Jesus doesn't have anything to say about that. Have you heard someone say that before? I hear a lot of people saying, what Jesus doesn't have anything to say about. I've heard people say Jesus doesn't have anything to say about homosexuality. Jesus doesn't have anything to say about being transgender. I hear so many people saying what Jesus is not saying that today, I'd like to open up and look at with you what Jesus is saying. So, I invite everybody here, let's hear the words of Jesus today. Let's open up the Bible to Matthew 19:3-10, and Jesus is going to say some things about marriage and divorce, and we would all do well to listen to them. And so, out of respect for God's Word, I want to invite everyone to stand up for the public reading of Scripture, and I want to encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention, because you've probably heard somebody say what Jesus has to say, let's let Jesus speak for himself. This is Matthew, chapter 19, verses, 3 to 10. Please follow along with me as I read.
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 his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 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 is better not to marry.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. And there is in the bulletin a handout there where we're going to go through Matthew 19:3-10 together. So, if you want to get that handout out and take notes, I would love for you to think through what Jesus just said here with me. This is what I like to call an episode of Stump-Jesus, where the Pharisees are asking a loaded question. Their purpose is to trap Jesus. It says that the Pharisees, they came to test him. So, the Pharisees are some of the religious leaders of the Jews. And the religious leaders of the Jews had different sects that didn't agree with one another, and they're always vying for popularity. They're always vying for the ear of the people. And here comes Jesus with his amazing teachings and his miracles, and the crowd is starting to go after Jesus. The popularity is now following Jesus, and so the Pharisees, their goal here is to discredit Jesus in front of the crowd, to cause a division among the people about Jesus, so people will stop following Jesus and start coming back to following them. So, they might say this question in a nice way, but their intent is to harm publicly the reputation of Jesus. And they think this question about divorce is a trap, because at this time, some of the religious leaders of the Jews were saying one thing about divorce, and other religious leaders were saying different things about divorce. So whatever Jesus said, he would end up on one side or the other, and that would cause a great divide among the people. And if they could start a division among the people about Jesus, they could start winning some of those people back to them. So, their purpose is to stump Jesus.
Many people participated in this show, no one ever actually won, all right. And so, they come, and you can see there, in verse 3, their question is about divorce, and they think we've got him. Divorce is such an inflammatory issue, no matter what he says, he's going to be busted. And he answered in verse 4. Jesus answers in such great ways, ways for us to study and learn from. Look at what he says right away. “Have you not read,” like you're telling me you're the religious leaders of the Jews, have you not read in the Law of Moses? Don't you already have an answer to this? Don't you already know what God's plan for humankind is? What God's divine design is for marriage, and how this is supposed to work. And Jesus quotes for them two verses. Genesis 1:27, and then he quotes in verse 5 Genesis 2:24. Why are you asking me this question? You should already know the answer. Have you not read?
So, let's just take this ridiculous notion that you're going to hear Jesus has nothing to say about fill in the blank, and what they mean by that is, if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, you won't find this specific word used. Well, if you actually do read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see that Jesus referred regularly to the Law of Moses, to the Prophets of Israel, and even to the Psalms and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible. And he acted like they were the authoritative word of God. And he did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them, and he used them as the basis of his teaching. And then he even taught more commentary beyond them.
