Adult Sunday School - Marriage And The Sacrifices of Christ

Christ’s Betrayal and the Meaning of Loyalty in Marriage

Alright, so today as we walk through the story of Seleutus, the history of salvation, we're looking at Christ's sacrifice. So in particular, his betrayal, his crucifixion, and his death, I've decided to hold off on his burial until next time.

But obviously this is an important one as we're talking about marriage because Ephesians 5, 25 says, husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it. So the whole history of salvation is relevant, but clearly this particular aspect, him giving up of himself, is particularly relevant.

Alright, so let's start off with his betrayal. So Jesus was betrayed by his closest friends. Peter, being one of his closest disciples, so if you've never noticed in the Gospels, there are a lot of times where Jesus is with tons of disciples, there's a lot of times where it's just the twelve, and then there's a number of times where it's just Peter, James and John, or just Peter and John.

And so Peter was with Jesus especially, you know, compared to, you know, he's named out as one of the one or two who's joining with Jesus. At the healing of Jairus' daughter, the transfiguration, the garden of Gethsemane when he pulls aside Peter, and then even at the trial, Peter is one who especially follows Jesus.

Yet even having followed him this far, Peter denies him. Okay, who would like to read a fairly long passage in Luke 22? Alright, Josh, if you can, Luke 22, begin in verse 31, and then go down to 34, and then we'll skip ahead.

So 31 to 34 for starters. Yes, Luke 22.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter said to him, Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me.

Okay, thanks. Can you skip down to 54 and read to, let's see, 62, 54 to 62.

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.

Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, this man also was with him. But he denied it, saying, woman, I do not know him. And a little later, someone else saw him and said, you also are one of them.

But Peter said, man, I am not. And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying, certainly this man was also with him, for he too is a Galilean. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you are talking about.

And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly.

Thanks. All right, so here you have the betrayal of Peter. And then, so there's two different kinds of betrayals Jesus faced. One is out of fear, like this. If you remember the parable of the soils, there's four kinds of soil, right?

One is the good soil. One is the soil that is rocky. And so you've got the plant that falls away after persecution, after the wind blows. You also have the thorny soil, which is the soil that is eager for riches.

And then the last one is the one that never even hears the gospel. And those were not in order. But, yeah, so Judas is on the other end, right? If Peter's leaving because of fear, like rocky soil, Judas is betraying Christ out of greed, which is like the thorny soil.

He's known as the son of perdition, and he betrays Jesus with a kiss, which is, you know, especially a heinous way to betray someone, to do it in an intimate way as a friend. All right, who would like to read?

Same chapter, Luke 22, 47 to 48.

It's very short.

Yes.

Oh, sorry, no, it was shorter than that, 47 to 48.

While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the 12, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, Judas, would you betray the son of man with a kiss?

Okay, thanks. So, Judas betrays him like this, and then on top of that, all of his disciples end up fleeing, even to the point where Mark speaks of one fleeing naked because he's so eager to get away.

Mark 15, 40 to 42 says,. And they all left him and fled. And a certain young man followed with him, having a linen cloth cast about him over his naked body, and they laid hold on him, but he left the linen cloth and fled naked.

So, you know, just imagine all these people so eager to get away that they're willing to run away naked. It's the very ones that Christ served abandoned him in his greatest act of service. So, considering the implications of this betrayal for marriage, loyalty is an important thing in marriage.

Now, that's not the sort of loyalty that some people have. That's kind of this tribalism that will excuse any behavior because of their love for someone. That's not what we're talking about, but rather, it's a commitment to pursue someone's good, even when doing so means entering into a difficulty that would otherwise be their own.

Right, if marriage is a commitment for better or for worse, then those who abandon ship are failing to make good on the commitment that is inherent in marriage. On top of that, you know, marriage is something that God provided as a cure for loneliness, and the one who abandons ship at a difficult time is undermining, once again, the whole purpose of marriage.

So, one way that that betrayal could happen is in divorce, right? Divorce without biblical cause, because of the hardship that someone is going through, you know, personal struggle, or maybe there's not enough money there.

A lot of times, money will put a lot of pressure on marriages and lead people to divorce because they're not willing to bear with the hardship of the other. Or, a lot of times, you'll see that famous couples will divorce when there's a scandal, and they can't stand to bear the shame of the other.

