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Don Filcek; Matthew 19:1-12 Fixing Marriage
To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called, Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.
Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad for the privilege it is to gather together as God's people here in this place.
I hope that you counted a privilege, too, and just a couple of points. You might notice that it's raining out, and there are some isolated thunderstorms cropping up around. I've got Mark Klein is kind of checking the weather back here.
If we have lightning, what we're going to do is we're just going to wrap things up out here real quick and head inside and grab some cloth chairs, spread out, and just finish the service in there. We do ask that everybody wear a mask if we have to do that transition indoors, at least in that transition time, and then once you get in your seats, you can take that mask off.
If you don't have one, I think we have some. Linda, do we have some masks for anybody who doesn't have one? If we have to make that transition, we'll try to do it as smooth as possible. It won't be smooth at all, but it'll be fun.
Hopefully, we don't have to and just be praying that the weather holds off. I recognize that many of us are coming from a variety of different concerns and issues with our weeks this past week. Some of you are rejoicing in good things that are happening for you.
Some of you are probably pretty low, and there's been some depressing things and some discouraging things. Our goal here in authenticity, our core value of authenticity, is with the goal that we would connect people in relationships where we can celebrate together and also mourn together.
That's part of the nature of the community groups that we form here. In those community groups, the desire is that you have other people to connect with in life. You get to know one another, you care for one another, and you hold each other up.
I just point this out almost every week that we gather together, and that is that God is drawing us together so that we can grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service. And I hope that that's a reality for you, especially as we're coming out of this quarantine, that that growing community is starting to revive within you and that desire to connect with others is growing in you as well.
As far as growing in faith, God is dropping a word on us that's going to hit different people in different ways, depending on where you're at in your life this morning. And the fact of the matter is, it's a word that's hard, it's heavy, it's a hard passage.
But I would say, and I say that a lot of times, because in reality as we go through the book of Matthew, particularly as we go through the Gospels, everybody's like, I want to hear the Gospels, I want to get to know Jesus better.
And then you hear the kinds of things that Jesus says, and they're like, just can we get back to the epistles? Can we get back to Paul? Because Jesus says some tough things. He says some really, really hard things.
And the fact of the matter is, they're not hard because they're hard to understand. I think you read this passage on your own and you get the idea, you get the gist of what he's saying. So it's not hard to understand.
It is a hard passage of scripture in part because it's easy to understand. It's because you get what he's saying in it, because you get what he wants of us, and it is not easy to do. It's not easy to practice.
The fact of the matter is, in our text here, and I know I'm building it up and we're going to read it here in a second, and some of you have already seen what the topic is, but Jesus isn't going to sound very pastoral here.
But don't lose sight of the fact that God sets out a plan that is good for us. He isn't in the business of squelching all the fun. That's not why we have rules and laws and things that Jesus desires of us, even in the New Testament, where he wants us to lean into a relationship with God by which we obey him out of love and gratitude for what he's done.
But quite the opposite, he is setting out a plan for human blessing, for flourishing. And he says if we do things the way that he desires, it will go better for us. We think we know otherwise, right? We get off into sin primarily because we think we know better than God.
Well, God says we're not supposed to do this, but does he really have our best interest in mind? And you can hear the echoes of Satan tempting Eve. Did God really say? He's just trying to hold back your potential.
And if you just go off on your own, you'll realize that you can do it on your own. That's the temptation of Satan. But I just want to point out about Matthew 19, 1 through 12, that we're going to be reading here in a moment.
I don't think I would probably ever get around to preaching this passage if we didn't just walk straight through books of the Bible. I don't think this is not a favorite passage. It's not brought to you by my desire or my opinions or my thoughts or what I want to communicate.
It is awkward to talk about divorce in our current culture. It is hard, hard, hard, difficult to balance pastoral love for all of you while standing up here and speaking the very high standard of the Almighty God regarding marriage.
But God's word is our highest standard. Raise your hand if you agree with that statement. God's word is our highest standard. And where His word makes us feel uncomfortable, I would suggest to you that we're probably up against an area where we need to grow in our faith in God that He is getting it right.
Trusting Him that what He is saying is true and accurate and beneficial and helpful for human flourishing. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew 19, verses 1 through 12. And this is God's precious and holy word.
This is not just merely, you know, some thoughts or some opinions or ideas. This is what God wants us to know about marriage. This is what He wants us to take on regarding the topic of divorce. And as difficult as it might be, it is the good and holy standard of the Almighty God.