So, Jesus didn't act like he was teaching something original to himself. He acted like he was standing on the Law and the Prophets when he was doing his teaching. So, Jesus affirms all of the previous Scripture as the Word of God, and says, you don't even need to ask me this question. You should already know the answer, because have you not read? It's already been written down so everybody could read it. It's an ancient document. It's been around for thousands of years so everybody could know God's purpose. So, grab your Bible, take a hard turn to the left, and let's go back to the very beginning, to Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, which Jesus is not acting like Genesis is some story that's just kind of making some kind of general point. He acts like no. Genesis is the truth of where you can find out the answer to life's questions. Genesis is God's foundation for life on planet Earth. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It describes six literal days, six twenty-four hour periods where God spoke all things into existence, and on the seventh day, he rested. That is literally the basis for why we have a seven-day week to this very day. And look what God says in Genesis 1:26. God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” So, God is speaking in the plural. God is speaking like he's talking to himself in the plural. And we see the Spirit is here, hovering over the face of the waters. Later, we learn that Jesus, the Son of God, is here, and Jesus is creating all things; Father, Son, and Spirit. And they want to make man in our image, God says. So, look at verse 27. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female he created them” to be made in the image of God. God is a spiritual being, okay? God does not have a body, as we have a body. God is Spirit, and those who worship God must worship him in Spirit and in Truth. So, to be made in the image of God means that you have a Spirit within you. You are an eternal soul. Yes, you are encased in flesh. Yes, you have a physical body. But inside of your physical body is a soul that is going to live forever, that is the part of you made in the image of God.
And this body that God gives us, this physical life that he gives us, we are either male or female. That's how God created us. Jesus has nothing to say about it. No, he's quoting the authoritative words on the matter that, in the beginning, God created Ah-dam, the first man. We call him Adam. And then out of Adam, he made the first woman, Eve. And when God looked at all that he had made, what did God say about his creation? He said that it was what, everybody? It was good. “Then he saw that the man was alone, and he said, It's not good for the man to be alone. Then he created woman. And then God said that it was what? Very good, right? That's the idea.
And so, look at Genesis 2:24, it gets in the detail of God's work of creation, forming the man from the dust of the ground, creating the woman from the rib of the man, and then God gives his plan. And this is before there is sin. This is before the earth is cursed. This is God's plan for human flourishing. This is how we're going to “be fruitful and multiply.” Genesis 2:24 is a very important verse for you to know. An important verse for parents to teach to their children. “Therefore a man,” a male, “shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,” a female, “and they shall become one flesh.” Does anybody want to say amen to that verse, right there?
Okay, so let me just make it very clear that Jesus, he quotes Genesis in response to a question about divorce. He's reiterating God's plan for marriage. And here's the plan. It's a very straightforward and clear plan. A man is going to leave his father and mother, who are also, by the way, male and female. A man is going to leave his father and mother, because that's where he came from, and then he's going to be joined to his wife. And God is going to take these two people, the male and the female, and he will join them together as one. So, Jesus doesn't have something to say about gender, or Jesus doesn't have something to say about marriage. He has everything to say about it.
Point number one, let's get it down like this: “Jesus defends God's design in Genesis.” Jesus defends God's design in Genesis. In fact, Jesus acts like everybody should read Genesis. Everybody should know what God's love-plan is for mankind. Everybody has the opportunity to already know that God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, that he made us male and female, and that the man is going to be joined to his wife, so they are no longer two, but one. Jesus acts like why are you asking me this? You should have already read it, because it is written down for God to reveal his plan to all mankind.
Now, not only does Jesus affirm what has already been written, go back to Matthew 19, and I love this, because Jesus now adds his own commentary. So, you get a review of Genesis, and then you also get a thought from Jesus about it here in Matthew 19:6, “so they are no longer two.” This is the math of marriage. It's absolutely fascinating. One male plus one female equals one flesh. They are no longer two. They are now one. And then look at this line, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Now that line, to me, is mind blowing. It's fascinating, because what it tells me, if it's like, well, hey, can these people over here get divorced? Is it okay for a man to divorce his wife? Well, first, Jesus gets back to marriage in Genesis, but then in relation to the question, can this man over here divorce his wife? Well, how could that man divorce his wife? Because God has joined them together, and so let not man separate. Do you see what Jesus is saying? Jesus isn't just saying God made marriage, and he got it started in Genesis, and we'll see how it goes. Jesus is saying that God made your marriage and he made your marriage, that if two people have been lawfully wed, if two people have come together, the male and the female, that God is the one who actually joined them together as one. So, it's not just that God created marriage as some kind of institution. God created marriage. If you're married here today, God has joined you together with your spouse as one.
