk in obedience even when it is difficult verse 5 May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ may.

God direct our hearts towards his deep Abiding Love and the steadfastness of Christ so bow our heads and I want to pray this over us as we close out heavenly father with such a difficult teaching I pray that you'd help us have Open Hearts to receive this may we love you so deeply because you are faithful God you are faithful you are faithful despite of our desires in spite of our desires you are faithful may you establish us oh Lord may you guard us against the evil one who would love.

For us to end up in marriages that we should not be in who would love for us to choose our own instincts over trusting you may we do your will and keep your Commandments by trusting you with both our singleness but also with marriages that are the source of so much pain or may those who have been through divorce even divorce for unbiblical reasons may you direct our hearts to your love and to your steadfastness that we might even though we have failed even though we have suffered even though we've walked through some of those difficult moments of Our Lives.

When we persevere in faith even when in the past we may have acted faithlessly may we be a people who allow you into the most sensitive areas of our lives so that we may be faithful in all things and may you guard Us by the power of your spirit working in us that we might be faithful amen B's going to come up and we're going to take the Lord's Supper no doubt this sermon touches on some of the sorest regions of our souls and our stories and I just want you to.

Remember that our God is good he is worthy of our trust and our faith and in faith even when we have sinned even when we have misstep even when we have Str strayed from the path even when we've not obeyed God's word in faith Jesus gives the invitation come to the table that if you belong to Christ the table is open for you you don't have to come forth in shame but you can to come forth in the grace that covers you and the shame that was born on Christ on the cross.

Then the night that he was betrayed he took bread and he broke it and said this is my body that was broken for you and he took the blood he took the the the the cup which is the cup of the New Covenant he said this is my blood that was shed for you that is often you eat and drink this you Proclaim my death until I return so we get to come to the table no matter what your story is no matter where you are.

If if you believe and you belong to Christ you get to come to the table and Praise Jesus that even when we're faithless no matter what we're walking through even though when we're Sinners and we no matter what we're walking through that God's love is sufficient and his grace is enough so you get to come to the table and you get to take of this remember our savior whatever you're walking through through out of that Grace and that mercy and that kindness that.

Jesus shows us we get to ask Lord the difficult questions we get to ask him Lord what do you want for me what is faithfulness what is obedience and then we get to walk that together out as the Church if you're not a Christian we don't want you to take part in the Lord's Supper we want you to take part in Christ because he's worthy of it and trusting him is ultimately better than anything this world has to offer so when you are ready come to the table there's free in that back corner.

Marriage and Divorce

Marriage and Divorce

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Good morning. Grab your Bibles. Go to Matthew chapter 5. It'll be on page 473 if your Bible looks like this. Here's what we're doing. We're taking, we're just kind of walking through every week.

We're walking through the Sermon on the Mount. So that's Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. And we're walking through and just kind of taking it as we come, seeing what Jesus says, trying to understand what his point is and what we can learn from what he says. We're kind of in a section, and we've been in it for the past couple of weeks, where Jesus is, in his teaching, he's pointing out our approach to the law and our general tendency, their approach, our approach to take God's rules and then try to figure out, okay, how do I work around these? To kind of approach with, am I just doing exactly what it says, then I'm okay.

And Jesus is basically running through a hit list and intentionally picking some fights, intentionally using as examples some very tense subjects to try to point out how we like to say, am I living the right way, am I doing the right action, and disregarding what the point of it was in the first place. That our hearts matter as well as our actions. And so Jesus talks about anger. He talks about how we treat people we dislike. He talks about lust. He talks about marriage.

Like, he just kind of goes through a list of hot button issues and just presses all of them, and then he keeps moving. So thanks for doing that. And so that's kind of, that's what he's doing. He's trying to show us how we approach the law. And basically, our general tendency is, what's the rule? Where's the line?

How close can I get to the line? How much can I try to wiggle around this? Is that exactly what was said? My granddad told me this story one time when he was growing up. It was in like the 1930s, and he used to just eat butter. Now, I don't know if that's a thing you do, and I don't know if it is, if anyone's ever told you that's weird, but it is.

So like every time I've been at a fair and seen that they have fried butter, I've just thought, gross. And I guess my granddad, when he saw that, was like, dear diary, jackpot. Like, he just would eat butter. And so to the point that his mom was going somewhere, now butter, then, like he had like, they had like a mound of butter on a plate in their, I guess like whatever kept stuff cold. Ice, chest, freezer, refrigerator thing, whatever they had in the 1930s. I know that butter was different because they weren't buying like sticks.

They had like a mound on a plate. She told him before she left, it was such an issue that she's leaving. She has to tell him not to eat the butter. So she's going somewhere, and she looks at him and says, do not lay a finger on the butter. And he says, yes, ma'am. She leaves.

He opens the refrigerator. Puts his hands behind his back. He leans in and bites a large chunk out of the top of their butter. Closes the door. Walks off. Just pleased in his heart.

She gets home, sees what happened, sees that it's clearly just he bit it. And he doesn't even get in trouble. She was like, well played. I did say finger. I would have tore him up. Jesus' point as he's going through the section is that's what we do with any kind of rules we're given.

That's the natural inclination of the human heart is to say what exactly is the rule. What words exactly were used. And then try to figure out how to get what we want in and around the rules. That's our goal when it comes to rules. And so he's pushing back on that and saying, you've missed the point. Like my granddad missed the point.

The point was don't eat the butter. He missed it because he just focused on, he knew the point. But he figured out a way to get around it. And that's our goal. So whenever we come to the Bible and we say, what exactly does it say?

Jesus is going through this and saying, no, you've missed the point. That's not how this was supposed to be approached. So as we study the Bible, we try to understand what was the point he was making. What's the point in the context we're given? We don't want to just take a verse and say, here's what these words are without understanding the greater context. But as we've been studying this passage, we also believe that we can put weight on the actual words here and bear down on it.

