Marriage And Divorce

Makes it kind of awkward, right? So most sermons don't come with a warning or a parental advisory. We want to give that to you so that's you and trusting you to keep your children's innocence and purity protected. We highly value that, but we also wanna make sure we're equipping you to think through what God has said according to his word. And so this morning we're gonna be thinking about divorce, sexuality, and adultery in as clear a way as we can.

As we walk through this text, it follows the pattern that Jesus has been giving. We're in the Sermon on the Mount, We have walked through the blessings. We've seen how Christ has told us he has come to fulfill the law. Now he is teaching his very law. If you look there at the beginning of chapter five, verse 21, you see there's a pattern. You have heard it said, and there's six of these. And these are six important topics where Jesus is clarifying his law for his citizens in his kingdom. And we have to assume what he's teaching us here is important. It's authoritative. It's good.

Legal divorce is permitted

And so the first thing we're going to see is legal divorce is permitted. That is what he is referring to there in the first verse of our text, verse 31.

It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

He's going back to the Mosaic law that permitted divorce. Legally now Jesus is giving us his law. The, the, the author of the law is now interpreting his law. God is his own interpreter.

And we we've sinned sin of anger that leads to murder. That was the first statement. Then, then lust that leads to adultery. That was the second. And behind these, we're always wrestling with what is the heart issue that then comes into our actions. Well, by declaring you should not murder, God is showing the sanctity of life. By declaring you should not have adultery, it's a sanctity of marriage and sex. And we're really doing a second round of the sanctity of these two things that really help us see how important they must be. This is a second or a third saying, but it clearly relates to the lust and it even relates to the next one after with oaths.

Now the previous two, he was quoting the Mosaic Law. He isn't quoting directly here, but it seems like he is referring back to Deuteronomy 24. So we need to go back and look at Deuteronomy 24, because if we heard it said, and he is referring back to that particular Mosaic Law, we want to think about what it says. Deuteronomy 24, beginning at verse one, Page 165 if you're using a pew Bible.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife.

After she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving. you for an inheritance.

Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. And here, Moses is giving them expectations and laws as they make sure as they're entering into the promised land, they do not defile it. And the specific focus here is a man who has divorced his wife legally, permissibly, according to God's word, if she then is released by her second husband or her second husband dies, he can't remarry her.

The main focus of Deuteronomy 24 is Marriage is not a, he loves me, I love you, I love you, not kind of marriage. It's committed. There isn't some kind of flippant, I'll send you away and then I'll bring you back in. The certificate of marriage Jesus refers to in this permissive divorce, I'm sorry, the certificate of divorce that Jesus refers to in the certificate of divorce in Deuteronomy 24, it's to protect the woman.

You see, men could divorce their wives, not the other way around. That's one of the reasons he's speaking specifically to men. Women didn't have the opportunity to go find a job. They were vulnerable when dismissed from the home. The certificate was releasing them from the marriage so that they could remarry and find a home and a protection and provision. It's important to remember, divorce is never prescribed. It's only permitted.

It's important to remember God declares with great clarity he hates divorce because it is breaking of something that is good. It is breaking something that is a covenant he has given us. Marriage is sacred and good. If it is broken, it must be grieved. Even if marriage is broken because of a reason God permits, it is meant to be grieved. Broken marriages lead to broken families. Divorce is always destructive and painful. Importantly, we see that healthy marriages produce life, stability, strength. Divorce is permitted because of sin.

As we're walking through this and talking about this very difficult personal subject, I'm burdened knowing many in our church have gone through divorce. I know many are experiencing the freedom coming out of an abusive or unfaithful marriage, but there's still pain in divorce, so I'm burdened for you as we think through this, and it brings up other memories. I'm burdened because many are in difficult, painful marriages, and you've grieved that you've even thought of divorce. I'm burdened knowing many are gonna be brought back to pain in their marriage or their childhood when their parents were divorced. This is a very personal, difficult topic.