Let's get that down for number two: “Jesus affirms God made your marriage.” This is a powerful concept, because people are always trying to figure out, what's God's will for my life, what's God's plan is for me. What's God's purpose that he wants to use me for? Well, if you are married here today, if God has joined you together, I can guarantee you one hundred percent that God's plan is for you to be married to that spouse and to be one with them, because what God has joined together is not meant to be separated by anybody else. So maybe, you're looking back and you're thinking, well, I don't know if I made the right decision to marry this person well before God and those witnesses that were there. You did marry that person, and at that moment, God joined you together. And so now you should not separate what God has joined together. That's what Jesus is saying. And then look, they’ve got a follow-up question in verse 7. They said to him, well, why then did Moses command one to give it like Moses came up with this great idea to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Poor Moses is going to get thrown under the bus a couple of times in today's sermon.
Well, if that's true, well, why did Moses give us this great idea of divorce? Well, that's not what happened. What they're referring to is Deuteronomy 2:24, where there's some instruction in the Law of Moses about what would happen if someone were to get divorced, and how, if they were to get divorced and then they go remarry someone else, well then they can't come back to their original spouse that they got divorced from. It's not promoting divorce. It's not saying divorce is acceptable or allowable or permissible. It's just saying what would happen in this particular instance if there was divorce. So, they're twisting the Law of Moses to make it seem like well, because there is a way to get divorced, because you can give your wife a certificate of divorce, therefore it must be okay, because it's an option that's out there. It's available. It's in the Law of Moses. And look what Jesus has to say to that in verse 8, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so, this isn't God's intent. This isn't God's purpose. “And I say to you, ‘whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality,” and we'll talk more about that. And “whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits,” what does he say there, everybody? Adultery. Now, adultery, if you go back to the Law of Moses, adultery is punishable by what in the Law of Moses? Death. So, they would have still clearly understood that adultery was wrong, that it was not God's plan. And he's now saying, if you get divorced and you go and enter into another relationship, you're now guilty of adultery, which clearly puts divorce in the category that it is not okay, it is not acceptable. It is sin. That's what Jesus is saying here.
In fact, when Jesus says it, all of a sudden, we go from the Pharisees trying to stump him to the disciples. And the disciples when they hear the clarity that Jesus brings to God's purpose of marriage and how it's not God's intent for people to divorce their wives, look what the disciples said to him, like after this whole encounter, the disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” Wow, this marriage commitment. There's no back door. There's no way out. There's no way to say it was a mistake and start over. Wow. If that's really true that you can't get divorced like that, wow, you may not even want to get married in the first place, because this marriage is an all-in commitment till death do you part, or our Lord Jesus returns, its husband and wife for the rest of your life together? Wow. Maybe it would be better not to be married. Look how serious this commitment is. So, Jesus is saying, and I need everybody to hear this, because this is a problem right here at this church. This is an issue that has come up regularly, where people who come here and they hear us preach the Bible, they come here and they sing the songs with us to God, they come here, and if you ask them, they would say they believe that Jesus is the Christ who died for our sins and rose again. Regularly, people here at this church are then thinking, well, but I'm going to divorce my spouse, because they've got such a roadblock in their relationship. There's such a tension between them and their spouse, and they're so focused on the problems there that they're starting to think it would be okay for me to divorce this person. No, no, no, no, no. If you're thinking that, your heart is getting hard, is what Jesus says. You're losing perspective. You're so focused on the problems there between you and your spouse that you've lost the plot, that God joined the two of you together, and if God joined you together, then you should not separate from that person that God made you one with. This is not just about you and your spouse. This is between you and God. And I've seen people lose their way. I've seen people lose the plot, where they're so fixated on I don't want to be in this situation, that they are willing to end up on the wrong side with God for all of eternity because they're so focused on what's wrong in their marriage. And if you're feeling that way today, I just pray that you could hear the words of Jesus that that's about you having a hard heart.
