All right, we are in our series in the book of Matthew.
So if you have a Bible where we have free Bibles at the welcome
table, we have actually some nice hardcover ones we recently
got in. Those are free to those of you
who don't have a Bible at home. But if you pull your Bibles to
Matthew chapter 5, we're in a place where Jesus is preaching
in the Sermon on the Mount. And I've entitled today's
message well because it really goes along with what we're
talking about today. The the title of today's message
is divorce, the antithesis of God's love.
And we are going to be in verses 31 through 32.
So let me read these verses for us and then we'll get into it.
It says in verse 31 it was also said whoever divorces his wife,
let him give a certificate of divorce.
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except
except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit
adultery. And whoever marries a divorced
woman commits adultery. Now, I want to start with this,
that there is grace and compassion to all who have been
divorced in this room. Certainly the church is not
without, without exception to sin.
As we've talked about today, all of us have struggled.
All of us come from different walks of life.
And and there is grace and compassion for those who have
been divorced or affected by divorce.
This is a sin, but we've all sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. Jesus came to die for our sins
and to forgive us, and now we get to grow in how He wants us
to live, not by by law and rule, but through obedience out of
gratitude and love. We're not trying not to sin to
make it into heaven. We're trying not to sin because
we're already saved and we're going to heaven.
And so that's the desire for us as Christians now.
That's what makes us different from the world because we don't
justify it anymore. We know that.
That's why Jesus came and died. So God does have a a will and a
design for marriage. Marriage is an institution that
God created himself. And so therefore it has meaning
and value to God and it should have meaning and value to us.
So today, I don't want you to question the marriage you're in
right now. You can't go back into the past
and change things, as I said. But we can't all move forward
with the right heart in our lives today.
Moving forward. This is all for us again, to
know God's heart about marriage. And I hope it strengthens our
marriages in the room today and those who might be listening
online. And it also helps us to realize
our need for Jesus even more so as we get into this message.
This is the third of the six antitheses of Jesus's Sermon on
the Mount, where he teaches in a way that is contrasting what the
Old Testament or the the Pharisees, the teachers of the
Old Testament law were teaching to the people in Israel at the
time. He would always say, you've
heard that it was said, you've heard that your rabbis taught
this. And he quotes something that's
in in the Old Testament Scripture.
And here's what they would say about that.
But here's what I say. So that's why it's an
antithesis, because they're opposed to one another.
They didn't interpret these things rightly.
These laws by God, His moral standard has not gone away.
That's why we continuously go back to the 10 commandments that
probably most people know. We know why things are wrong.
We know what's what's good and evil because of God's law that
He has revealed thousands of years ago.
They don't go away, but they can be misinterpreted or not taught
properly. That's what Jesus is saying
here. And so an antithesis, as I've
said, divorce is an antithesis of God's love or title of our
message. What is an antithesis?
Well, it's a person, group, or set of morals and beliefs or
statements that are directly opposite or incompatible with
other people, beliefs, etcetera. So an example of this, of
complete opposites, of people that can believe completely
different things, extreme right conservatives, extreme left
liberals, we see that it's very prevalent, relevant illustration
in our world today because of the crazy hostility and the evil
that we've seen. Because the complete opposites,
it's also a figure of speech to say something is opposite, like
you're the antithesis of me. Many of you might have children
who you you hoped that they would grow up to be just like
you. And they're actually complete
opposites, you know? And so your son or your daughter
is the antithesis of you. And I know that can be
frustrating. And this would have been a
pretty bold sermon for Jesus to preach.
Again, remember, Jesus was bold and loving a lot of people.
Maybe out of ignorance, we'll just say, well, Jesus was the
kind one and the Old Testament God was the mean one.
Well, they're the same God. Jesus and God himself has always
been abounding with grace and mercy and love.
And Jesus is the picture. He is not the antithesis of God.
He is God himself in the flesh, teaching what God's Word says to
the people. And he's doing that even now.
And as we walk through this, this is for us today, not just
for them 2000 years ago. So let's get into this.
I have one point today in this message from Jesus, and it's
this divorce is antithetical to God's design for marriage.
Again, it's directly opposed to or it's incompatible.
That's what that means and it's not just antithetical or opposed
to the idea of marriage, but it is opposed to God himself who
created marriage. Let's get into our text.
It says in verse 31, it was also said whoever divorces his wife,
let him give a certificate of divorce.