What was so good about God's word is he addresses our most important aspects of life and brings healing to the most difficult parts of our sin and the destruction it brings. So when you talk about this openly and clearly, As we think about what divorce is there and that God does permit it in Deuteronomy 24, but also gives significant parameters and limitations on what divorce is and what it means, I want to remind us of a few central truths.

First, God is faithful to keep his promises. He is the covenant maker. He cannot lie, he is always true to his word. When he promises himself to a people, he keeps that promise.

Second, God is faithful to heal us. His beloved people, we can trust God in our despair, we can trust God in the pain and the difficulty that is in the past or in the present. We can trust God with hope, with fear of what might be. Trust God to restore you. your spouse, your marriage. Ask God for the grace to heal.

Lastly, important as we are a church, one of the most important things we do is share a life together.

It is important that we do not remain isolated in pain, destruction, fear, shame. It's important that we actually share with each other. That's one of the things I love about how we share testimonies and people will talk about past sins. And what's so great about that is that it helps people also hear God can save me from that. And that's something we can talk about together as a church. We want to make sure we're openly talking about the most important aspects of life, which are also oftentimes the most difficult and painful aspects of life.

We want to make sure we're talking about marriage in the context of what God gives us. It's in the context of a church, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Specific instruction. We don't talk about marriage in a good way in many spaces in our culture. We want to make sure we do this in our church.

We want to encourage women to come together and rejoice together in marriage and motherhood with showers Well, for men, we have this thing called matgam, men about to get married. Last time, we had about 50 guys and over half of them were unmarried 20-year-olds. So tonight, we're having a matgam. There's three men who are about to get married.

It's an important place to come and hear the goodness of marriage, hear what scripture says about marriage, hear wisdom from from generations about marriage. Men, you should be there. If you're not a member, you're a young man, come, listen. Wives, if your husband is the best husband in the world, encourage, send him out to bless the rest of the church. Say, sweetie, I think it would be really a blessing to the church and to you if you were to go tonight. If he's the best husband in the world, just say, sweetie, I think it would be a blessing to the church and to you if you were to go tonight. If your husband really needs some correction, say the same thing.

Sweetie, I think it'd be a blessing to the church and to you. And if you're a dude and she says that, don't ask why she said it. Just come, share wisdom, share failure. Let these newlyweds about to be learn from your mistakes, not their own. Tonight's an important time where we come together and talk about this freely and openly. I pray you'll come. Wise, I pray you'll send him. That's the legal divorce. The second point is our unlawful divorce produces sin.

Unlawful divorce produces sin

In each of these, you have heard it said, then Jesus says something and he's either clarifying or intensifying or correcting when he does this. And here he's making it very clear what kind of exception there is, but really the emphasis on if this is done wrongly, it actually just produces more sin. Verse 32.

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.

I'm going to take that exception clause out because I think we need to think about that first. We can get kind of bogged down and think about what all that means and why, but the main sentence is this.

Everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery.

That's significant. We want to think about that exception and when a divorce is allowed, and when we think about that, we're thinking about what indecency means in Deuteronomy 24. The reason Jesus has to address this is that there are many schools of thought and there was many different interpretations as to when divorce was legal, permitted, when a certificate was appropriate. One group said it was just adultery. Another group said a husband can divorce his wife if she burns his supper.

So we can see there's a broad range and probably everything in between And what Jesus wanted to focus on here is the sanctity of marriage, the importance of promise making and keeping, and to protect those who might have a tendency to hear some unnecessary loopholes. Jesus is intensifying the exception only is sexual morality, which means fornication, It can mean adultery, it's a broader term. The focus really is on what he declares. Jesus' law for divorce is that there is a strict legal limitation that permits a man to divorce his wife that does not make him culpable.

He's speaking to the man, and that is significant here. One, men were the only ones who could seek a divorce. In the Torah, In Jewish tradition, especially in Roman courts, women could not divorce their husbands. He is speaking to the disciples, really, men. But here, even the reality of it is he's speaking to men. And it's important that the men are the ones who are held to this high responsibility in this text.