Let's get that down for number three: “Jesus denounces divorce as hardness of heart.” Okay, so I'm speaking to people here who are currently married, just like Jesus is speaking about it in kind of this active way. If God's joined you together, if you're married right now, God's purpose is for you to be one flesh together, and so don't think about separating. Don't even let your mind go there. And if you find yourself going there, this is a warning. This is a wakeup call your heart is getting. Heart, and you might be so fixated, I've seen people so fixated on what's wrong in their marriage that it's like they can no longer see God, and they can no longer see what God is calling them to do. If that's you, I'm hoping you can hear what Jesus is saying. This is about your hard heart before God. God joined you together. Don't just make it about your spouse. What about God? And so, I would love to talk to you before it's too late. I've just met so many people who just they're going to get divorced or they already separate. They don't seek counsel; they don't try to address it. They just think it's too hard. It's not working. I'm going to get out of it. That is not God's plan. And so, if you're experiencing that hardness of heart, will you please come talk to me, come talk to someone at the church, go and pray about it before God and admit that you could be the problem, not just your spouse.
Go to Malachi, chapter 2. It's just a few pages over to the left, and the book of Malachi, it's the last book of the Old Testament. Here in our English translation, the last of the prophets. Malachi 2, I want to look at verses 14 to 16 of Malachi 2 with you. And the context of the book of Malachi is when they come back to Jerusalem after the 70 years of exile. So, if you're reading through Jeremiah. We're in some exciting chapters right now where Jeremiah prophesied they'll be exiled to Babylon for 70 years, and then God will bring them back to Jerusalem. And so, Malachi is now about what's happening now that they're back from the exile. Just like Jeremiah said, God brought them back to the Promised Land, back to Jerusalem. But things are not going well. They don't feel like God's good hand is upon them. They're not receiving favor from the Lord. So here in Malachi 2:14-16, it's like, hey God, where is your favor? Why aren't you blessing us? Why aren't you being good to us? We're your people. You brought us back to the land. Where's your blessing? And so, in Malachi 2, verse 14, here's the question. But you say, why does he not give us favor from his hand? Here's why. “Because the Lord Yahweh was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless.” Why was God against the people? Because they were divorcing their wives, and it literally puts God there. Go back to the day you got married, and it puts God there as a witness between you and the wife of your youth. God heard the vows. God saw the contract. God saw the Covenant when it was formed, and now God sees you breaking that covenant. That's why his favor is not upon them. I love this phrase that's used throughout the Hebrew Bible, “the wife of your youth,” and it's implying that you got married some time ago, and you're older now, and you're looking bac. And it says in Proverbs, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth.” It says in Ecclesiastes, which is a book about how vain life is and how purposeless and meaningless life can be. What does it say? Though, in Ecclesiastes, “enjoy your life with the wife of your youth,” like God has given you a good thing. He who finds a wife obtains favor from the Lord, like a wife is a good gift from God. And here you are being faithless to the wife of your youth, and God's a witness against you. That's why this group of people lost their favor from God because they were divorcing their spouse. And look at what it goes on to say here in verse 14, it says, “to whom you have been, faithless, though she is your companion and your wife, by covenant. Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union?” And what was the one God seeking, godly offspring? “So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” Look, I mean, that is a profound passage, that you had a covenant with your wife. God is really into covenants. God is a faithful God. God is always true to his word. God always does what he says. It is impossible for our God to lie; whatever God has promised you, that's what's going to happen. Whatever God has prophesied, it will always be fulfilled. And God, he loves to make covenants with his people to define their relationship so his people can have hope, so they can know what to expect. He promises Abraham a land and a nation. He promises, after the flood with Noah, that he won't flood the world again, and the rainbow is a beautiful symbol of that. He promises to David that David will have a son who will sit on the king as king on the throne forever. He had a covenant with the people of Israel, and then he promised a new covenant with the prophets. God loves this idea of covenant, and he's given us a covenant we can enter into, a covenant where the man is joined to the woman as one flesh, husband and wife, and you're breaking the covenant. God says, I brought you together as one, and you're separating. And God acts like that's faithless. Notice what it says multiple times in those verses is, guard your spirit. Don't blame it on somebody else. Don't say it's not working out circumstantially, guard your spirit, God says. And then he says this in verse 16. And there's been this long-standing debate about how to translate verse 16. You can see they translate it here for the man who does not love his wife, or the man who hates his wife divorces her. Now, some translations say God hates divorce, or sometimes it's translated like this, the man hates his wife to divorce her. But either way, it's clear that if you divorce your wife in this way, you cover your garment with violence. Okay? That's like you've got blood on your hands. That's like you're guilty. That's like, now God is not seeing you in a right standing with him anymore. He's seeing you as someone who has done something wrong. You have broken your covenant. And so, notice the warning here is, guard yourself in your spirit. Divorce always goes down like it's blamed on the other person, but what the Word of God is saying is God's going to hold you responsible if you get divorced, you won't be able to blame it away on somebody else. It will be between you and God, because he was the witness when you made that covenant.