And so what we did was the first week we talked, we said, here's the big picture. Here's what he's saying about the law. Here's what he's saying about how we fail and how we approach the law. And then we've gone back through and we're just saying, okay, what exactly is he saying and what can we learn from it? And so today we are going to spend time on the Christian sexual ethic, what the Bible teaches and how Jesus approaches human sexuality and marriage, what the overall Christian sexual ethic is. And I've got a quote here from C.S.

Lewis. He's a theologian from the 1900s. And he says this when talking about Christian sexual ethic. He calls it chastity, which is just Christianity's approach to sexuality. He says chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it.

The Christian rule is either marriage with complete faithfulness to your partner or else total abstinence. And so we would even have to amend that now because when he was speaking, there was no gay marriage. But Christians actually have to step in now and make it even more unpopular by saying we actually believe the Bible says that it's heterosexual marriage with complete faithfulness or else total abstinence. And he's right. He says this is the most unpopular thing Christians say. This is the worst virtue we have.

And he keeps going. He says now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct is wrong. Or our sexual instinct as it is now has gone wrong. One or the other. And he says of course being a Christian I think the instinct has gone wrong. I want to quote another well-known theologian Scarlett Johansson.

I read this in the Huff Post this week. Scarlett Johansson is an actress. If that just threw you off you don't know who she is. She's talking about monogamy and she says that she appreciates it. She appreciates monogamy appreciates marriage but that it's so hard and so difficult not only for her but for everyone else that it's unnatural. She believes it's unnatural for us to be monogamous.

To have one person that you devote all of your romance and love to. And C.S. Lewis is noticing the same issue. This is so against how we think and feel and want to approach. It's so contrary to our nature that something has had to go wrong. Either Christianity is wrong or we're wrong.

And that's what Scarlett Johansson is pointing out. She's saying it's unnatural. Natural it's just so difficult that it cannot be what it was what it's supposed to be. This can't be what we're made for. And so here's what we're going to do is we look at what Jesus says today. We're going to look at the words he says which Jesus kind of just throws a one-two punch and keeps moving.

He says very harsh things very Just kind of brings the hammer down and then keeps going. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at what he says and then as best we can we're going to try to understand what the big picture Christian teaching is. We're going to look at a couple other passages in the Bible to help us get our our head around this approach to human sexuality. And I think today is just going to be a little hard. I think it's going to be it's going to be hard. We're going to have to keep fighting our own intuition our own instincts as we try to understand what the Bible is saying.

For many of us as we look at specifically divorce it's just going to be painful. It's just going to be a hard morning. That for some of us who come from families where divorce has played a big issue for some of us who have been divorced some of us who are maybe going through a divorce currently or some of us who are considering divorce and thinking that is our our current best option today's just going to be it's just going to be painful as we try to understand this but hopefully by the end we'll get to see why the Bible says what it says and why ultimately Jesus is better. But let's let's we've agonized over this in preparation and it's going to take us a while to kind of say what we feel like needs to be said this morning.

But let's pray pray for us pray for our hearts pray for the people around you this morning that the Lord would help us to listen. God we thank you that as painful as it is you don't leave us alone when it comes to difficult situations and difficult issues that when we've made a mess of things you step in you step in by teaching us you step in by addressing us and speaking to us but ultimately Lord you step in by taking our sin our pain our brokenness and dying on a cross for it that you step in by joining us in the midst of it so God I just ask that you'd help us to listen that you'd help us to to find words to speak to you with to pray as we wrestle through this and ultimately we ask that you'd help us to believe to believe that you are better that you are good

Even when we can't see that and we ask for your help in Jesus name Amen We said early on as we started the Sermon on the Mount that Christians are designed to look different and that this is one of the areas where Jesus just kind of talks about church being salt and light that we're supposed to stand out in culture and that sexuality and our approach to marriage is one of the areas where Christians are just going to look different you're just going to look weird you're going to stand out in how we think about this and how we approach this you're going to have people around you say are you kidding me and we're going to have to say no I'm not and here's ultimately why I think it works out even though I have some of the same difficulties

And reservations that you have but culturally we're kind of all over the place when it comes to marriage this is this is I don't know if y'all have noticed this if you're watching any movie that has to do with like romance and relationships if the main characters start off not married the movie ends with magical they got together they're going to get married wedding stuff how many cartoons are like it's a wedding and they just ride off like I was I've got a little kid now and I'm watching more Disney cartoons and my wife likes them

So we watch Cinderella and I'm pretty sure this is the one where they like no Snow White they meet in the woods and just sing to each other it's really weird and then then they get married and then at Cinderella they meet at a dance dance with each other and then her foot fits in the shoe boom they get married they ride off in a carriage and then it says the curtains close and it says I lived happily ever after and I'm like do you know how awkward

That carriage ride is? these cats haven't even talked to each other like he doesn't even know she's got the most annoying laugh in the world like this is going to be so difficult for them but that's how movies work so like Hitch or whatever the end credits is like a wedding and they're like dancing around or whatever and that's it we've reached it magic happy land but if the movie starts off with the couple married the marriage is the problem like if it's a relationship romance movie and it starts out like

There's conflict and there's drama and there's tension and there should be because that's what makes a good movie conflict and drama and tension if you watch a movie that doesn't have tension it's a bad movie but those are our two competing messages that we get marriage is the route to happiness and to fulfillment romance is how you know who you are sexuality is who you are and it's the route to becoming a complete person and because we believe so much that romance

And sexuality are the route to happiness we treat a lot of marriages like marriage is the problem marriage is actually what's hindering me from being full from being fulfilled from being complete and so it's Jesus is speaking into that when we listen today that's how we have to hear and here's the thing as Christians we're going to look crazy I saw this stat recently I thought it was very interesting the National Center for Biotechnical Information did a study and their website is a.gov website

I'm not quite sure where they fall in our government structure but they do testing on stuff they did a study and they just got a bunch of TV shows and they coded them and 82% of them had sexual content some form of relationship marriage sex some 82% of the shows they got they said that American youth and I couldn't figure out how they were defining that American youth