Now, in order to get a fuller understanding of what Jesus is
saying here in this text, we're going to need to jump to some
other texts in the Bible. Like later in Matthew 19 or in
Mark 10, it has a passage where where the Pharisees who had
heard this teaching earlier on wanted him to clarify some
things. And so Jesus in Matthew 19,
we're going to jump to there he clarifies some things.
And the reason why we go to other texts in Scripture is
because preachers and Jesus was a preacher.
He we all have a theology from all of Scripture about a topic
and the same truths need need clarification.
They need to be hidden from different angles.
And so in order to understand a teaching from the Bible, you got
to go all over the Bible to find all that said about that thing,
not just cherry pick verse here, there or whatever.
So that's what we're going to do and we're going to find out
again Jesus's heart. And here in Matthew 19, starting
in verse 3 through 6, it says the Pharisees 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 2, but one flesh.
What Therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
So this is Jesus fuller teaching on what we're reading in Matthew
chapter 5 and and so the so what's going on here?
It's that these Pharisees are saying, hey, we want to hear
what you have to say. And they're testing him in front
of people because they knew that there were two groups of people
that believed different things about this topic of, of marriage
and divorce. And there was one group who
would would be the more conservative group from this
Rabbi Shemai and his followers believed it meant unchastity and
adultery alone. That would be the only cause or
reason that you could divorce someone according to this group.
And another group, Hellel, he would have been the more the
more liberal who would think of Moses teaching in a much broader
sense. And they would approve some
divorce for some of the most flimsy reasons, like the wife
burned his food or talked so loud that the neighbors could
hear. So where are they getting this
from? Why are they confused about
this? How could God's people be
confused about this topic? Well, they based on a passage in
Deuteronomy chapter 6. I don't have it up here.
You can turn your Bibles there. Deuteronomy chapter 624, there
was a law that Moses was reiterating that was directly
specific about an issue that was going on with some of the
people. And it says this when a man
takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his
eyes because he found some indecency in her.
So that one verse this this is what they're arguing about when
they're coming up to Jesus and but but but you read the rest of
the context. It says if he finds no favor in
her eyes because he's found some indecency in her.
That word indecency has been argued over.
But most the faithful, as Jesus is going to tell us later on is
as we've read is, is sexual immorality, adultery, but it
goes on. And in, in the context it says
if if she goes and gets married to another guy, 'cause you wrote
a certificate of divorce to her and then he divorces her as
well, you don't get to take her back.
That's what the passage says. And so apparently these people
were so hard hearted and a lot they were, they were, they had a
wrong view of marriage that they thought that they could, as long
as they had the right paperwork, that they could do whatever they
wanted, that they could get rid of their wife for a reason at
that time. And this also applies to men and
women, by the way, though the language talks about a wife, the
same would be true in the reverse order.
They, they just did not have a high view of marriage.
They were always looking for the loophole.
You see, that's what Pharisees were famous for doing.
They always, instead of wanting to find God's heart on the
matter, it was what can I get away with here when they had
taken it way too far. So they take an obscure passage
in Deuteronomy that Jesus is going to clear up later.
Again, this is Jesus, the word of God answering a question
about his theology on marriage and he goes directly to
Scripture because if we look at the rest of the Scripture, it
says he answered, have you not read that he who created them
from the beginning made them male and female and said,
therefore man shall leave his father and mother and the two
and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
Where is he getting that from? He goes further back than
Deuteronomy to an unclear passage to a more clear passage.
Again, this is what Pharisees or, or people that want to make
a case for their own desires. You know, people that want to
follow God, but but they have their own desires.
And so they'll go into Scripture to try to find loopholes for
things and Jesus saying, Nope, you're not going to get away
with this one. Because although you go to this
obscure passage in Deuteronomy, I'm going back further to the
created order in Genesis. In Genesis chapter one, we
looked at it a couple of weeks ago.
God made them male and female and brought them together.
It was a beautiful thing that God did.
Let me read the first marriage ceremony to you in Genesis
chapter 2 after he created them male and female in his image.
It says so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man,
and while he slept took one of the ribs and his ribs and closed
it up in its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God
had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to
the man. The man said this is at last
bone of my bones and flesh of my fat flesh.
She shall be called woe man because he was like, whoa, man
never seen anyone like this before, right?
And he hadn't woman because she was taken out of man.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast
to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.
So Jesus quotes this first marriage narrative in Scripture
and then he adds on to it the words with his own now
interpretation of it, which is also the word of God says So
they are no longer 2 but one flesh.