So, we want to make it very clear here at our church how God sees divorce. And we want to say we're not going to be okay. You want to come and say we're the bad guy when you want to divorce your wife, because we won't support you. The Scripture is very clear that if you want to divorce your wife without a legitimate exception, which we'll talk about in a minute, if you just don't want to be with your wife, the Scripture is saying you're the bad guy, and we're not going to support that. We can't be a part of that as a church that goes again. It's God's very design that goes against the work that God did when he joined you together as one. We can't agree to you separating what God has joined together as one. And I just want to say to everybody who's married here, you and your spouse are one flesh. And maybe you're like, well, I'm not going to divorce. No, but you're thinking independently from your spouse every day. You're okay living like roommates. You're okay living separate lives in the same house. This is not God's design. This is not God's intent. It is for two people to live their life together as one, that definitely includes even their physical bodies coming together as one, one home, one family, one calendar, one bank account, one everything. Our life is now joined together by God. That is the purpose. And so, you can justify your marriage by saying, well, we're not getting divorced, but are you really fulfilling the purpose where a husband loves his wife and sacrifices himself for her, and then the wife is willing to place herself underneath the leadership and headship of her husband? And these two come together as a beautiful complement. They come together as companions. They are two that are better than they would be by themselves, because God has joined them together as one is that what you believe about your marriage, because that's what God did, and you need to align the way that you believe with what God is revealing to us in his Word.
And so, we need to talk about divorce here with this group of people, and we need to hear God telling you, guard your spirit, the thoughts that you think that justify yourself separating from your spouse are wrong thoughts, according to the Word of God, and you need to declare those thoughts wrong and change your mind and how you are thinking if you're thinking about separating from your spouse.
So go back to Matthew chapter 19. There. Now we heard a strong word, hopefully against divorce. Jesus answers their question in a strong way by comparing it to adultery. And that's coming from God speaking strongly about this in the past, like in Malachi. So hopefully everyone who here today, can hear what Jesus actually said about divorce, but Jesus said this interesting phrase in verse 9 that I would like to draw your attention to: “Except for sexual immorality,” and if you divorce your wife, except in this instance, sexual immorality is the Greek word porneia, and that word is used to describe sexual activity outside of God's intended purpose in marriage. So, God's plan for human sexuality is very clear. It's been clear from the beginning that one man will be joined with one woman, and the two of them will become one flesh. That's God's plan for human sexuality, and it leads to being fruitful and multiplying. That was God's plan. Anything that happens outside of that plan is porneia. It's sexual immorality, it's sexual lawlessness. It's taking sex beyond God's intended purpose. And so, if God joins a man and a woman together as husband and wife, as one flesh, but then one of those two people does sexual activity outside of that marriage, well, now we're talking about porneia. And this isn't the first time that Jesus said this.