It doesn't necessarily matter whether or not the scandal is real, you know, it's just they don't want to have to deal with the association anymore. Or, there have been a few times, I saw one publicized sometime last year, I think, or maybe it was this year, of a woman who divorced her husband, or maybe it was a husband divorcing his wife because she had been diagnosed with some terminal illness and she was in the hospital all the time.

They decided this just wasn't worth it, you know, he needed to go pursue his own life, and you know, for his own good, he had to get a divorce. That is betrayal. This is the thing that's happening to Jesus here.

Right, so loyalty is important. We are supposed to submit as the church is supposed to submit to Christ. Wives be in submission to your own husbands as to the Lord. But as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject to their husbands and everything.

So there's a special need for wives to respect their husbands in this way, but in both directions, you know, of course, loyalty is important. Yeah, and also, even apart from divorce, bitterness and coldness is an essentially saying, you know, because of my own self-interest, I'm not going to, in this commitment, pursue your good in these circumstances when my own is at stake.

This happens also when couples disrespect each other and laugh at the other's expense, especially publicly, you know, any kind of public disrespect. And once again, you know, there's a special concern for this in the direction of the wife toward the husband, especially as we see that the wife is supposed to model the church toward Christ.

Yeah, that's pretty common in marriages too, especially new marriages where they're not used to respecting each other or one will be making jokes at the expense of the other publicly. And yeah, that would be betrayal and against the loyalty that marriage requires.

Any questions about loyalty? All right, just faithfulness in general. It's important that we pray for the faithfulness of our spouses. Notice that the reason that the church submits to Christ and does not betray him ultimately since his resurrection is that having transformed her, he ever lives to intercede for her.

Hebrews 7 .25 says,. And as we saw above, what was the difference between Peter and Judas? I mean, beyond, you know, their motives, Peter out of fear and Judas out of greed. Jesus had prayed for Peter that he would not betray him.

Or that he would not ultimately fall. And so when Peter betrays him, we saw recently in the scripture reading of Mark, he is stopped just before he ends up invoking a curse on himself. There does seem to be, even though he is betraying Christ, there is a way in which he is kept from an ultimate betrayal by the prayer of Jesus.

Yes. So, I mean, there's a lot of questions that you could be asking, right? One is about, oh, could you actually lose your salvation or things like that? You know, putting all those aside, it does seem to be at least symbolic that he is stopped before invoking this curse.

Curses are real things, you know, swearing against. When you swear to the truthfulness of a matter, you know, in court, which is pretty much what Peter is doing just outside a courthouse, you know, he's swearing by the name of God that he does not know who Jesus is.

And then to do that, so he's gone beyond, you know, just saying it a couple of times. And he's about to swear, he's about to say, you know, and may God strike me down if I'm lying. And then he stopped.

Yeah, it is a real thing to invoke a curse on yourself in that way. And that is why, even today, even in our godless society, where people often don't believe in God, you're required to swear when you go into court.

It's because there's a reality to invoking a curse on yourself in the event that you're found untrue.

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and I never really thought about it before, but I wonder if there's any relation to the passage in, I believe it's Leviticus, that talks about the ability of a father or a husband to annul the vows made by his wife on the day he discovers them.

Maybe there's some relation there. I'm not sure. Okay, so yeah, we should be praying for each other's faithfulness. Ephesians 6 .18 says, With all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the Spirit and to the sin, watching in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

So if that's true for all the saints, and certainly it's true for the one you're married to, if it's true for perseverance and Christian behavior in general, how much more true for marital fidelity? Yes.

Right? So it sounded at first like you were going to ask about how you discern whether or not it really is disrespectful. Or are you just saying, okay, yeah, I mean, you know, getting advice from somebody else, maybe removed from the situation where you can disclose information without it, you know, affecting the other party, would be one good way.

But then, yeah, if you just think that this person has not learned, Bible says, do not strongly rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father. So yeah, just approach him as you would a father, saying, not avoiding the issue, but just pointing out, hey, this doesn't seem, or do you have any concerns this might be going against the biblical ethic here?

And, you know, just quote the verse or something,.