See 14,000 depictions of sex a year on television 14,000 so I had seen that statistic I thought it was really interesting and I was thinking I know this has to affect how we think about it like this amount of exposure to sex and sexuality and marriage and like the messages we're being told like I know that's got to affect how we're thinking about it and then I read this in a book called Switch

Talking about it's kind of a psychology book sociology book about how to get people to make decisions and it said in the 1980s a Harvard professor named Jay Winston heard about designated drivers from Scandinavian countries he heard that Scandinavian countries had this concept of a designated driver where when you went out drinking one person wouldn't drink so they could drive and he knew that they were having seeing good results

That people were being safer there was less fatalities and road incidents incidents so he wanted to bring that to the US he's a Harvard professor he wanted to create out of nowhere a social norm did not exist in the US as far as he knew he's one of the only people who'd heard of it that they were doing this in other countries so he decided that the best way to do it was just to expose

People to it even if it was fictional didn't actually exist in real life if it was fictional so what they did was they got 160 television shows primetime TV shows to give it 5 seconds 160 television shows to give the concept 5 seconds they got The Cosby Show Mr. Belvedere Cheers Who's the Boss LA Law if you recognize some of those shows you just dated yourself they started in 1989

1988 By 1991 3 years later they got 160 shows to give it 5 seconds 3 years later 9 out of 10 Americans had heard about designated drivers 37% of all Americans including infants had actually been a designated driver now the infants weren't but they included all of them in their study 54% of frequent drinkers had been driven home by one they made it up and just stuck it in cheers did it 160 times

In 3 years everybody knew about it 40% Americans had actually been one youth including us with our adult we get to watch all the shows we want a mature show I can watch whatever I want my mom ain't telling me what to watch youth see 14,000 depictions of sex a year how much are we seeing and if you are going to tell me that does not affect how we think about it I'm going to be very inclined

To disagree with you if you're going to tell me that the amount that we see depictions of relationships how to communicate to each other how we ought to think about marriage how we ought to think about love how we ought to think about lust how we ought to think about sex we're going to see thousands of these hundreds a week if 160 depictions of a designated driver can change an entire nation in 3 years how many years

Have you been watching TV it's absolutely having an effect on us and Christians are going to look crazy if we stick to what the Bible says so let's read let's read what Jesus says it's going to be difficult to read and let's begin to walk through how we're supposed to understand this and think about it pick up in verse 27 you have heard that it was said you shall not

Commit adultery so Jesus again is kind of saying this is what the law is this is what the rule is but I'm trying to explain to you what the intent was and the fact that your heart matters not just your actions but I say to you verse 28 that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart if your right eye

Causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away it's better for you that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery Jesus uses harsh language to talk about very sensitive subjects and ties it to the concept of absolute eternal weight when he says that this needs

To happen otherwise hell hangs in the balance and in a culture where romance and relationships and sexuality and marriage is held up as the way to find fulfillment and the way to define yourself this is just hard to take in a second we're going to walk through and kind of just say here's what he says here here's what

He says here here's what he says here before we do that I want to take one quick zoomed out view at the bible's approach to marriage to help us understand why Jesus says this as harshly as he does God designed male and female brought them

Together in Genesis it was the first wedding he kind of presided over it the goal was that there would be monogamy one man one woman together devoted to each other as husband and wife they would leave their parents they would cleave to one another they would

Be one flesh God intentionally in the beginning of the bible took a naked man a naked woman brought them together and said y'all gonna go be one flesh and that's the first

Marriage so he tied marriage with sexuality sin enters the picture and it gets really messed up and if you want to read a lot of graphic depictions of terrible sexual Acts you need to look

No further than the old testament where it doesn't mince words and talks about a whole lot of sexual deviance that happens it is kind of weird when you're reading the bible and you feel like this is inappropriate

That's an odd experience to have when you're reading the bible but that's what happens in Ephesians 5 paul says and we're gonna look a little bit more at it later but paul says that the secret to marriage the mystery about it is that

It was originally intended to point us to the gospel that when God presided over the first marriage he meant for it to point us to the gospel which is Jesus's love for his people Jesus's love for

The church Jesus's love for his bride that's what the church is called Jesus's bride that marriage is meant to point us there that's why christians believe that marriage is a paint by Numbers meaning that all of us should get the same

Picture that husband wife together for life is meant to be pointing us to a bigger more real to a true reality of Jesus's love for the church that's the secret behind marriage that was the point

Originally that's why christians are very rigid about what we believe about marriage and sexuality because we believe sexuality sex and romance were designed for marriage and that marriage was designed to paint one picture and point us to the gospel my wife and I went to johnston south carolina

Yesterday which you may not have ever heard of because it barely exists a friend of mine works kind of around the state and he called one time and said I just left the middle of absolute nowhere he said I thought kind of columbia was nowhere this is like you got to get lost in nowhere

To find this place and I was like what and he said johnston I was like that's where my wife's from that's where my high school was and you are correct it is in the middle of absolute nowhere we're coming back from there last night riding down highway one and

It's kind of you know highway one just kind of weaves its way through south carolina and every once while we'd see a sign that would say gilbert and point that way or lexington columbia and point that way and they'd have these little Numbers on them that meant this is how far

You are away these are the mile markers this is how far you're gonna go we'd ride for a little while in that direction we'd see another one that said lexington columbia and the Numbers had gotten smaller they want to on them the reason

Is it's pointing to an actual place it's got to point a direction it's got to have an actual number that corresponds to something because you're going to a real place christians believe the same thing about marriage and the gospel that marriage is meant

To point towards Jesus it's meant to point towards his love for the church it's meant to point towards and so that's why we get very rigid and specific about it's got to look like this it's got to be this way all husbands should act

Like this all wives should act like this like we christianity steps in and is very concrete about it because we believe it points to one clear picture sex designed for marriage it has two major functions recreation and procreation that means