What? Therefore God is joined
together, let not man separate. So what is he saying here?
He's saying that the institution of marriage was set up by God,
therefore that makes it a holy institution.
This is not just some legal matter that can be broken or
changed by some secular or or government on earth court piece
of paper that overrides God's standards.
You see, this is a beautiful thing that God created.
The man and the woman would come together and it would it would
represent His Holiness and His desire for them to be fruitful
and multiply. In fact, when God created man
and woman in the 1st chapter, it's the only time He created
all the animals and He created the whole earth and all the
universe. But after the 6th day, after He
created the human beings and He commanded them be fruitful,
multiply and fill the earth, and after that He said this is very
good. He sees the creation of humans
and marriage between man and woman as something very good.
And so then you can already see from this text that God is
pleased by marriage. He loves it when two people come
together as one in intimacy, in relationship, in covenant
relationship to one another. Why?
Because that represents God's own heart for his people.
He has committed to us all over in the Bible, actually, He it
shows us that marriage is an interpretation, an analogy, an
illustration of God's love for his people.
And it's always been that way, a covenant that he's made with us,
that He's going to love us throughout all of our sin, all
of our wandering. And he's, he's proven that
covenant through sending his Son to die for us.
God wanted us to come together, committed to one another.
Marriage is not just a natural thing.
So out there in the world, everybody has their own idea of
what marriage is. It's not marriage.
If it's not a man and a woman in a covenant relationship for
life, then that's not that's not marriage.
They can call it marriage, but it's not.
God owns marriage, right? So he gets to decide what it's
for, what its purpose is, and who is qualified for it.
And that's what we read in this text and this oneness language.
Again, it's talking about intimacy.
It's talking about sex when they come together, what happens with
that? Well, there's a spiritual union
where two people literally become one for a moment, and
because of that it fulfills the command.
Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, take demand.
So from that union comes offspring.
And God wants us then to not only get married, but have
children and raise them for him and His glory.
Actually, Malachi too puts this really well to explain what I'm
saying if we go to it, says, did he not make them one with a
portion of the Spirit in their union?
Let me stop right there. Well, no, let me, let me keep
going. And what was the one God seeking
godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your
spirit and let, 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. So there's a couple things in
here #1 the oneness that I talked about, the spiritual
union. Marriage is not just physical,
it's also spiritual. And so when you come together,
it is God bringing us together. Like the first marriage
narrative of Adam and Eve, it represents that God is
sovereign. By the way, so I've heard it
said, then if you take two people and you spiritually bind
them together, then it's a brutal and violent act to
separate them. If they're basically being knit
together as one person, then divorce comes in and, and, and
it's almost a bloody action that happens.
It takes a lot of violence for that to actually even work, and
nobody is left the same afterwards.
Somebody once told me about an illustration.
If you take a blue heart represents a man, a pink heart
represents a girl. You glue them together, you
stick them there. And this can also go to having
sex outside of marriage because there's something happening
there beyond just physical pleasure.
If you get married or you are intimate with someone outside of
marriage and then and then you separate, what's going to happen
to those two hearts on there? There's going to be a little bit
of pink on the blue and there's going to be a little bit of blue
on the pink that will basically never come off because you were
joined together with some in this way.
They're basically going to be they're going to be scars on
your heart in that relationship with that person that you have
that will that you will carry with you the rest of your life.
I say this not as someone who's speaking down to you, but saying
this as someone who has experienced that myself.
I haven't been divorced, but I've sinned in other ways.
And I want you to understand there are consequences to not
doing it God's way. So that's one part of it.
And the second part is that God wants godly children from the
union of marriage. And what does divorce do to our
children? Again, I want to have compassion
for all of us in the room. To you who've been through
divorce, you see your children struggling or kids that grew up
in a divorced home, because here's what I think that divorce
communicates to our kids, especially Christians.
If we say that we're in this covenant relationship with Jesus
and Jesus will never leave us or forsake us.
And he's like the husband and, and we're the bride.
The church is the bride of Christ.
And we're telling our kids that and our marriages are supposed
to be an illustration of that. But then they can't see mom and
dad get together and work through their issues and forgive
one another and and their their parents split up.
Then what's going to happen? I think it's going to make it a
lot harder for the kids when they grow to be adults, to
really trust that Jesus is really going to continue to love
me forever, that this relationship I have with him
can't be broken somehow. Why would God keep his covenant
love with me when the people I knew that were closest to God
couldn't? What does this all mean?