Go back to Matthew chapter 5. He preached this in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus knew this was a question that people had, he knew that people had lowered their thoughts from God's standard, and they had made divorce acceptable. And so, when he's preaching here his famous Sermon on the Mount, look what he says in Matthew 5:31, he already brought this question up. The Pharisees have been paying closer attention. They wouldn't have gotten schooled in Matthew 19 because they could have seen what Jesus said here in Matthew 5:31 “It was also said, whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce,” almost like it's okay if you get divorced, as long as you do it the right way, or as long as you get this certificate. “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife,” and then notice, here it is again, this exception, “except on the ground of sexual immorality.” But Jesus says everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So, if there's a divorce, the people that go their separate ways, if they join with other people, they're committing adultery. Even the people who join up with them are committing adultery. Jesus says divorce is not acceptable. It's not okay, it's adultery, except on the ground of sexual immorality. So, if someone breaks the covenant, if they cheat on their spouse, if they commit adultery with someone else, so one of the spouses pursues a different relationship, the other spouse is no longer bound to stay married to someone who is going to be with someone else.
So, let's get that down here under point number three: “Except for sexual immorality or adultery.” No, there's a way that people break the covenant. We're supposed to love you and you alone till death do us part, or the Lord Jesus returns. Well, if you go and you join yourself together as one flesh with someone else, you've now broken the marriage covenant, and this has happened to some of our brothers and sisters here at our church where they were married, God had joined them together, and their spouse went and joined themselves with someone else, and they ended up getting divorced. In that case, we need to be very clear about this. In the case where your spouse committed adultery, you are guilty of no sin. You may be divorced, but there should be no negative stigma attached to that person in that divorce. In fact, they've gone through such a heartbreak, they've gone through such a betrayal. They don't need people judging them for being divorced. They need people to come and build them up and encourage them, because they've gone through a brutal reality of divorce. And if you know somebody, and we have some beloved brothers and sisters here in our congregation who have been through this kind of divorce, if you know one of those people, I would ask that this very week, you would do something to come alongside of them and encourage them and let them know that you're glad they're a part of our church, because there's a lot of people who have had their heart just broken apart, and we need to come and build them up together so there could be people at our church who are getting divorced, and that's a real sin, a sin that If they don't repent of that, how will they even continue to fellowship at our church?
But then there are other people who end up divorced, and we should welcome them. We should bring them the fellowship of the church, because we need to build them up because their spouse committed sexual immorality outside of their marriage, and that has now put them in a bad way, in a terrible place, and we want to come around alongside of them. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 7. There is one other exception that I have come across in the Scripture that I would like to share with you. And I would just like you all to turn with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, because it is a fascinating chapter that has to do with marriage and singleness. And it's important for all of us to know what 1 Corinthians 7 says. If you are married, it says that husbands and wives should be coming together as one flesh. That's the expectation of a married couple. And so, it talks about that in 1 Corinthians 7, it also talks to the single person, where Paul, who is single, is actually promoting singleness. He's actually saying there's a great advantage to being single in that you can have a singular focus. You can have an undivided devotion to the Lord. You don't have to wake up in the morning and wonder how your spouse is doing and care and be concerned about all the issues in your spouse's life. You can just wake up in the morning and be completely focused on Jesus Christ from the moment you wake up until you go to bed at night. And so, if you can accept that, if you can be right with being single, that could be a great way for you to live. So that's how Paul talks about it here. And he says, well, some of you, you may burn with passion, you may really have this strong desire to be married. Well, that's fine if you want to be married. Married is a good thing, but if you don't have that burning passion, being single, that can be a good thing, too. But then in 1 Corinthians 7, there's also a part where he talks about people who are unequally yoked, where you end up with someone who's a believer in Jesus, and they're now joined together as one with someone who is not a believer in Jesus. And I just want to take a moment to say here at the church, we would never recommend someone putting themselves in that situation. If someone here at church says, I'm going to get married, I'm going to marry this person who's not a believer, we would strongly encourage you, do not marry someone who's not a believer. They're not going to partner with you in living for Jesus Christ for the rest of your life. Don't make that decision. But sometimes people are in that situation, and sometimes what even happens, we've seen this here at the church, where somebody starts coming to church and they start hearing this message of Jesus Christ, and they start hearing that God loved them so much that he sent his Son Jesus, and that Jesus was willing to give his life in their place. And they have this debt of sin