It's fun and it makes children it's the way God designed it intentionally designed to be enjoyable intentionally designed in healthy adults to make children when everything is working properly there should be children I saw something

Recently that said that the reason there was an argument for easy access abortion and contraceptives that said pregnancy is just too great a cost for something as small and simple as sex and as a christian my response to that

Is there's a reason why sex causes pregnancy like it was meant to happen inside of a marriage where there was a male and a female there to raise a child like that's how it's supposed to work it kind

Of feels like if someone argued that they needed to lower the penalty for accidentally shooting someone with a gun because the penalty of you know killing someone and having to go to jail for it is just too great a cost for something as fun as pistols and my immediate response would

Be pistols were designed to harm people and you say no no I just use it for fun and it's like yeah but that we still have to have some regulations around this there's got to be some rules because that's what it was made for it feels the same

It feels like that's the argument it's like no it was designed for a purpose now I think immediately especially if you haven't been around the church much hadn't read your bible when someone walks up here opens a bible says hi I'm a pastor let's talk about sex there's this immediate like oh here we go women cover yourselves up hide

Sex is dirty wrong and bad save it for your spouse there's some sort of we just got liberated we just got free we just got to use our sexuality to give us power and now immediately it's like no get it out of here it's terrible it's gonna ruin society bible treats sex the way

It does because it believes it has greater value than you do it believes it's more powerful than you think it is there's a reason why you don't have to get a license to drive a moped if you hit someone on a moped you get hurt your moped

Isn't hurting anything like you run into my truck with your moped I'm hopping out hopping back in that's it like that's how it works like there's a reason why you have to get a license for a car and the reason why you have to get a bigger more intense license for an 18 wheeler

Because they're powerful they have more capability there's more to them there's a reason why the bible steps in and draws real clear distinct lines around sexuality and marriage because God designed it to be potent to be powerful it's because it's lifted up as it matters when Christianity

Says that you should dress modestly it's not because we have a low view of your sexuality it's because we have a high view of it I believe it belongs to you and to your spouse and you should like that's why like if you came to me and said oh you're so ashamed of your money with your safety deposit box I'm not ashamed

Of it I like it I don't want you to have it oh you got a safe you're ashamed of your money it doesn't make any sense and that's that's the same way Christianity treats it that it matters it's valuable so as we read through this I want you to just as as much as you can let's try to

Listen and see what Jesus is saying we're going to move to another passage in a minute to try to help us understand it more because they also disagreed with it both the Pharisees and his disciples there has to be greater clarification and we get

That later in Matthew so verse 27 you've heard that you should not commit adultery I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart Jesus ties lust which is a sexual

Desire that's carried out visually as adultery I do not think so adultery specifically means you've kind of cheated on your spouse you've broken that relationship with your spouse that's what the word adultery means he's

Saying that lust is the same thing going on in your heart he's pointing out that you've got to stop sin while it's in your head before it gets to your heart before

It makes it into action he's saying it's the same issue I don't think he means to say that if you lust outside of being married so a non-married person lusting free and clear I don't

Think when he uses the word adultery he meant to say that lusting outside of marriage is fine I think it's possible he actually means all lust is actually an offense against your spouse whether you have one right now or not

Because all sexual desire was meant for a spouse and nowhere else that's the rightful place for it then he says if your right eye causes you to sin tear it out throw it away it's better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off throw it away it's better for you

To lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell we spent all our time on that last week talking about the graveness of sin the seriousness of sin and how much more serious Jesus takes it than we do it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give a certificate of divorce he's quoting Deuteronomy 24 there and he's speaking into a situation where they said

The rule says give her a certificate and so there was consistent amount of write a certificate hand it off like you could just anytime your wife was disagreeable to you you could get a divorce and so Jesus is speaking and saying you think you're accomplishing this by following the letter of the law but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual

Immorality and that's a different Greek word than he's used so far he means active sexual sin so that would be for them it would also include like if you married someone who had told you they were a virgin prior to getting married and then you found out they weren't because that was a grave issue in their culture it would include that it would include sexual

Sin while married with another person any kind of sexual action so adultery he's saying unless there's this going on unless they've already broken the sexual relationship you make her commit adultery whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery and so what Jesus said was there is no route from

Divorce outside of them already committing adultery outside of them already breaking the covenant through sexual sin there's no route that does not lead to greater sin greater brokenness he teaches this on a regular basis he teaches it here in Matthew 6 he teaches

It in Mark he teaches it in Luke it seems like it was something that he taught on a semi-regular basis so jump over to Matthew 19 because Jesus has taught this so much this very

Kind of aggressive controversial idea that you can't just get a divorce and be fine you can't just say well we filed the paperwork we're good that he actually has religious leaders show up to question him about

It Matthew 19 verse 1 now when Jesus had finished these sayings he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond

The Jordan and large crowds followed him and he healed them there and Pharisees those are religious leaders came up to him and tested

Him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause he answered have you not read that he who created them from

The beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife

And the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let not

Man separate so his response to can't we just get a divorce when we want to his response to that marriage is a sacrament meaning that

It belongs to the church it doesn't it belongs to humanity God designed it from creation and gave it to humanity that's what Jesus

Goes back and says no this is a creation ordinance it's given to humanity therefore and then he ties sex to it he says they'll become one flesh that's

Specifically talking about sex he says that they'll become one flesh and let not anybody tear that apart is never the goal of marriage to get

A divorce and so they have an issue with this they respond and they said to him what I think we want to say

Then why did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away what they just said was Deuteronomy says

Write a certificate Bible boy he says haven't you read they said you read it was a tree and that's hard to take but

His point when he responds to them was he says the hardness of your heart what he says is Moses was riding into a

Very messed up situation where this had gotten out of control and because of people's hard hearts marriages were a train wreck and because

Of people's hard hearts they weren't going to fix them and so Moses had to decide a system for how are we going to

Handle this but that was not God's intention that's Jesus' answer and that sexuality was designed for marriage so that sex outside of that