And I understand the pain from that.
And This is why I think God does not, is not pleased with divorce
because it's not a part of his design of what he was doing
here. It was a beautiful thing.
It was very good and it still is, even though we're in a
sinful world. So back to our verses on this
again. It says whoever divorces his
wife, let him give a certificate of divorce.
Now let's go back to our verse in chapter 19.
They said to him, why then what's the what is this
certificate all about? Because there will be exception
clauses in this passage, as you already know.
But what is this certificate all about?
They said why then did Moses do this in Deuteronomy chapter 4 or
24? Give a certificate of divorce to
send her away. He said to them, because of your
hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.
But from the beginning it was not.
So again, it wasn't meant to be this way in the beginning.
And by the way, they say it like this, why did Moses command?
And here's what Jesus says. Look at the word he says because
of the hardness heart he allowed.
God never commands divorce ever. But in some cases it was allowed
and there may be an exception for that.
Before I get to that, what does he say Because of your hardness
of heart? Hardness of heart makes it so we
don't want to follow God's way. We're too hurt, too personally
hurt to only think about maybe even protecting ourselves or
we're trying to get to a safe place.
But I just want you to remember all the places that people are
called hard hearted in the Bible.
One of them was Pharaoh, who was not a believer, and other places
like Jesus himself. In Mark chapter 3, when Jesus
healed a man's hand on a Sabbath and the Pharisees got mad at him
for healing someone, loving someone on the Sabbath, listen
to what Jesus said. And he looked around them at
them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and
said to the man, stretch out your hand.
And he stretched it out and his hand was restored.
So when the Bible mentions hard heartedness, it's usually
referring to people who are unbelievers.
And So what is Jesus saying here?
What is he's saying? Basically, because you're not
going to follow God's law anyway.
You're going to make up your own loopholes anyway.
I will give you what you want. Now, that doesn't discount that
people's hearts can't be so hurt that it's almost unimaginable to
come back from. But what I am saying is what the
text says, that hardness of heart is never really ever
referred to a believer. In fact, Psalm 2814 says this.
Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always.
But whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
And we know that hardness of heart leads us down the path we
don't want to. So even if you're not divorced
and you're in a fight with your spouse or a loved one or a
friend or someone in the church or whatever it's like, and we're
in that moment, you know that you're so angry, you're so hurt
that your heart's almost impenetrable.
You're like, I'm, I'm not letting them get away with this.
I want justice. I want them to know just how mad
I am to ever be able to do this again.
And you keep that going as the cycle of hardening, hardening
Harding and and you never let that humility in there to say,
you know what? I've done things that I've been
forgiven for and Jesus Christ has forgiven me.
And why can't I be forgiving? No, that hardness of heart leads
us down a path. And you all probably know this.
When you took it too far, you wished, man, I wished I wouldn't
have been so hard hearted. We drug this out longer than it
should have been. So Moses allowed for a
certificate of divorce because the hard heartedness of those
people that were wandering in the desert that were already a
disobedient people anyway. So let's get back to our passage
then. But I say to you that everyone
who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality
makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced
woman commits adultery. So Jesus gives us a technical
application, and here it is. You know, we all want to know,
right? What can I get away with?
And I dare say, like the Pharisees, we can be like that
sometimes, right? How can I get out of this
without sinning? Well, Jesus technically says
there's an exception for those whose hearts been so broken by
literal adultery or infidelity that one can get a divorce.
And I say literal because the word here in the Greek for
sexual immoralities is a word that means harlotry, adultery,
incest or fornication. So prostitution, literal
adultery, or any kind of sex outside of marriage or incest
that they can choose to leave the marriage and then get
remarried. I did a sermon 2 weeks ago on
lust because that was the verses just before this where lust is
spiritually the same consequences in heaven to
adultery. Jesus said if you look at a
woman with lust you've committed adultery in your heart.
And yes I agree that the consequences in heaven are the
same. It's a sin.
It's a sin that is equal to God. It's not a lesser sin.
It's not a it's not a a sin that will be punished differently.
It is just a sin. It's the heart of adultery,
looking at another person, man or woman with lustful intent
who's not your spouse. But the consequences on earth
are different and we know that. But in the case of literal
adultery or sexual immorality, they can choose to leave the
marriage and then get remarried. But the remarriage is also in
kind of a a narrow spectrum of people to choose from because
they would have had to have gone through the same exact thing.