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 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 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. They said to Him, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and 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. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.
The disciples said to Him, If such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better to not marry. But He said to them, Not everyone can receive 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.
Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the grace that is your word that speaks into all topics in all areas of our lives, even those where we can easily grow uncomfortable and areas where many of us have been directly impacted individually, as well as in our families, and in our parents, and in other generations.
Father, this topic of divorce and remarriage is one that is so imminent to all of us, even those who are single here. A good message for us to take on, even now, wherever we're at in our lives. And so Father, I pray that your grace and your mercy would cover this time, and that most importantly, we would be able to keep in the back of our mind intention, the reality of the gospel that covers us, the grace, that it is not by performing in our marriages, and by doing a great job holding to our vows that we're saved, but it is only through the grace and salvation that is provided for us in Christ, that we can then now sing songs with joy and gladness in our hearts because of the mercy that is given to us through the cross of Christ.
Even as many of us have messed up, and we've made mistakes in this area of our lives, Father, we thank you for your grace and your mercy that can forgive and can set us free, and has done so if we are in Christ.
And so as people who believe in you, I pray that you would set our hearts free to sing and to rejoice before you this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated, and I just encourage you to make yourself as comfortable as possible, and reopen your device or your Bible to Matthew chapter 19, verses 1 through 12, and that's going to be the text.
The things that I say are going to come from that, and so, yeah, let's dig in. Verses 1 and 2, if you can see those right off the bat there, they start off tame enough, don't they? They kind of play, they kind of serve as kind of, you know, transitional material in the gospel of Matthew to show us what has transpired, and then where Jesus is.
And Jesus left Galilee in our text for the last time in the gospel of Matthew. So he was born in kind of south-central Israel, but spent most of his upbringing up in Galilee in the town of Nazareth, spent a lot of his ministry up there.
This is his final time in Galilee as he takes a trip south toward Jerusalem, and this very road will end at the cross for Jesus Christ. He will not return to Galilee again until after his resurrection from the dead.
Now, we know that large crowds followed him wherever he went, and in this particular trip, it's mentioned there, and they follow him along the road, and the journey was interspersed with pauses along the way for teaching, and miracles, and healings, and all kinds of things that were going on that the gospels record for us on that journey towards Jerusalem.
But verse 3 turns up the heat a bit on us, and this heat hits us about the same now in 2020, about the heat and the fire of this subject hits us now about as much as it did then. It was a controversial subject in 33 AD, just like it is in 2020.
You see, in that day and age, the hyper religious Jewish sect called the Pharisees here in this text are trying to trap Jesus into stating directly his opinion about divorce, and that would actually serve to marginalize a good chunk of his followers right off the bat.
There's all kinds of disagreements in the crowd that are gathered around him, and so they lean in when this question is asked because they all have strong opinions, and they're not all the same. Are you getting that?
And so one of the oldest tricks in the book is if you want to marginalize a teacher, ask him a question that you know half of the audience is going to disagree with. That's one way to kind of push him off to the side, and they're asking him in this context a no-win kind of question, and the text tells us it's a test.
It could also be translated trap. There's an intention here, and here's the question. Is it lawful? Jesus, tell us. They come with kind of a picture, kind of a little sappy, false humility kind of curiosity.
Tell us, Jesus. Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any reason? Is that allowed? Well, even the phrase for any cause or for any reason was charged because, again, that's the very same terminology that one particular school of the Pharisees would use for divorce.
Yes, you're allowed to divorce your wife for any cause was a common Jewish teaching, and so most of those present at the asking of this question, at least probably a little more than 50 percent would have answered affirmative to this right away.
They knew the answer that they expected to hear from Jesus. Well, yeah, he can divorce her for whatever he wants. This was a majority opinion, and many thought that if she burned... This is literally in Jewish...
I'm not making this stuff up. This is literally in Jewish writings dating to the time. If she burns a meal, he can divorce her. If he finds a newer model, I'm obviously loosely translating that, but if he finds a newer model, he could trade her in, and I say that intentionally in a snarky way because that kind of attitude deserves some snark.
Would you agree with me on that? But there were others who thought that the only reason for divorce was sexual immorality. In that day and age, they would have said that they go back into the law of Moses, and they see that if he finds any indecency in hers, the way that it's written in Deuteronomy 24, and so in that context, they would have interpreted any indecency as some type of sexual immorality or promiscuity, and so they would have said if she was promiscuous or adulterous, then the divorce would be legit in that context, and so they're asking a charge question, and they think they have him trapped.