Covenantal relationship in marriage leads to sin and once you have covenanted with someone the only thing that works to break that effectively is sex with

Someone else adultery and I'm so thankful for the disciples in this passage verse 10 the disciples said to him if such is the

Case of a man with his wife it is better not to marry I have struggled immensely with this section of the Bible and

With what Jesus teaches about marriage and when I read the disciples I just say thank y'all for saying that to him I have

Struggled with what I want Jesus to say about marriage and what I think he actually does say about marriage and the disciples step

In and they say hold on a second the only way to end a marriage is a sin train wreck that's it no this

Person was bad you're okay he says no the thing that destroys marriage is sin and ultimately when there is a broken marriage if people move

On and remarry there's adultery he says that in Matthew Mark Luke that if so in what he said in Matthew 5 if your husband divorces

You and she remarries she commits adultery do you know how hard that is to take if you actually think about that what if

She had nothing to do with the divorce what if he just sent her off and he said no what happens is when they

Get remarried there's sin that's how they start their marriage now he does call it a marriage he doesn't say they're never married again

Or that one doesn't count but he I stand with the disciples some where I'm looking at what Jesus says and I go hold

A second what about this type of marriage you're telling me there's no way to get out of that outside of it being broken down by sin

There's no what about this lady whose husband is like this husband whose wife is like this like I want to bring to him

Pastoral situations that I'm aware of so here's what he responds with and I think I think it's helpful it helps win me over

I think it's refreshing I'm not completely won over by his response but Paul helps us later and we're going to Ephesians 5 to

Read what he says but here's how Jesus responds not everyone can receive this saying but only those to whom it is given I've

Heard people read that before and go oh okay good so not everyone has to stay married just the people who receive what he

Just said but Jesus keeps talking that's not what he means not everyone who receives this saying but only those to whom it is

Given for there are eunuchs who have been so from birth and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men and there

Are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven without going into too much detail about eunuchs they

Were sexually abstinent he's saying that you can be sexually abstinent for receive it Jesus backs up what the bible says which is some

People are going to receive marriage and they need to stay married some people can't receive that they're not given to marriage some people

Are going to be abstinent abstain completely from sexual activity and that's fine and if that's what you want to receive receive that so

The disciples say hold a second you mean to tell me there's no way out of my marriage and it'd be better off to

Not get married and Jesus says yeah that's fine and let me just say for single people in the room Jesus says yeah that's fine

You don't have to be married to be a complete human you don't have to have sex to be a complete human that's not

The path to fulfillment that's not the path to happiness that's what we believe as Christians he's not married he never has sex this

Seems so crazy to our culture who are so sex crazy that we made the da Vinci code which is like obviously he had to

Have a secret girlfriend nobody's that happy without a girl or some sort of love interest we have all these kind of like and

Jesus says no I'm a full complete perfect human for the next person who says this in the Bible and says it more forcefully

Is Paul he says that in first Corinthians chapter seven he like doubles down on it he says I wish all of y'all would not

Get married and then you could focus more on Jesus mission he says the guys who are worried about making their wife happy the

Wives are worried about making their husband happy he says I'm just trying to do what Jesus wants I got all the free time

In the world people are like I gotta get home my wife is cooking dinner he like I ain't gonna get home I'm working for

Jesus that's what Paul says I wish y'all could not get married but if you want to that's fine that's what Paul says not

Exactly like that I paraphrase a little bit but that was his point you can be a full complete human and never get married

But he says if you do get married the point of marriage is to stay married that's the goal that's that's Jesus' stance on

This I want to take a second before I kind of got down to I figured out as I was working through this my

Biggest argument against this and that's where I want us to end this morning but before we get there I want to take a

Second and just kind of with what we've said so far I want to sum up a few things if you are single I want

To take a second and speak to single married if you are single some of you are going to get married that's good the

Bible says marriage is good some of you are not going to be married Christianity is the first group people who came along and said

You can be a full complete human and never be married that's great it's celebrated some of you are going to get married some

Of you aren't that's fine for those of your goal as you follow Jesus is to abstain sexually until you get married that will not

Make all of your married sexual activity magical and amazing I don't I think that's been told to people in the church like if

You save yourself for sex it's going to be the most amazing thing no sex is designed for marriage it's designed to be good

Saving yourself sexually for marriage is designed because you are supposed to devote yourself to your spouse and covenant with them and say everything that belongs

To me belongs to you that's what sex is supposed to be marriage is not going to save you it is not how you level up

As a person some of you are thinking I've got problems but when I get married it'll fix me I'm lonely and sad but when I get married

It'll fix me if I can just get married then I'll know I'm cared about then I'll know I'm complete then I'll know I'm whole

That is not going to happen and if you would like to know whether I'm telling the truth ask a married person if getting

Married fixed them or made them whole and complete and utterly satisfied it doesn't work that way wasn't designed to the Bible never points

To marriage as the you're fine so if you're not married you're single in the room marriage is fine it's good don't believe it's going

To fix you it's not how you level up as a human it's not how you become a whole person it's not true if

You're not married in the room and you do not you're not going to get married you're not supposed to God has laid that

Out for you that's not how life is going to work for you you're fine you're a full complete human I do want to

Talk to the married people in regards to single people married people stop stop acting like marriage is the thing that has to happen

To your single friends stop acting like they don't count as a person until they are married stop asking them who they are dating

Stop watching them have a conversation with a friend and walking over and going stop it just stop if you have a single friend

Who is trying to date people and want you to set them up go for it if you have a single friend who has

Not asked you to do that stop marriage did not complete you did not fulfill you did not magically make you an amazing person

It did married people we have to if we believe this if the church actually believes this if we are going to stand with

Any amount of credibility and look at a person who has been divorced and say that we believe that you should not get remarried

If we stand with any amount of credibility and look at someone who struggles the same gender attraction and say that you should live

Your entire life not married if we're going to stand with any amount of credibility and look at someone who says I just don't