Because what does it say? It says unless it's for sexual
immorality, you make her commit adultery and whoever marries a
divorced woman commits adultery. So what it's saying is, is the
two people are going to be hold responsible in the remarriage.
And so if one person is qualified under the technical
application, but the other person isn't, you're still
sinning. That other person needs to be a
believer. That other person has to have
either never been married or they went through a divorce for
the same exact reason. Then there's this narrow
application, technical application that Jesus is
allowing for. Now, there are there are two
other reasons why a person could get out of a marriage.
Romans 7 talks about 1 is free for marriage and to remarry if a
spouse dies. And 1st Corinthians 7 says if
you are an A believer and you're married to an unbelieving spouse
and the unbelieving spouse wants to leave, you should let them,
but the believer will never. It is not permitted by Scripture
that the believer could leave the unbelieving spouse because
again, the believer views marriage in light of God's
design and creation of it. Again, all of this, if this was
you, I want you to know that if you've recognized this and
repented, asked forgiveness from Jesus as a believer, the slate
is wiped clean. Understand that.
Again, we've all come here with many sins.
We've talked about sin a lot. Today we sang a song about sin.
I mean, it's been a lot talked about the world's sin, other
people's sin, our sin. And what I want you to know is
the beauty is as we all come together on equal ground at the
foot of the cross, bowing there saying, Lord, yes, I failed,
yes, I've sinned, yes, I've gone against you.
And Lord, I know what your word says and it falls short of your
standard. And that is why Jesus Christ
died. And by faith in him and him
alone, that act that He did because he knew we were going to
sin against Him. Romans 5 says that that while we
were yet sinners, Christ came and died.
We've been born with a sinful nature that wants to go our own
way that cannot please God and therefore God with A1 sided
commitment covenant to us says I'm coming to make all things
good and new and I'm going to love you, forgive you.
I am going to see to it that you make it all the way to the end
of this life. And you will be finally
consummated with me at the marriage supper of the lamb when
Jesus finally comes back to take his bride to live in heaven
forever. But just remember, although the
past is out of our control and we we can move on in grace and
freedom to now follow him and look at marriage through the
lens of the gospel because that is what it's supposed to be.
And so while we've talked about the technical application, what
else does Jesus say about marriage?
What does the Bible say about marriage?
Because in that text earlier he says, have you not read yes,
have you not read the theology of what marriage is all about?
And this is kind of my main idea, take away today that
marriage is an illustration of God's love for his church.
His covenant can't be broken. He will never leave or divorce
us. Therefore we should honor him in
our marriages. And so This is why I would never
counsel for divorce. I've done a lot of marriage
counseling. I've been in my own share of
Christian marriage counseling in my own marriage.
And this is a beautiful thing. Why the church?
God put it here, and we don't often take advantage of it
before it's too late. But now moving forward, if
you're struggling with questions about things like this in your
family, in your marriage, we do have pastors and leaders that
would love to counsel through this.
I often tell people you'll never any say anything in a marriage
counseling session that surprises me or shocks me.
But I'm never going to counsel for divorce because I believe
what it illustrates, the gospel, the unwavering love.
The question is, you know, even in this loophole or this
technical way out of marriage, does God do the same thing?
No Would he leave us if we had spiritual adultery on him?
Left to go break the first commandment, which was have no
other gods before me. If we go and and worship other
gods and other idols and put other people in in in higher
priority in our lives than his, does he say, OK, you're done,
I'm gone. Certificate of divorce.
Legally I'm out of this. No, he doesn't.
Though we sin. His grace overcomes all of that
past, present, and future because we are in Christ by our
faith in Him alone. And so then look, let me just
show you this in the book of Hosea.
It might shock you, maybe you've read it before, but the whole
theme of the book of Hosea is that the nation of Israel is
sinning against God by idolatry, going after other gods, and he
calls it whoredom, He calls it adultery.
And in Hosea chapter 1, he uses this prophet to to make an
illustration about this. In Hosea chapter one, verse 2,
it says when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord
said to Hosea, go take yourself a wife of whoredom and have
children of whoredom for the land commits great whoredom by
forsaking the Lord. And so in this illustration,
he's trying to show the nation of Israel.
You guys have really gone out on me, but you keep reading in
chapter 2. And although he's he's got a lot
to say about them in their spiritual adultery against God.
Verse 14 He says, Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and
bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards, and make the valley
of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in
the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the
land of Egypt. And in that day declares the
Lord, You will call me husband, and no longer will you call me
my Baal, the other God that they were worshipping.