How many of you know that Jesus is very good at getting out of traps when he needs to, and so when they try to trap him, it just doesn't work, and so this is a test, by the way, that they hoped he would not pass, and by marginalizing people, he would end up kind of falling off of public notoriety, and eventually, they would regain their power, and Jesus was a threat to the Pharisees' power, and so they want to trap him in this, but he goes way back into the ancient scrolls, way back into a source that all present would respect.
All of those listening and even us, all of us listening should respect the source that he cites. He goes back to the beginning, and he quotes Genesis 1 and 2. He reminds them of something we desperately need to remember in our day and age.
The first and fundamental thing that he wants to be clear about is this. If you're taking notes, jot this down as your first point. Marriage is from God. Marriage is from God. In his design and his plans, he created male and female, which in itself is a good reminder, right?
In our day and age, we need that reminder. God's design, God's order, God's plan, male and female, and Jesus starts back at the fundamentals here in our text. The complementary parts, his design, the method of procreation, his plan, the differences in roles and functions, his plan, and further in verse 5, the monogamous union in marriage between a man and a wife, a man and a woman, is his very good idea from the beginning.
This is the way it was meant to be, Jesus says, from the beginning. A man shall leave his father and mother and glue his life to his wife, and the two shall become, in the text, a one flesh union. Now, the oneness that's mentioned here can sound kind of physical at one level.
The oneness has a significance, though, that goes beyond mere physical union. You can tell that it's more than just bedroom benefits that Jesus has in mind here because of where he goes in verse 6. In verse 6, he dives much deeper than a married couple in physical union.
Jesus doesn't leave this Old Testament passage from Genesis at the point of two people joining themselves together. He expresses instead a crazy, significant implication that's symbolized by the one flesh union.
And what is that that he's symbolizing? The two are no longer two, but they are one. They are one. Not they pretend or play at being one, they are one. And that leads to the second thing that Jesus teaches on marriage here.
Again, if you're taking notes, jot this down. The second thing, marriage is about a God-given oneness, a God-orchestrated oneness. Notice in verse 6, who gets the credit for the union of two into one marriage?
What God has joined together, says Jesus. Who did the joining? The pastor at the ceremony? The participants in the wedding? The bride and the groom? No, they're not doing the joining. God has joined together.
And then he goes on to say, obviously, let not man separate because God has done the joining. Some of you are going to get lost on this one, but I think it's worth taking a shot at this. Michael Scott from The Office, anybody?
Anybody right away? Nobody? Nobody knows who Michael Scott from The Office is? Well, he was giving a toast at one particular wedding in the show The Office, and he wasn't too far off when he defined wedding.
He happened to, just for his toast, look it up in the dictionary, and he grabbed the wrong definition, as you might imagine, and he says, wedding, the fusing of two metals with a hot torch. But I'm suggesting to you this morning that he wasn't that far off.
It's just that what we need to remember is that in the illustration that Michael Scott is using, unintentionally, God is the welder. God is the one who fuses the two into one, and we are not granted a cutting torch to separate that which he has wed together, or welded together.
Do we really understand where Jesus goes in answering this question? Do we really respect what he says here? Can we just divorce for whatever cause? He's mean. She's disrespectful. He's lazy. She can't cook.
Does it matter to us what God thinks about marriage? Because I would suggest to you that by looking at our culture around us, the answer has to be no. Would you agree with me on that? Do we take this on?
Do we listen to this? Do we believe it, or do we explain it away? Do we want to take what he says and change it and alter it? Does it really matter to us, recast, what God says marriage is? It seems like increasingly in our Christian culture, we have distanced ourself from this passage.
But Jesus takes us back to a definition of marriage, a God-created oneness between a man and a woman, not a selection of a spouse for our enjoyment in our 20s or 30s, not a decision I made in my youth, a choosing that I did that I can now later un-choose because I'm not standing by my decision.
I just don't think I had the right thoughts or whatever. You see, when it comes to Linden, I didn't wed us. I didn't weld us together. God did. That's the image. That's the picture of marriage. God has brought together the two into one.
What God has joined together, let not anybody separate. That's where Jesus starts with the question, can I get a divorce? Do you see how significant his starting point is in this? He wants to make sure you fully understand what has happened in your marriage.