Think I'm supposed to get married and we're going to say we agree with the apostle Paul that that's beautiful and you should spend

Your life for Jesus mission if we're going to say that with any amount of credibility we have to open our homes on holidays we have

To open our homes on random Thursdays we've been taught that the route to life the time to have a roommate if you're a

Certain age we've over sexualized everything we've got to open our homes Anna and I struggle with this because we're both friendly kind of introvert

People we struggle at times with wanting our house to just be the place where we sit and don't think or interact with people

And we struggle with that being how we interact with each other we have to work on that but we struggle with not wanting

People but we've got to we've got to open our homes we can't just say oh that's great be alone forever we've got to have

People over for Christmas and Thanksgiving and we've got to have them over random nights of the week to help us raise our kids

And to help us love well and serve well also and this one's going to sound weird and it's weird to me and I've

Been working on it and it's still weird we're going to have to physically touch single people in non-sexual ways super weird to say all

Right got it out there this means put your arm around somebody we have acted like if you were single and you need physically

To be touched get a cat or a dog if you're single and you want someone to act like they like you get a

Dog if you want someone you have to pursue and they hide from you and act like they don't care about you get a

Cat we should be able to sit down put arm around somebody sit close to them share a couch hug somebody for longer than

Two seconds guys that's super weird for me I don't like touching people I'm working on it I got some people that I'm intentionally trying to be like

Hey good to see you and like keep my hand there like longer than I want to which was beyond the first time I

Touched them so but I believe it's important also we've got to quit stealing the word love from the Bible and making it only

Mean romance how many times have heard first Corinthians 13 read at a wedding that's the one that says love never fails love never gives

Up love never ends like I'm not quoting it perfectly but I think I actually started singing some sort of a pop song in

The middle of that but you know which one I'm talking about the word there Paul's writing to a church not a couple he's

Writing to his people writing to the church and saying this is our love for each other we've acted like if you're not in

A relationship you don't get the real full meaning of love that's not true the reason that's good to read at weddings is because

It's meant to be single people you get to live a full robust real life people who are not single who are married have deep

Meaningful friendships with people where you share intimate details about your life with single people let them do the same it makes what Jesus

Says tenable we have to follow up our actions with what we say we believe okay married couples in the room take divorce off the

Table don't bring it up in arguments don't hold it over top of each other don't think about it that's not the intent I say

This to people periodically even if your goal is just happiness on earth best shot at that is the spouse you're married to that's

The way the Bible lays it out best shot is the spouse of your youth that's the best shot you got at it divorce

Is painful and traumatic harmful every person that you're married to is a sinner and broken there's no shame in struggling there's no shame

In getting counseling we do counseling there's a recovery program we'll help if you're in our church family we'll help pay for marriage counseling we

Think it's perfectly fine at times to say we've had the same argument 1300 dimes we only know how to run this track we need

Somebody else to talk to that's fine all good marriages that last have seasons where they could have just hung it up you talk

To any marriage that's last any couple that's lasted they have seasons where they say yeah we could have just walked away this five

Years was terrible if you are married in the room and this is not your first marriage I have a couple the answer to

That is quite possibly with as strongly as Jesus says it quite possibly and the next question is so what do I do how

Does that work there's a story in John chapter 8 where they catch a lady who is in committing adultery at that moment they

Bring her to Jesus and they say we just caught her adultery what are you going to do the law says we should kill

Her and Jesus says whichever one of y'all is sinless throw the first stone the rest of us will follow you one by one the

Bible tells us starting with the oldest to the youngest so young people in the room who think you're sinless pay attention to the

Old people who put their stones down and walked away Jesus looks at her and she says am I not condemned he says they haven't condemned

You and neither do I go and sin no more there's forgiveness in Jesus and your marriage counts your marriage is real every time it's

Talked about Jesus treats it like a marriage stay married repent where you need to repent and move forward in the freedom that Jesus

Doesn't condemn you you get to move on don't make it worse fight for this marriage make this marriage good and beautiful make it

Point to the gospel you're free and forgiven there's hope if you are divorced and single your marriage was not meant to end that way and I'm sorry

Marriage is painful divorce is painful I'm going to talk about that on the ride home divorce is painful in some ways it's more painful than a death there's a lot of regret and shame and despair and guilt and I want

You to know Jesus pays for our guilt he takes our shame where there's regret he's a redeemer meaning he steps into broken messes cleans them up makes them more beautiful than they ever were where there's despair

He's our hope the bible never holds up marriage as the thing that's going to fix us it never holds up romance is the thing that's going to fix us or make us whole it always only singularly solely

And forever points to Jesus to do that there's hope for you given the circumstances of your divorce you may not be supposed to get remarried we would love to talk with you about that struggle with you over that

Wrestle through the scriptures together on that and then walk with you in life whichever way that plays out romance is not essential to our happiness and fullness and that was the biggest complaint

I had as I was reading what Jesus had to say about marriage and divorce is that I feel like when Jesus says if you get a divorce you should not get remarried or when he looks at single people and says some of you should just be single

Forever I have been indoctrinated to believe that marriage is one of the primary ways if not the primary way that romance is the primary way sexuality is the primary way to define who you are and to

Find fulfillment and happiness and the Bible never even comes close to saying that so when the Bible looks at anyone and says you shouldn't get married it does not think it just robbed you of happiness although I would have a hard time saying that

Because there's a part of me that believes I am if I have to counsel a divorcee and say I believe the Bible tells you that you should not get married again there's part of me that thinks there went happiness but Jesus never thinks

That the Bible never says that it never holds marriage up that way it never looks at romance that way it only always points to Jesus singularly and solely for our joy and hope and delight and satisfaction and fulfillment and it even

Does it in the midst of when it's talking about marriage go to Ephesians 5 as we finish up this is what wins me over this is what makes me go okay I trust you even though I don't like some of this even though I would have tried to lay it out differently in my own