Now, the weight of the text, a man who divorces his wife makes her an adulteress. If a man divorces his wife, outside of the legal permission, if he does it wrongly, he is culpable, liable for her being an adulteress. If he breaks the covenant, He is causing her to sin.

He is responsible. That is the significant weight of what we would call male headship. There's a greater, higher responsibility and authority. He makes her an adulteress. He causes her adultery. Now, God has given the husband a unique responsibility and authority uphold and exercise God's good rule in the marriage. He is responsible for the marriage, for the union, for his wife, for her wellness. The husband has this unique authority.

Here's two ways of thinking, men. If you think my authority, you might think how you would use it for your own good. The my authority can tend to abuse, neglect, and other forms of difficulty and destruction. Here's how you're supposed to think about it, men. It's my stewardship. Because it isn't your authority. You don't own it. God gave it to you. As it's owned by Jesus, too. God brings the wife to you.

That is a significant stewardship. to care for, provide for, promote the well-being and the flourishing of God's daughter. Stewardship means I'm going to seek to use all that I have as the one responsible in this relationship, in marriage, to bless her for her flourishing. Now that doesn't translate if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. It means I'm going to do everything I can to bless her with the authority God has given me. The reason this is coming here is marriage is one of the most important institutions and sacred covenants God has given us.

It must be led with truth and goodness. We have to believe in good rule. Maybe that's a good starting place. We have to believe in good rule. To believe in the good God who saw us in our sin and sent Jesus Christ to be our king, to rule over us, we believe in good rule. We have to believe there can be good rule here on earth as God in his grace provides it. Here are David's last words regarding good rule.

This is from 2 Samuel 23.

The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.

Pray our governing officials rule this way. Pray your pastors rule this way. Pray we as husbands would exercise God's rule this way.

One that leads to flourishing, confidence, a fullness. God is addressing the sacred covenant of marriage and tightening the rules related to divorce. If a man divorces his wife outside of God's very specific, clear limitations, he is responsible, and the next man also commits adultery because she has not been properly released.

Now, let's get back into that exception. Now we'll wrestle with that except in the grounds of sexual morality. He's given this exception, and this isn't saying here's an exception to think about divorce. The argument, seems sound to be if you divorce your wife when she's faithful, you're causing her adultery, the other option is she's already been unfaithful and she's caused her own adultery. That's the argument. If you divorce her because she's sexually immoral already and therefore is responsible for her own adultery, you can't make her an adulteress if that was her choice and then there's the repercussions that follow.

But here, the main focus is actually if you divorce her outside of the bounds of what God has said, you're responsible for adultery. The exception is actually saying if she's already committed this, she's responsible for her own adultery, you are not. The key question is who's liable, who's culpable? Who is the one who is unfaithful? If she's faithful and he divorces her, he makes her an adulteress, If he divorces her outside of the bounds of scripture, according to Matthew 19, nine, and marries another, he also becomes an adulterer.

Keeping promises promotes godliness

All this is pointing to the importance of marriage and its sanctity and its goodness and, well, I think the headship of the husband. The third point of our sermon, looking back at the whole text now for a moment, keeping promises promotes godliness. Jesus, in Matthew 5, 20, before he gets into the you have heard it said and you have heard it said, tells us a very important kind of heading to start this.

Your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

Well, we'll see later in Matthew six, the problem with the scribes and the Pharisees is they did not have an internal righteousness.

It was merely external. It was merely for show. They had an outside in righteousness. They wanted to be only among the right people and doing the right things. They did not have a true heart of righteousness. What Jesus is teaching us and we'll teach over and over again. True righteousness is an inside out righteousness. It starts with our desires, our thoughts. are what we delight in and it flows out. The first two, there's that internal sin of anger that bursts forth in insults and murder. There's that internal sinful desire of lust and it bursts forth in porneo, sexual morality, adultery.