And you might not have understood it as you stood before the altar, but it's reality. That is what is true. God is invited to every wedding and he shows up. I think even if he's not invited, he shows up as witness.
But further, he is the one who brings the welding torch with him. He's the one who seals it together. And so Jesus comes in early in his answer with a wrecking ball, smashing their idol and our idol of easy divorce.
That's his goal. That's his intention. He establishes from the get-go that we are not to use a cutting torch on his welding projects. To see divorce as a pulling apart of what God has welded together emphasizes the folly of our divorce culture.
Divorce is indeed a most godless attempt to undo the very work of the almighty God. Now I think many, and I understand this, I feel the pressure right now. As a matter of fact, it's not too hot in here, but I'm sweating.
Because I feel like this is the time in the message where I'm supposed to offer some kind of pastoral relief. Like this is the time where I'm supposed to let everybody off the hook and make you feel better.
And those of you that have gone down this road or are playing with divorce right now or are thinking about it or have gone into it already, I'm supposed to offer some kind of soft words to assuage any worries or fears that those who have endured or perpetrated divorce can be let off the hook.
But I can only go as far as Jesus goes here in the text, folks. And he's not ready to offer any relief here yet. Now we know that the gospel offers relief, right? You can keep that. I welcome you and encourage you to keep that in the back of your mind as we move towards the end of this message.
But in verse 7, the Pharisees think that they have Jesus cornered by this line of questioning. You see, what he's just done in their minds is he's just disagreed with Moses, the great lawgiver of the Jewish people.
If they can get him arguing, how many of you know that just in that context in that culture, if they can get him arguing with Moses, then they will win this debate and the crowds will reject Jesus. If they can show that Jesus does not agree with Moses, then it's over.
So they ask a funny question, an interesting question, a pointed question, and a poorly worded question, I would suggest to you. Because they ask this question that has a major loophole right in the middle that Jesus could drive a semi through.
Why did Moses command the giving of a certificate of divorce to send away a wife? And they're appealing to a passage in Deuteronomy, the early, the opening of Deuteronomy 24. You can jot that down if you're taking notes and you can go back and read what the Old Testament says about divorce there, the primary text about divorce in the Old Testament.
But Jesus says, Moses, they say, why did Moses command? And literally there were those in the crowd who believed that in the case of sexual immorality, that a man must divorce his wife. It was required.
They believed that they took they took what Moses said and they took it a step further and said, you can't stay married if there's been unfaithfulness. It is mandatory that you get a divorce. And so they're saying, why did Moses command that?
And Jesus is saying, he didn't command that. Moses allowed, and he uses a different word. He says, Moses allowed divorce because of sinfulness, but he never commanded it. And even then he only allowed it due to, he says, hardness of heart, sinfulness, the the the reprehensible nature in which our hearts become so embittered and dark towards others.
And his last phrase in verse eight indicates that it wasn't always this way. In the beginning it wasn't so, says Jesus. In the beginning there was no intention and no, no leaving any open room for divorce.
And you see, Jesus is appealing to design and not to the law which makes accommodations for sinful hearts. He is seeking to re-establish in his culture and even in ours a higher standard. He is trying to bring to his culture of easy divorce a reminder that this is not the deep desire of God.
I think in the same way it might be argued that you can say, you can see all kinds of things in the law that are not the deep desire of God that he makes provision for, provisions like the sacrifice of bulls and goats and sheep and birds.
Those are not God's highest standard. I desire obedience more than sacrifice, says God, on several occasions. What I really want is I want you to obey. I want you to do it right the first time, is what he's saying.
But I've made a provision for sacrifices. I've made a provision in my law for bulls and goats and sheep to be sacrificed in the covering of sins. But you don't sin, it's better that you don't sin than that you sin and need a sacrifice, right?
I think that divorce kind of falls into that that kind of realm where there's a provision for it. And Jesus is going to talk about that particular provision, but it's still never God's first choice for any marriage.
And so finally in verse 9 we get there, Jesus plays his cards. He throws them all out on the table. He offers what he sees as the legitimate cause for divorce. Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and then he goes a step further answering a question they weren't asking and further marries another.
The assumption in that culture was that if there was a divorce there was going to be a remarriage and marries another they then are guilty of committing adultery. You see what Jesus says about divorce in this situation was radical.
It wasn't purely agreeing with any particular stance in the culture and those who are around him. He is saying that divorce is only legitimate in the context in which the oneness has already been broken through physical union by one spouse with another person.