Wisdom and even though I know that that time is very lacking verse 25 Paul's talking to husbands and wives he's talking beginning in 22 to wives we're going to pick up in 25 as he paints a beautiful picture of what a husband's supposed to look like and he's going to tell us why he says it

That way so page 569 if you have one of the white bibles in the rows chapter 5 verse 25 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so he says here's how you ought to love he's pointing to Jesus this is the picture of

Love that we have that Jesus loves the church and he gave himself up for her the church is everyone who's placed their faith in Jesus that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot

Or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way husbands love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes it and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are

Members of his body therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this mystery and that that word's also secret this mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church however even though it refers to

Christ and the church let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband Paul says the secret behind marriage the mystery behind marriage is that it ultimately points us to the really good husband it ultimately points us to the true

Husband Jesus who loves pursues and gave himself up for the church marriage is not the fulfillment completion road to happiness Jesus is marriage is only ever meant to point us to Jesus so if you're married

That's how you ought to love that's how you ought to serve if you're not married that's how Jesus loves and serves that's the way it works all of it ultimately is pointed to Jesus and his love for

The church and his love for his people only he can ever fulfill us make us whole mend our souls love us the way that a good husband ought to love English theologian J.I. Packer

Explains it this way it says through setting his love on human beings God has voluntarily bound up his own final happiness with theirs it's not for nothing that the Bible habitually speaks of God as a loving

Father and husband of his people God was happy before they were made he would have continued happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned but as

It is he has set his love upon particular sinners and this means that by his own free voluntary choice he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again until he

Has brought every one of them to heaven he has in effect resolved that from now on and for all eternity his happiness shall be conditioned upon theirs a good husband a good father has their happiness

Wrapped up in their children in their spouse can't be fully and unmixed happy without the other being happy and fulfilled and complete and what

It says is that Jesus looked at the church and says I'm tying my happiness to yours when we want to respond that this is

Against our happiness and we want to use a trump card do whatever makes you happy Jesus has said I love you and therefore I've

Tied my happiness to yours and I'm also worked up some questions that we get frequently asked when we talk about this we're going

To do some Q&A here in a second I'm going to pray for us Raz is going to come up here and we're going to

Walk through a few questions but let's pray God we thank you for your word we thank you for your help we pray that

You'd help us to trust you to believe in you to follow you even in places where we don't understand where we don't know

Why things are working the way they're working or why your word says what it says pray that you'd help us to look to

The cross to know that you are for our good that you have joined yourself with us both in our despair and in your

Happiness in Jesus name we pray amen we do this from time to time where we do some Q&A we usually try to open it up

For people to send in questions this time specifically we also had some questions that we just know get asked on a regular basis

When we talk about this topic we answer a few questions and then we hope that this kind of Q&A is just the beginning

Of it we are wide open about any of this so this is Raz he's one of our pastors I'm going to read out questions we're

Going to tackle them pretty quickly give a biblical answer rather than a case by case kind of answer because there's a million hypothetical situations that

Everyone can dream up when each question comes up on the screen so let's look at the first one okay the first question is when

Is it okay to get a divorce let me start by saying that that's pretty similar to the question that the Pharisees asked the Pharisees came and said

Is it okay to get a divorce for any reason so to ask the question when is it okay to get a divorce or really to

Ask any question that presupposes that divorce is an option is going to be difficult to answer because it's kind of the wrong question if

Divorce is presupposed as an option then the Bible is going to say stay married the answer is marriage is not supposed to end in divorce and so this is one of those questions that

Is saying I'm looking for a divorce what are my options here and the Bible's immediate response is going to be marriage is good you're married you should stay married divorce

Is not an option unless it really has to be now that opens the door for when does it really have to be and that

Makes this question become actually a whole lot more serious because if it's asked in an inquisitive way then it's missing the point but if there's some

Serious sin issues going on in someone's life it really has to be a more targeted question about which how bad does the sin

Have to be how frequent is the sin can it be resolved is staying married no longer an option and I think typically we

Get our intentions in asking this question are typically off that that haven't been said the two kind of most common cited specific instances

Are the ones we read today in Matthew 5 and 19 where Jesus says except for sexual immorality which would be active sexual sin in the marriage in their

Culture would also have included sexual sin prior to the marriage because they would have said that that broke the covenant you had lied about being

Sexually pure it's a little bit different in our culture and usually people know what they're getting into when they get married sexual immorality also Paul in

1 Corinthians 7 has to address a different situation because when Jesus talks the church hadn't begun yet fully when Paul is writing two churches and saying if

You are a Christian you got married you and your spouse are married everything is fine but you became a Christian and suddenly your

Whole life view has now changed about what is okay what is not okay and your spouse says I don't want to be married

To you anymore and they just leave they're not a Christian but they just say I'm kind of done with this because I can't

Handle you being a Christian and our life being this way Paul says you're free which there is some argument over whether or not that

Means free to not chase them down or that means free to get remarried ultimately all of the situations that lead to divorce are

A mess and they're painful and we want to walk shoulder to shoulder with you through it be as helpful as possible help fight

For your marriage to last and to get past this stuff but we want to have any of those conversations we can I think

Also because the Bible doesn't say this the next follow up question is what about abuse so our response to that first of all

Is if that is you and you are in this room we want you to come talk to us Paul says this in 1

Corinthians that I think helps us with that if I can find it I I am going to read it out loud to the

Married I give this charge not I but the Lord this is verse 10 the wife should not separate from her husband but if

She does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife I think that helps

Us out where it's like you shouldn't do this this isn't the goal but if you have to leave leave but with the goal

Being reconciliation not moving on and so to get out of an abusive situation to get out of a broken situation is actually okay

You should do that we want to help we have some full grown men that want to talk to your husband and but the

Goal should be reconciliation that your husband would repent that you can work this out or that you would stay unmarried because of how

Messed up it's gotten so what kind of like Paul lays that up let's go to the next question does being a new creation in christ mean

That a marriage that happened before you became a christian does it mean that that marriage doesn't count because you're not a new creation yeah