And then in chapter 3, what does he do?
Although they went, went out and this same wife goes out on
Hosea, it says the Lord said to me, go again, love a woman who
is loved by another man and is an adulteress.
Even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they
turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.
He says go redeem her. It's a beautiful thing.
So God will never leave us or forsake us no matter what sin
we've committed. So we should honor Him in our
marriages. This would be a challenge for us
even though our spouse may not be at the level of maturity or
or maybe in a season of 1 struggling than the other like
in a marriage commitment. If you're both Christians, we're
both committed to this thing saying it's not 5050.
Sometimes it's 100 zero like our relationship with Jesus.
Now in the best marriages, especially if you're both
Christians, you would both try to sacrificially love one
another and forgive one another as much as Christ has forgiven
you. That makes a that's makes a
great marriage. I had a mentor tell me there's
in fact, probably not any great marriages, but there's some
really good ones. Why?
Because we're all sinners and we come into this relationship.
And so what's going to happen? You not only have your own
struggles in your own life, but you now combine it with two
different personalities and perspectives.
There's going to be issues. So God gives us things.
We we read Ephesians 5 and I want to just read that to you
again. It says just parts of it.
Wives submit to your own husbands.
Now this is always a, a tough verse for a lot of people,
especially in this generation. What does this mean?
Because in a good marriage, wives would submit to their
husbands. And then in verse 25, it says
husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church, gave
his life up for her and died for her.
Well, this would mean that women respect and appreciate their
husbands, encourage them and help help them to exceed.
But men, you don't, You've got to reserve veto power in a sense
that it should only ever be used.
A godly husband should only ever say we must do this or must do
that with my family and very, very narrow things in life.
It would be where we worship, where we go to church.
Right. Like where are we going to
worship God and have our family involved?
That is, hopefully the man would lead in that.
Hopefully the man would become the prophet, the priest, and the
provider in his home. And in fact, all men were doing
a men's group starting with these groups.
And we have this book called How to Lead Your Family, and it uses
these principles of being a leader like this to do
discipleship in the home and then in areas of providing and
protecting for the family. And it doesn't mean that the man
always has to make the most money in the home.
It just means that it should be your concern how your family
survives. But men, you must be worth
submitting to because if you're not following Jesus and not
living out your role as God's design and leading the family
into neutrality or even sin, you're not worth following.
You've got to be a man worth following.
We need more men in this world, in our culture that are worth
following. I don't feel bashful about
saying that, and I think women would say Amen to that.
Please men, lead. And then it says you're supposed
to sacrifice your life, lay down your life for your wife as
Christ laid down his life for the church.
And so, yeah, the passage ends with, you know, husbands, love,
respect. They do want to hear that
they're appreciated. They do want to know that you
think well of them. They do want to know that
they're supported. But both of you need to
recognize that God has made your marriage a billboard for his
love for his people. And Jesus is calling both of us,
both of you, to represent him well with your marriages in the
world, to forgive like He forgave.
That's the only way it's going to work because you are going to
sin against one another. But ultimately, I want to end
with this. Do not put all of your hope and
trust in your spouse being everything that you need and
holding them to only their side of the commitment, because only
Jesus can be the one that can bear the burden forever.
Only Jesus is the one that can fulfill all your needs and hopes
and desires. Get your needs met from God and
then go serve your spouse as the one God calls your first one,
another and neighbor. I want to read 2 quotes from
Martin Luther as I close. I didn't know he was such a a
marriage marriage proponent. But when he says, let the wife
make the husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry
to see him leave. And the second one is this.
The Christian is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his
wife is his nearest neighbor, she should be his deepest love.
Christians married people go love one another.
Well, those who are unmarried or considering being married,
please find a healthy Christian man or woman to get married to
and do it the right way. Although you may have sinned,
you're in good company. Everyone who has struggled with
the sin of divorce in the past, know that if you've confessed it
and repented and you've acknowledged it, that you are
forgiven. And now you can go on knowing
how the Lord wants you to conduct yourself in this life.
Let us all be blessed. Father, thank you for your words
of wisdom, love, and encouragement.
Help us live out these truths and these principles and to
boldly stand for these to talk about these.
We need your wisdom and your guidance in this world.
If left without that, we're in the dark.
We start acting like the rest of the world and we look out the
world. We know the world's crazy.
Help us to live other than them the way that you would, will,
and want us to. I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.