And in that case it's not the divorce, it's not a certificate that breaks that oneness, it's already been broken. So his mention of adultery with any subsequent marriage is if there's not a legitimate reason for that divorce to occur according to the Bible, if there hasn't been sexual immorality on the part of one of the partners, then it's very significant what he's saying here.
He's saying that God doesn't recognize your divorce for no cause. I mean it's a piece of paper, it's recognized by the state, it's recognized by the government, but it's not recognized by the one with the welding torch.
And he goes so far as to say then any subsequent marriage would be adulterous. Why? Why would it be called adultery? Only married people can be guilty of adultery, right? How many of you are tracking with what I'm saying?
If somebody is, you can only commit adultery if you're married, but I have a certificate of divorce here. I've already divorced so I can marry somebody else and get with them, right? But he's literally saying here no, you're in the eyes of God still one with the other person.
That's pretty heavy stuff. He's saying that God does not recognize your divorce for other causes. And it would be good here to add a further caveat. There is one obscure passage that is worth mentioning here because it does come to bear on our understanding of divorce in the Bible.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 verses 12 through 15, you can jot that down and look at it later. I'm not going to read it. 1 Corinthians 7, 12 through 15. If you want to study this subject, you have to turn to that passage too.
It's a very narrow exception, specifically when a believer is married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever walks away and files for divorce, then that's acceptable in God's eyes as indicated in 1 Corinthians, but otherwise scripture has no other legitimate biblically recognized cutting torches.
If you are wed, you have been wed by the Almighty. And he refuses to recognize any separation except in the case of a physical one flesh union with someone who isn't your spouse or in the much more rare situation in Corinthians that I mentioned in which an unbeliever wants to divorce a believing spouse.
And so this extends all the way to the conclusion that a couple who divorces for any other reason than the two biblical causes is still viewed as married in the eyes of God. And for this reason, we will never here at Recast counsel, all of the elders have agreed, the pastors have agreed, we will never counsel divorce here at Recast.
That is never the answer you will hear from the pastors or the staff or the elders. We will not counsel toward divorce, we will always counsel toward reconciliation, which we think is the greatest picture of the gospel possible.
Obviously some of that would require working and potentially working through some significant sin issues and trying to get help for any offending party or anything like that. But now look at the conclusion of the disciples to see how this teaching of Jesus hit them in their culture.
Am I overstating it in other words? Am I going out on a limb? Am I sharing some of my opinions or my thoughts? Not at all. Because what we can do in the text is we can see how the disciples responded to it in their culture to understand how severe did they get this to be.
And look at verse 10. They say this to Jesus. I mean, they've been listening to him. They've been listening to him say this. And they say, if what you're saying is true, Jesus, then it's better to not even get married in the first place.
If there's no way out, then why would you want to enter into this thing that you don't really understand or know what it's going to go like? Can you see how their response indicates how severe Jesus is talking about this?
How serious he is? They're like, why would anybody get married then if that's the case? And here's the crazy thing. We expect Jesus to correct the disciples and begin to elevate marriage because that's what we've done in our culture.
We've elevated marriage to the degree that it's as if that's the only thing. Like that's the highest of all things, but Jesus doesn't correct them, but instead agrees that the teaching is difficult to take on and not everyone can take on marriage with this high standard that God places on it.
He is encouraging deep, deep thoughts about marriage in verses 11 and 12. Not everyone will be able to receive his teaching on marriage and therefore don't assume marriage is the only state of blessedness.
And I fear that as a culture, and particularly as evangelical culture and Protestant culture, we have driven hard into the notion of marriage being the greatest, even to the point where singles can feel pretty left out of things, right?
Everything we talk about is marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage. And we talk to the couples in the room. And the fact of the matter is there is a calling to singleness that Jesus is going to spell out here in a very weird way in verse 12.
Jesus uses the very charged word eunuch as a common metaphor in his culture for singleness. Some he declared are not able to get married from birth. It's likely that Jesus is including birth defects in the reasons that some would remain single.
But some in that culture had been emasculated, I'm not going to get into any details, had been emasculated by rulers in order to work with harems and things like that. And so there's external causes. And then some, he says, will remain single and unmarried by choice.
And he particularly zeroes in on those who would remain single by choice, choosing to remain single specifically for the purpose of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. This call to singleness is also not for everyone.
Jesus follows up at the end and says that it's not for everyone, but only for those who are able to receive it. So in other words, marriage isn't for everybody, but only for those who are able to receive it.