Here, the heart of the matter is about keeping a promise. It's about holding fast to what God has commanded you and what you have promised. Marriage is a promise-making and keeping covenant. That, by definition, is an inside-out kind of love that works in faithfulness. Marriage is one of the wonderful ways in which God shapes us as we learn the difficulty and the grace and the power of what it means to be a covenant promise keeper. We're supposed to be a people. God has designed you to be a people who makes promises and keeps promises. That is good. You're a covenant people. Our wedding order of service is organized in a specific reason to promote this. The actual wedding ceremony begins with a charge from God.

That is where the officiant He declares what God's word says to the husband and then to the wife, and they respond by saying, I do. As if they're declaring, yes, God, I hear you and I'm promising to you, I will keep these covenant promises. And then they turn towards one another and they repeat those same concepts, but to each other in vows. And they're saying I do to each other.

He said the covenant of marriage begins with that promise making. practice towards God and towards one another. And the entire, the whole marriage is learning how to keep those promises. Marriage is a gift from God to us and for us. He's teaching his disciples and he'll go further next week in the importance of oaths.

We have to be a promise making and promise keeping people. To think about the heart issue, And you have to have a righteousness better than the Pharisees. The Pharisees, they were really good at the legalities of finding loopholes to find their way out of real obedience. They were always looking for qualifications. If we're gonna go to Matthew 19, and we'll get there in a year or so, Jesus says something really important for us. Divorce is never prescribed, it's only permitted, and God only provided divorce because of our sin.

Think about that for a moment. Divorce is not God's way. Marriage is God's way, but he provided divorce for the protection of the woman because of sin. And then he gave very specific parameters around divorce and he gave it to us for our, because of our sin, to protect us from sinning. Now think about what Jesus is having to correct here. The grace of God gave us divorce because of our sin, then we took that provision to protect us from our own sin and sinfully twisted it for our own gain once more. You get what I'm saying? God had to give us divorce because of our sin and then we simply took that provision and decided to practice sin with it. We should stop and be thankful that God has not just destroyed us. How we take his grace for granted. He's been so kind and so patient. We take the things he gives us to protect us from sin and we figure out how to let them justify our further sin.

Making the right promises

Here, Jesus has given us a clear protection to sanctify marriage, and it's important we see everything he says about sanctifying marriage has to do with the sexual relations between the husband and the wife. Sexual morality is out of bounds. Adultery is what destroys a marriage. Here, the application. If you are not married, I encourage you to make sure you're making the right promises and keep them.

We live in a maybe world. I don't even give RSVPs anymore, because people don't even want to say maybe anymore. We have to learn how to order our lives around the right promises, and we have to ask for the grace to keep them. learn how to be ordered with other people, other Christians, and making the right promises and keeping them. We have a church covenant.

It's printed for you. It's a basic summary of the basic kinds of promises that are going to protect you from sin and promote godliness. It's important we learn how to make promises. It's important we learn how to ask for the grace to practice keeping those promises. Make sure you are making promises that are going to discipline you and your heart and make you someone who knows how to commit and be a faithful follower of Christ.

Let me talk about the Lord's Supper here for everyone. This is at some level a way of receiving God's promise you're forgiven. It's also a way in which we promise we're united together in Christ. We're going to forgive each other in Christ. We're gonna long together for the coming of Christ. If not married, pray to be faithful. And pray that you find someone faithful.

Whatever your profile is of Prince Charming, faithful, promise-keeping, follower of Jesus has to be the top of the list. And that should shape everything else that's on your list. Whatever it is you're prioritizing and saying, this is the kind of guy I really want to marry, this is the kind of girl I really want to marry. Faithful follower of Jesus has to be the top, and that should then influence everything else about your list.

Those about to be married

Second, those about to be married.

Matcom. Tatcom. Wait. With purity. For now it could be fornication, that is sex outside of marriage. Wait with purity. God designed us to wait. Wait. Pursue that most sacred activity in the bedroom in the right way with the right person after you've made the right promises. Wait. Protect your purity. The other side of this, make sure you're not delaying marriage unnecessarily.