that they cannot repay, but Jesus paid it in full. And not only did Jesus love them to die for their sin, but Jesus in the power of the Almighty God, he rose from the dead, and he has been exalted to the right hand of God. And now everyone who believes in Jesus, you could live a new life. And even if you die, you will live with Jesus forever. And they hear this good news, and they believe in it. And so here they were. They were married, two unbelievers married together, and now one of the people in the relationship gets saved, and now they want to go to church all the time, and now they want to read the Bible. And now they have a changed mind about life, and they don't want to do some of the things they used to do. Now they want to start living a whole new way. Well, sometimes the unbeliever doesn't want to be a part of a marriage to a Christian. And so, the word here is, if you're a believer and you're married to an unbeliever, you should stay in that marriage. God has joined you together. But look at 1 Corinthians 7, and look here at verse 15. It says, “But if the unbelieving partner separates. So, the non-Christian, they decide, I don't want to be in this marriage anymore. If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so in such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace for how do you know wife, whether you will save your husband, or how do you know husband, whether you will save your wife? So, there come these situations where someone just decides they kind of want to abandon their spouse. They don't want to live with them anymore. They want to go live a different way.
And so, let's get that down for our second dash: “If the unbelieving partner separates.” This is another exception, and this is something we've definitely seen here at our church. We've seen where unfortunately someone got saved and then their spouse didn't want to live with them anymore, or even we've seen couples where one of the spouses fell away from faith in Jesus Christ, and they didn't want to keep denying themselves and taking up their cross and following Jesus, and then they didn't want to stay married to their Christian spouse, because they didn't want to be a Christian anymore. And so, we have some brothers and sisters here among us who have been through this 1 Corinthians 7:15 kind of divorce. And if you know one of these people, you should have no negative thought about them. You should thank God for saving them, and you should come alongside to build them up and encourage them. It says, “Let it be.” So, they're not guilty of something, there's not something that they were supposed to do. Their unbelieving partner doesn't want to live with them anymore. That person needs to know the love of God in the family of God here at the church. So, we've got divorced people here at our church. They're actually some of the most precious people you might find here at Compass HB, and if you know somebody, except for sexual immorality, or if the unbelieving partner separated, if you know somebody in that situation, I want to ask you to go and encourage them this week and to let them know that you don't have any negative thought about them, because divorce is spoken against so strongly and rightfully in the Scripture. But then there are some who end up divorced, and they need to know that they are loved and they need to be encouraged.
Now go back to Matthew 19, because I want to really think about with you verse 10, what the disciples say, because the disciples this seems to bring a lot of clarity to their thinking. And the disciples are like, wow. So, when you get married to someone, that is a lifelong commitment, and there's not really a righteous way out of that relationship of that covenant, wow. So maybe you don't even want to get into it, because maybe if you get into it, you'll want to get out of it later, but you won't be able to; it might be better not to get married at all. Well, look what Jesus says to his disciples about that. Not everyone can receive this saying, but only to those whom it is given like Jesus affirms there might be wisdom in not getting married. And it's not for everybody, but it is for some. And then he says this, verse 12, “There are eunuchs,” or people who are celibate. “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.” Like, hey, it might be better not to get married. And Jesus is saying, yeah, for some that might be a better way. And if you're able to receive being single and not getting married, then receive it, Jesus says. So, it's not just Paul that's recommending singleness. Jesus is saying that there are some people they will be able to receive the gift of being single. They will be able to live where they don't need to get married. They can live with that singular focus on serving Jesus Christ full time in their life. And if you're one of those people, then receive it, Jesus says. So we’ve got to make it very clear here at our church that while we're celebrating marriage, and we want to hold marriage and honor among all, and we want to really encourage the husbands and wives who are married well, we also want to affirm those who are single, that Jesus and Paul are saying, there can be a good thing about being single, and if you can receive that, if you don't have this passion where you want to get married, but you're happy being single, then be that way. Be content to be that way. And let's make sure everybody here at our church is not looking down on someone who is single. Let's make sure we're saying, oh no, there's a place for that. We hear Jesus talking about it. We hear Paul talking about it, being single can be a very good thing if you can receive that. Now, I've met a lot of single people here at the church. They cannot receive that. They are not happy being single. In fact, there can be this thing that I want to talk about among some of the single people, where they start feeling very alone, and if they're not careful, they'll start to think to themselves that it would be better to be in this relationship, just so that I'm not alone. Well, let me say to those single folks here with us today, there is something way worse than being alone. It's being married and being alone.