Singleness is not for everybody, but only for those who are able to receive it. And what he's saying here is some will remain single due to biology. Some will be single due to outside circumstances. Some will be single by choice for the kingdom of God.
What Jesus means in these final two verses amounts to him saying, marriage is for a lifetime. And not everyone can receive that hard teaching. So stay single and you don't intend to abide by that standard.
If you're single right now and you're listening to this, you've got to take this seriously. You've got to say, am I ready to commit to allowing God to weld me permanently together with another individual?
That's a serious question. Significant question. One that I fear is not asked very often in advance. But not everyone is called to be single, so get married if singleness is too difficult for you, says Jesus.
So in this balanced teaching, Jesus is not elevating singleness, as I would say the Catholic church has done, as if that's the more spiritual state of singleness. Nor is he elevating marriage, as I would say the Protestant church has done, at the exclusion of singleness.
And always talking about marriage, marriage, marriage, as if that's the only state in which God would ever bless a person. The church has too often elevated one or the other, obviously. But instead, Jesus is setting out a standard for marriage and encouraging singleness for anyone who cannot accept that high standard.
And so this passage is going to hit everyone here in a different way, depending on your circumstances. And so let me take them briefly one at a time. And I think I'm going to cover wherever you are at, sitting here right now.
And I'd encourage you, don't wait for me to talk about your circumstance. Listen to all of them. Because I think we all have something to gain from what this text would say. So first, we're going to talk to singles.
This message has indeed been for you. It sounds like it's about marriage. It sounds like it's about divorce. But believe me, maybe more than anybody in the room, it's speaking to you. Consider the high standard of marriage that's being held before you.
In marriage, God does the welding. And the bond is much more solid than our culture believes. So be very careful entering into marriage. Take it seriously, never lightly. And further, if you cannot accept the standard that God has as you read it in this text, and or you feel called to singleness, then let me encourage you to use your singleness for the kingdom of heaven.
Even now use your singleness. Not to gain levels at World of Warcraft, or to really sharpen your video game skills, or whatever it might be to get that spiral nice and tight on your throw. Like, I mean, you could use your time for all kinds of things.
But let me just suggest to you that you use your singleness for the cause of Christ. One of my heroes of the faith is a guy named John Stott. He was the rector pastor of All Souls Church in London. Len and I had the opportunity to go visit there, and then Adam and I went on a just short spring break trip around Europe a couple years ago, and we swung by for an evening service at All Souls as well.
John Stott passed away, but he was the pastor there, and we got to hear him one time live. He chose to remain single for his, I think, 89, 88 years of life on this earth, strictly for the cause of Christ.
He said, I feel called to singleness so that I can sow my days, my years, my months to the cause of the kingdom of God. And he wrote the book, the book that I think should be on every shelf here on the cross of Christ.
It's called The Cross of Christ. It's by John Stott. It is the work about the redemption of Jesus Christ. It's the one that I would love for all of you to read. Highly technical, very, very rich and deep, and excellent.
And that's the product of a man who chose to remain single for the cause of Christ, and to sow his years, not in leveling up at video games, but chose to sow his years. By the way, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's just keeping things in balance, right? But I see some of you kind of go, oh crud, I can't play video games. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying use your time for the cause of Christ. I actually do enjoy video games from time to time, but it's everything in balance, right?
And sowing our time for the cause of the kingdom. So singleness, if you're currently married, by the way, that went a little bit longer than I thought it was going to. If you're currently married, you have entered into oneness.
It is done for you. That is a decision that you made, whether you understood it or not. Now you are coming to the word to see what you did. And what you did is done. You're not going to undo that, okay?
And the call to you is to not undo that. You have experienced a God-given oneness. And so let this message be a reminder to you of what a covenant of this magnitude means for your daily life. Commit to work through the ups and downs with your spouse.
Lynn and I have made a commitment to one another from early on in our marriage. We just don't use the D word. I've used it a few times in this message, but I've used it more in this message than I've ever used it in our household, the D word, the divorce word.
Just commit to ups and downs. And we can be at each other for seasons. Do you know what I'm talking about? She's laughing. But I'm talking seasons. I'm talking years. I'm talking timeframes where we look back at our marriage and we sit down every anniversary and we talk through how did this year go?
And how does it compare? And where are we at in the flow of our lives? And there are seasons where that conversation hasn't gone well. I feel like we're at a real down point right now. We're busy. I mean, there's nothing like having young kids.