That might be one way of addressing it. Right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with you pointing out that, hey, it seems disrespectful to speak that way about mom or about dad or whatever it is. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. And continuing on beyond prayer, developing a forgiving spirit.

So a lot of husbands are willing to take a bullet for their wife, but not necessarily willing to take a bullet from their wife. Right? Yeah. But there should be an anticipation that there's going to be a difficult season.

Now, hopefully you're going into marriage without the anticipation that there will be, you know, adultery. But you should recognize that there will be not a perfect fidelity in all things. There will be difficulties in marriage.

And that you should have an attitude that this is going to come, and I need to develop a forgiving spirit now and be ready. And you look at Christ and how he deals with the betrayal that comes at him.

He's not dealing with it as one who is surprised by it. Right? He's not dealing with it as one who doesn't know what's going on, and is, you know, like reeling at the fact that he's been betrayed. He's going into it knowing that this is what's coming.

And if you think about how husbands and wives deal with each other when there is some kind of betrayal, you know, or public disrespect or something like that, a lot of times there's a lot of hurt that does not necessarily need to be there if you are cultivating more forgiving spirit beforehand.

You consider parents and children. Right? Children disrespect parents all the time, even publicly. A lot of small children, even ones that are raised well. Now, if you raise your child well, hopefully as they're older, they're not going to be publicly disrespecting you.

But a lot of times kids, they won't say please. They won't ask for things as they ought. They, you know, they just say things. They make demands directly. All kinds of rude things. But parent is not, even in that public disrespect, right, the parent doesn't freak out about it, like, oh my goodness, my child just, right?

They know, they expect that from their child. Right? There's an expectation. This is one of the difficulties of parenting. And you do that because you understand that your child is ignorant. You understand that your child doesn't know everything and they're still growing.

And there needs to be a similar, on a different scale obviously, but a similar kind of anticipation of your spouse's weakness in this area. Hebrews 5, 2 says that Jesus can bear gently with the ignorant and erring for he himself is also surrounded by weakness.

So Christ has an understanding of the church so that he can bear with our infidelity. Now, I keep using the word infidelity. Know that I'm using that in the very broad sense. I'm not saying that you put up with all kinds of adultery or anything like that.

I'm just saying that there is, yeah, there are going to be rough spots in marriage where one is not respecting the other as they ought. And you should anticipate that rather than being surprised by it.

And how do you do that? You build contentment in your own relationship with God. If you suddenly lack love from your spouse and you are relying on that love, you're going to, you know, you're going to be bereft of it and you're going to feel like something's really missing.

Whereas, if the primary source of love is coming from the Father, you're not going to, yeah, you're not going to feel totally bereft of love. John 16, 32 says, Behold, the hour comes, yes, has come, when you will be scattered.

Every man to his own and will leave me alone. And yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. Okay, so he knows it's coming. He knows he's going to be left alone. But he's not alone because the Father is with him.

So you can develop that same kind of, you can cultivate that same kind of contentment so that when anyone betrays you, whether it be a spouse or anyone, even though it may hurt, it does not have to hurt in the fullest sense.

Emmanuel?

Emmanuel?

Yes?

So, sorry, when you say an illustration about a source of love, okay.

Yeah, is it true that as you get closer to Christ, you get closer to each other? Yeah, I believe that's true and I believe that's the model of unity for the whole church, right? That we're all supposed to be getting closer to each other by getting closer to Christ.

You know, that there is one spirit and that's what unites us. And the same is true in marriage. Now, there's certainly ways that that could be abused, right? So, for example, Sarah reads a number of biographies.

She was reading a biography of Fanny Crosby who, if you don't know, she's a blind lady who wrote a lot of hymns. And she wrote, like, multiple hymns a day. Like, not just, you know, a few popular ones.

I mean, she was writing a lot of hymns. Not necessarily the music, but the words. And she and her husband, like, you know, they both had their own separate devotion to Christ, sort of in this monastic way where they barely interacted with each other and were just kind of more acquaintances.

Never really talked to each other. That's not... And they were very satisfied with this because they felt that they were growing closer to Christ. That is not the picture of really growing together with Christ in sort of that monastic way.

But yes, as you prioritize the thing that God would have you prioritize, your marriage will be included in that. Anything else? No? Okay. Yeah, and you asked about the analogy. The other analogy that I was using there was about the source of love, like God being the source of love.