You don't have to have the best wedding ceremony at just the right time and just the right place. I'm all for destination weddings that you can pay me to go and officiate. But I want to make sure we make the main thing the main thing, and that is the wedding ceremony of promise making, exchanging of rings. and being declared husband and wife. That's what that day must be about.

We want to be careful not to make sure that we have two very well-accomplished, successful individuals that then are ready to be married. Whatever our checklist is for things that need to be done before pursuing marriage, I fear sometimes we think we need to make sure there are two successful individuals that come to be married, and that just seems counterproductive. You also need to be ready to hear you need to grow in these areas of maturity before pursuing marriage. For those who are getting real close to marriage, prepare by meditating on the vows you're going to make. Think about the promises you're making beforehand. Meditate upon them. And I hope this isn't discouraging.

Know that you have no idea what you're promising. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. You have no idea what it's going to cost you. And you have no idea how wonderful it is to trust the grace of God and to see how that relationship brings flourishment and joy in a way you've never imagined. There's a way in which, when we make those promises, we have no idea what they really mean. but praise be to God who keeps us. Don't be scared to make them, long to make promises that are above your pay grade.

Sex in marriage

Those who are married, as we've seen in the past text, the adultery and lust, and now in this text, we've got sexual morality and adultery, we do have to make sure we're talking very clear and very real about sex in marriage. It is the unique activity and covenant uh... forming and uniting activity that marriage has uh... we were last week in first corinthians six we can turn there again that's uh... page nine fifty four fifty five of your pew bible is that the right page? is it the right page? it's a yes or no question yes okay good that's uh... alright first corinthians six We looked at how when a Christian lies with a prostitute, he becomes one with her, and he quotes the marriage text of Genesis 2,

they become one flesh.

What an incredible way to see what sex does. It unites in a covenant way.

Well, 1 Corinthians 7 goes a bit further.

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.

Now he's quoting there, and he's saying, you wrote this. Hear what God's word has to say in response to this idea from the Corinthian church, which is kind of our Gnostic, the body doesn't matter, only the spirit.

But because of temptation to sexual immorality,

that's the same word porneo that we have in Jesus' text in Matthew 5,

Each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

Verse three is where it picks up.

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Now, this text fascinates me because I'm a complementarian. What I just taught earlier, the husband has a unique role of being a head, which means there's a unique authority and responsibility that the wife does not share, and he has a unique authority over the whole home to make sure he's promoting goodness. But if we really think about what three and four are saying is this is the one place where there's an equal authority, a shared equal authority, and it has to do with sex. Jesus has made the exception for when divorce does not make you to be an adult or sex. And now Jesus, Christ's word, God's word with Paul is making this really stand out as a unique thing where the husband has authority over his wife's body and the wife has authority over her husband's body.

Authority there is a rule. It really makes this particular exclusive activity for marriage stand out as really important for marriage. Highlighting the importance of sex in marriage as the powerful, exclusive, personal way we pursue love and promote union in the one flash marriage. Let me try to say this in a different way. Wives are supposed to submit to their husbands gladly when it comes to sex. Husbands are supposed to submit to their wives gladly when it comes to sex.

That is what God's word just prescribed. It really helps us understand why this is a one flesh covenant. Your bodies are part of the covenant. Giving yourself over to your spouse with your body is part of the covenant. Pastor Early, I feel the need to say, if you have made sex so irregular that your spouse is scared or ashamed to talk about it, hear what God's word says next.

Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a limited time. for prayer service.

It shows how important this exclusive, God-given, covenant-binding activity is. It's a right desire. It's a good desire that God gives you to pursue with the right person the right way.

Go back down to 1 Corinthians 6 20.

For you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

And then he goes straight into another prescription on how you can glorify God in your body. God's supposed to be glorified in the bedroom. Hebrews says,

hold the marriage bed in honor.