Some of you know what I'm talking about. You got young kids in the family. I see some young kids sitting around here. And that's a time where it's just hard to invest in your marriage, right? It becomes difficult and challenging.
But commitment in the long haul. It's not an option to give up on this. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and laid his life down for wives. See to that you respect your husbands and acknowledge that God has not given you a cutting torch.
Even the cases of divorce that are legitimate in the eyes of God are shown to be the product of deep betrayal and sin. Do not allow divorce to be an option. Now, some of you are biblically divorced. This is the third category.
There's singles, there's married, and then there's biblically divorced. Either your spouse was an unbeliever and they filed or your spouse was unfaithful to you and broke that oneness and you're no longer married to them.
If that's the case, I would encourage you to allow the gospel of grace to cover you and to accept the freedom God gives you in Christ. Although you still ought to repent of any sin on your part regarding that previously broken relationship, do not live under self-loathing and condemnation that so quickly comes upon people who are divorced and that stigma in our culture is terrible.
It's not a stigma. It's not a God-given stigma. If you're unbiblically divorced and single, then let me encourage you as I think Jesus would from this passage to the hardest advice this morning to remain single, but also a great high calling to use your singleness for the cause of his kingdom.
According to Jesus, remarriage after an unbiblical divorce adds on top of it the sin of adultery to the situation. So remain single, but also rejoice that God desires to use you if you belong to him. And lastly, some of you here went through an unbiblical divorce and you're now remarried and you're going, Don, what do I do about that?
This passage could be one of the hardest passages that you read in scripture. I believe that repentance is often messy in a fallen world. And let me encourage you to talk to God about your part in the failure of your previous marriage.
Own it. Confess it. And now set about in your current marriage to make sure that you do not replicate those sins of your past, that you see yourself as wed by the hand of God. The good news is that forgiveness is available for anyone who repents of their sins and turns to Jesus for forgiveness.
And so the only thing we can do is move forward in the grace of God. But beware, if you're currently contemplating a divorce, Jesus would never endorse a presumption on his grace. Never assume that you can just get remarried, commit adultery, and then ask for forgiveness later.
An understanding of salvation that does not leave room for, an understanding of salvation rather, does not leave room for sin. And so anyone who thinks this way ought to assume that they are not saved by the blood of Jesus.
And that covers a whole host of subjects if you're making provision for sin and planning on it. And then with the plan, I'll just ask for forgiveness later, that demonstrates you don't really know what the cross was about.
The standard for marriage is so high that the disciples got it and wondered if singleness then is a better option. And Jesus says, yes, think carefully before you enter into this covenant. And I just want to point out here at the end, if this sermon creates more questions than it answers, and it's possible that that's the case for you, then feel free to set up an appointment with me or with Spencer to discuss these things.
Either of us would love to walk you through a biblical understanding of divorce and remarriage. And the segue into communion now may seem like a stretch. But as we talk about sin and we talk about things like hardness of heart, we come to this memorial time each week to remember where salvation comes from.
Only by faith and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ can we be forgiven. And in this mess of broken relationships, we all, all, all need some level of forgiveness. So let me encourage everyone here to take a moment to confess to God any sins in this area of your life.
Maybe it was premarital sex, maybe a broken marriage, maybe it was even your entertaining thoughts of divorce and you even have been so recently, or maybe it's adultery that you've committed. Today is a good day to confess it before we take the cracker to remember his body broken to cover those very sins.
And we take the to remember his blood shed for us. God's standard is very high for marriage because in marriage, we are reflecting his commitment to us. So I'm going to add a little thought here at the end that's unique and different, but I think it's a good thought to end on.
Let's go out from this place with a commitment to reflect Christ and his church in all of these little welding projects. Because all of these little welding projects reflect the biggest of all welding projects that God has undertaken.
It is the very welding project by which God has welded together Christ and his church in a bond that is never to be broken. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace and for your mercy. I thank you for the opportunity that we have to just reflect deeply on this tough passage, a tough passage that speaks to particular issues in our culture, in our midst, in our lives.
Father, I thank you for your faithfulness to tackle these things and to wrestle them to the ground in our hearts. I pray that you would preserve marriages here. Father, for anyone who maybe this message just just settles on them and hits them as strong guilt right now, I pray that you would help them to work through that even now as we have an opportunity to take communion and recognize the sacrifice that covers those very sins in Jesus' name.