And, you know, imagine you being a reservoir that needs love. And there is a bit of analogy going on there, but at the same time, the Bible does speak about God being love itself, right? And so you really do have to recognize God as being the source of all love and that any other love is derivative in some sense.

And the one who is going to the source is going to have what he needs the most.

All right.

Let's talk about the crucifixion. Okay, another long passage I'd like for someone to read, Matthew 27. And we're going to go all the way from 33 to 49. If I could get a reader for that. Okay, all right.

Chris has got that. Matthew 27, 33 to 49.

And they went out to a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull. The soldiers gave Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened above Jesus' head announcing the charge against him. It read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

The people passing shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. Look at you now, they yelled at him. You said you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross.

The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. He saved others, they scoffed, but he can't save himself. So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from his cross right now and we will believe in him.

He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him. For he said, I am the son of God. Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way. Do I keep going?

Yeah, go all the way to 49.

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o 'clock. At about three o 'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lema sabba kanani, which means, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, wait, let's see whether Elijah comes to save him.

Okay, thank you. Alright, so yeah, here you have the crucifixion. Jesus being mocked, Jesus suffering on our behalf. Okay, so the first is, first application for marriage is simply a willingness to suffer.

Especially on the part of husbands, willingness to suffer on behalf of their families. Suffering can take a lot of different forms. You know, a lot of people think of this sort of thing as something you're occasionally called to.

Occasionally called to suffer. But really, it's a daily thing. And just to illustrate that, consider Paul's, I've always found this fascinating, ever since I've noticed it anyway. Each one of Paul's lists of persecutions, lists that he had to work, that he had to labor with his hands.

So, 1 Corinthians 4, 11. Even to this present hour, we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted, and we have no certain dwelling place, and we toil working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless.

Being persecuted, we endure. So, you know, in all of that, being naked, hungry, thirsty, and we had to work. 2 Corinthians 6, 4. But in everything, commending ourselves as ministers of God in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger.

Labors and imprisonment. You know, a lot of times we think about the persecution as being, okay, when you're thrown into prison, when you're shipwrecked, when you're, you know, beaten and stoned. But he's including labor as part of that.

2 Corinthians 11, 24. Five times I received from the Jews, forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I have been in the deep.

Often traveling in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my countrymen, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger in the sea, danger among false brothers.

In labor and hardship. Often in sleeplessness and hunger and thirst. Often without food and cold and nakedness. Okay, so there's all kinds of ways that people can suffer. But just having to work on the behalf of another, right?

And so what Paul is doing when he's working as a tentmaker is he is forgoing some of the fruit of his labor in order for the sake of Christ, right? And so when he does that, he is suffering for the sake of the gospel, right?

Forgoing some of the fruit of his labor. The husband does this when he works to provide for his family. He doesn't get to enjoy all of it. You know, his family is enjoying quite a bit of it. And so he is suffering for the sake of his family.

Now, that is not to deny that there might be greater kinds of sufferings that a husband is called to. But it shows that even just the daily grind is part of the suffering that we are called to on behalf of families.

All right.

Yes?

Like the mental load? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think that bearing the responsibility is part of it, yes. Yeah, and what that also means is that there should be a gratitude in the opposite direction, right?

From wife to husband. And, yeah, we live in a prosperous time where a lot of people don't think too much about provisions. You know, I've seen a number of times people are really offended by the phrase, earn a living.

You know, they consider that really horrific, the idea that you would have to earn a living. That you don't just have a right to live. You know, where society gives you your universal basic income or whatever it is in order that you're...

Yeah.

I see some confused faces. There's this, like, anti-work movement right now. Like, a lot of people think that, you know, if you've got a right to healthcare, if you've got a right to, you know, these different things, you have a right to just live.

And that's not the negative right, where you have a right to not be killed by someone else. It's the positive right, where you have a right to receive whatever it is from society that is necessary in order that you be able to live.

Right? And if you've got that mindset where you're owed everything to be able to live, you're not going to be grateful for it. It's owed to you. And, yeah, so we're in a prosperous society that doesn't understand work.

And so there's not always a lot of gratitude just about being able to live. You know? But, yeah, imagine you're in a society where it's hard to get by and one has to work hard and your husband is working hard for you.