Sure does being a new creation in christ mean that a marriage that happened before you became a christian doesn't count okay so new creation in

Christ that's a quote from Galatians and more specifically probably second corinthians five um that's kind of taken out of context I have heard that and I've heard pastors say

That I've heard people say you know once you become a christian whatever happened in the past doesn't count I think when Jesus says bases it off of

Creation and just applies it across the board to all marriages I don't think that's actually true I think you're taking that out of context and

Applying it to something that that it's not meant to apply to what he's saying is you are made new all of your old

Sins pass away the same way that all of us are free not condemned from all of our sins we are a new creation

But that does not change some of the consequences of what's happened in our past and how we ought to move forward in faithfulness

And obedience so no I don't think so I think if that were true then we would have seen Jesus telling people once they

Become a christian they have to get remarried and there is that never ever happens if people are not it is never considered invalid

And even when he talks to the woman at the well he refers to all of her marriages as marriages all of them are

Considered treated as if they were all actual marriages does the bible ever clearly say what sexual immorality is first of all we do

We usually I only want to ever make the bible define a word when I kind of want to disagree with what I think it means

So that may not be you that is me also just when I'm going to I'm going to help show y'all what I do whenever I

See something in the bible and I really want to know what it means Raz what's that word mean in Greek he does Greek

I did that a bunch for this sermon is that a real question yeah sure okay so the Greek word that is translated into

English is sexual immorality is a word in Greek it's pornea and pornea used to be translated to fornication back when people used to say that word in English but they don't say that

Word anymore so it doesn't make sense to kind of cram into the biblical vocabulary so sexual immorality is the word that they the

Phrase that they used to translate pornea and what pornea means in Greek is any sexual act that occurs outside of a heterosexual monogamous for life

Marriage so a lot of people say what does that mean though what does that include that includes a bunch of things anything that is outside anything that is sexual and physical outside marriage is included

In that that's prostitution incest that is sex before marriage that is it covers a lot of things and I think what Chet was saying is that we want to argue with definitions that's only ever a thing when we want to get away with something when we want

To say what I'm doing doesn't count nobody hears you shouldn't murder and says yeah but let's define murder see what the Greek word said let's see what 10 different translators translated as oh they all said murder I wonder if it counts

If it was an accident I wonder if it counts if I did it to 50 people at once nobody makes arguments trying to justify things nobody questions the definition of a word until they're trying to justify something at least that's the most often time I want to maybe you're just curious

But that doesn't usually happen question they didn't have this at least not in the form that we have it does that apply to pornography that's a good question we have taught from this platform in the past that sexual immorality that pornography and

Sorry for the language masturbation falls under sexual immorality as a result of Che was saying just during the sermon that we sweated this passage a lot in the past week we kind of went Pharisee on it and tried to define terms and understand it like to the letter of the law

So that we could teach clearly on this which I think at times we were missing the point but this question came up for us today we were missing the point today no no no not today during the week sorry during the week when

We were trying to dissect this passage and find out what does it actually say we were pulling a Pharisee move and saying yeah but does it actually mean this and sure Jesus was saying stay married the question was does pornography count there are there are

Three terms that we used from the Matthew passage in Greek it doesn't matter what they were in Greek in English they are lust adultery and sexual immorality through discussions this week and research and trying to dig into the Greek text I think most likely now it

Doesn't really matter at the end of the day but most likely pornography fits more into the lust category and less into the sexual immorality category at the end of the day Jesus just said any man who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in their heart and that's a big deal and we're not saying no longer an issue

You guys just go ahead and deal with like no it's still in the same category we still have sin issues when it comes to pornography and masturbation and stuff but it's probably not one of the categories that Jesus has just said you can get divorced over this it's I think it's ripped out of that category because if if somebody's struggling with

A pornography addiction we wouldn't say your next step is to get divorced that's just I think that misreads the text even if someone was struggling with sexual immorality we wouldn't say that and that's not what Jesus would say either the goal is to reconcile to repent

And to move forward okay yeah let's go to another question what if someone gets married and then they realize realizes and then realizes they made a mistake our third question answerer also I would be inclined to agree with him that

That there and this is what this is what this is what the conversation I get to have with people when they ask I'm just not sure if the person I'm married to is the one because we've pumped that idea into the world that you have a soulmate

Or whatever one true soulmate which by the way comes from Greek mythology where souls used to be have like two heads four arms four legs and the gods cut you in half and you have one true soulmate that idea does not come from scripture

It comes from some weird soul cut nonsense stuff from mythology here's our answer to that and here's the Bible's answer to that are you married to them they're the one I have good news for all you married people it's the

One you found them that's how it works stay married fight for the marriage you have you're married to the one keep it going make it work and yes in some ways you're going to realize you made a mistake

Because you're going to think I thought this was going to fix me and be magical and they're terrible and also I've learned I'm way more terrible than I thought and so yeah fight for it make it good and seek counsel where you need it

But yeah you're married to the one so go make it work that's the last question if you have more questions hang out with the community group this week talk about it as a group I think that would be a really good way to handle

I would suggest probably don't come up with hypotheticals because as soon as you come up with hypotheticals you're probably asking the wrong question also if something was unclear today from what was said because periodically things are just come over talking to me I'll be hanging out right here to make sure that that it's clear and if

You're gonna be upset I at least want to make sure you're upset for the right thing not something I should have said better all right you wanna pray for us and we'll get sure let's pray God we thank you for Jesus and the power that he has to reconcile us to you even though we're fallen even though we're sinful I pray for the

People in our church family who are dealing with some of the mess that occurs when when sin enters into a marriage and starts destroying things and I pray that they will seek you that they will seek what it is that you're calling them to and I pray that as a church family we can rally around those people and encourage them to seek Jesus in all things pray for a church family in general that we would hold marriage tightly with a

Biblical standard that we would hold sexuality tightly with a biblical standard and that we would constantly pursue you with our lives in all of it it's in Jesus name