That means it's exclusive. It also means it's active. The qualification is important. If there's abuse, if there is something sinful going on, this is why God's instruction to husbands and wives always comes within the context of a church. Talk to your elders. Talk to a church member. Talk to a friend. But we need to see how important this is. I said this last week, and only one person, I think, heard it, and he told me I said it too fast, so let me say it really slow. In marriage, you need to practice. Practice. The physician of your soul just told you to practice sexual relations with your spouse faithfully.

He can heal your marriage

Next, struggling marriage. Those who are in struggling marriages. Divorce is permitted because of sin. Sin is destructive. Divorce is destructive. sexual morality, anger, withdrawal, these things bring such difficulty to a marriage. Let me just be very clear, God sees you, God hears you, God knows your problem better than you do, and as sure as Jesus is risen from the dead, he can heal you. He can heal your spouse, he can heal your marriage.

Pray for the grace to trust him. A prayer God gives in the scripture, Help my unbelief. What a gracious thing for God to give us to pray to him. Help my unbelief. Pray for the grace to turn towards each other again. It's terrifying, it's painful. There's more pain ahead, but there's two important words that we have to confront our fears, our doubts with. But God. I'm terrified, but God. I'm broken, but God. I don't know if I can be forgiven, but God. I don't know if I can forgive, but God.

That is a simple, easy load ammunition for your heart, for your marriage, for your relationships, for your church, every valid and good excuse to remain distant in fear and pain, but God, you do not have to remain alone or isolated. God has given you others who have gone through things similar enough to help you.

Divorced disciples of Jesus Christ

Lastly, those who are divorced disciples of Jesus Christ. There's three things I want to say, and they have to be all held together in attention.

First, being divorced does not mean you cannot be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. It's not a scarlet letter. You can be divorced and be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. You need to believe that, and church, we need to make sure we're believing that.

Second, God hates divorce. If you've gone through a divorce, you hate it too. It's destructive. It's painful. It's the breaking of a covenant. You can be a faithful disciple having gone through a divorce and why you're going through a divorce, but we also say it's something to be hated. It's not good. Never celebrate it. Thirdly, you can grieve divorce and be thankful for the new life God has blessed you with afterwards at the same time. You have to.

Those two main parts of the conversation was the just grounds for divorce and then can you remarry. Good open conversation for us to have if you want to have that conversation. The other qualification beyond sexual morality for a legal divorce of certificate that allows for remarriage The other clear one is abandonment, when an unbelieving spouse abandons, and we gotta wrestle with what that means in terms of when abuse is taking place and what that looks like in abandonment. But if divorce, I pray we as a church are open, clear, and sympathetic. I pray we know how to walk alongside of you and each other. Being divorced cannot make someone a second-class citizen. As we conclude, I hope we see marriage as a good gift from God. God has set it apart as good for us. It is a blessing for those who promise themselves to a spouse in marriage. It points us to the gospel in so many ways. Knowing how to forgive, knowing how to trust, knowing how to heal. I mentioned earlier the things we don't hand out. We don't hand out certificates or scroll out letters, but I do want you to hold out this, hold on to this.

God has written your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. That's what God gives. And everybody whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, they get an invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb, where we will see our perfect bridegroom, who has been perfectly faithful, to forgive us to heal us. We take the Lord's Supper as a reminder, we're longing for that fullness and completeness. And as we long, we persevere in faith.

Will you pray with me? Father, as we meditate upon difficult topics that have caused pain for many of our brothers and sisters. We look to you as the God of grace. We pray we would know how to receive and apply the balm of gospel truth to deep, painful wounds. That we would long to see healthy marriages that produce life, strength, support. That would also know how to help our marriages be places where we proclaim the reconciling work of God and forgiveness and confession and union. I pray as we lose hope at times, sometimes for too long, we would be reminded of you, the God who is always faithful and true to every promise you have made to save us, provide for us, and protect us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.