You know, there's a lot of reason for gratitude. And that's still true, even in a prosperous society that there's much reason for gratitude even if you don't feel the threat of death all the time as you might in other times and cultures.

Alright. So along with a willingness to suffer, there's a willingness to bear shame. So Jesus bore the curse for his people bearing the shame. Hebrews 12, 2.

Says,.

Looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Alright, so he was willing to bear shame for the joy that was set before him.

And what was the joy that was set before him? The joy was a flourishing family. John 19, 26 says,. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved he said to his mother the disciple whom he loved being John Woman, behold your son.

Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. So he's forming this spiritual family between the disciples. And this is the joy set before him.

So when a husband bears shame on behalf of his wife, on behalf of his children he's doing so for the sake of a flourishing family. So there could be different things. Like I said, in the case of a scandal, like one of the more obvious ones is in the case of a scandal or something being willing to bear that association even though it might be someone else's sin.

That.

Makes you look bad and not your own. So that would be one example. However, shame is just any kind of defect in honor. So one of the things that the Bible talks about, honor. So just to go back to showing how daily this is, is money.

In fact, the word for honor, teme in the Bible is often used to speak of money. When it says, honor the widows, it's talking about providing for them financially. When it says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, it's talking about money as it explains as it goes on.

Now, once again, when the husband's providing for his family, he is decreasing the wealth that he would otherwise have and be able to enjoy on his own if he were just, you know, focused on his own and only caring about himself.

He's decreasing the wealth he would otherwise have. And so, you know, if you're not able to, this isn't, once again, we live in a prosperous society and so we have to scale some of these things in the way we think about it.

But, you know, if you're a single guy on certain income, you can have a nice car, you can have kind of things that build you up and make you look good. You've got to support a family. You've got to throw those things aside and get the beat up minivan, you know.

It's not necessarily shame in the furthest senses, you know. It's not necessarily shame in the sense and to the degree that Christ experienced it, but any kind of those defects in honor that would otherwise be enjoyed by someone if they did not have to care for their family, all of these count as part of that willingness to bear shame.

So on either end of the spectrum, right, it's not, I'm not, once again, not denying that there are sometimes greater shames that need to be born, but.

Yeah.

And this is, I think this is a problem, too, with families that want a particular income level to live a particular lifestyle and so the husband will be insistent that the wife go work to make more money, right.

He's not willing to bear the shame, right. He wants a particular lifestyle, a particular image, and is not willing to bear the shame on her behalf. Any questions about any of that before we move on to Christ's death?

We've moved a bit faster than I was expecting yet. Was that something? Okay, now I regret not including burial in this.

Alright.

Alright, at the end of all the suffering on the cross was the death of Christ. Matthew 27 50 says,. And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were broken.

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth out of the tombs, after his resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.

So naturally, since Ephesians 5 25 talks about Christ giving up himself, this has the most implications for.

Husbands.

So.

Offering of life.

Yeah.

A husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church giving himself up for it. Now that does not always mean dying in a literal sense. John 15 13 says, Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend.

Certainly there should be a willingness to die. There's a reason why our society has the phrase women and children first. It's because the men collectively recognize that they should be willing to die for their families.

But.

Even just giving your own life in the way that you are pursuing things for the sake of your family is a, in just working and providing, all of that counts as an offering of life. Okay, so now I've noticed that each time, in addition to just the general counter-cultural stuff that has to do with the relationships between men and women, I also throw in something that's like a little more radically counter-cultural as we consider these things.

And so, last time, what was it? We were talking about betrothals, right? This time it's going to be bride prices. Okay, so consider that this is a, when Christ is offering his own life, he is offering a bride price.

Right, and all the redemption language in the Bible talking about purchasing this bride, right, this is all the language of a bride price. Oh, bride price. Yes.

Bride price, yeah.

Yeah, bride price. Okay. Yes. Yeah, well, dowry is more general. So, okay, so a dowry is something that is a wealth that is brought into the marriage. Okay, so like, a dowry can come from the husband or the wife, and it's brought into the marriage to build up the family.

A bride price is paid to the bride's family that is not brought into the marriage. So there is a little difference there. 1 Corinthians 6 .19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God?