Okay, so if you're single and you want to be married, you are not in the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is to be married and to want to be single. If you are not wise, you will put yourself in that position. And I have seen people do that here at the church these days. When people get engaged, it's like an Instagram celebration. It's like a photo shoot. It's like we're going to have a map, a magazine or something. We're going to have a whole party. Everybody you ever know has now been invited. And some of these engagements, someone should be bursting in there saying, this is a bad idea. Let's call this whole thing off. I mean, how many people have had beautiful pictures on Instagram and been divorced within years, within months. People are making unwise decisions. And so, if you are single and you want to be married, I want to encourage you to be praying and be making sure that you are not just compromising just because you don't want to be single anymore. Just because you've developed emotional feelings for someone doesn't mean you should marry them. Just because you've even been with someone physically doesn't mean you should marry them. You should marry someone who you can tell is living for the Lord Jesus Christ, and you want to do that with them for the rest of your life. If you're not confident about that, do not marry that person. Because the disciples, when they heard what Jesus taught on divorce, they had clarity, wow, it would be better to be single than to be in a situation you didn't want to be in. And so, I want to give that word of wisdom to those who are single among us. I mean, it was Valentine's day on Friday, and there's this article in the Orange County Register that on Valentine's Day, they have like, three times the number of normal marriages down at the clerk's office. Because, guess, why? Why do three times as many people show up to get married on Valentine's Day? Because they want to have their anniversary on Valentine's Day. I'm thinking that may not be a good foundation for the rest of your life, everybody. I hear that as a pastor, as a guy who gets into people's marriages and find out what's really going on, and some of the foundations that people decided to come together on, those foundations were never going to stand. I hear about triple the amount of marriages at the clerk's office on Valentine's Day, and I think, oh no. Some of those may not have been wise decisions. Some of those may have been emotional, physical attraction, heat of the moment, kind of decisions, and now they have ramifications for the rest of your life.
So, if you're single and you're content that way, receive it. And if you're not content in being single, please be careful about who you marry. Let's get that down to the Singles here among us: “Be content as you are, or be careful if you marry.” And if you have any hesitations, any doubts, you should probably listen to that kind of thinking and not just hope that it'll all work out. No, there's a warning here. And Jesus, when the disciples say it might be better not to marry, Jesus isn't arguing with his disciples. He's saying yes, for some they need to receive that. But everybody who's getting married needs to choose wisely and be careful about who they would enter into this covenant with, because when God joins you together, you are now one, and let no man separate what God has joined together.
Now I enjoyed this episode of Stump-Jesus so much, I'd like to just start another episode. If you can go to Matthew 22:23 with me, just a few chapters over. Turns out there's another Valentine's Day edition of Stump-Jesus. Has anybody else ever done that? You watch an episode and you're like, maybe we'll just start the next episode. Pretty soon you're five episodes deep. Am I speaking to anybody right now here in the congregation? Right? So, let's just start another episode here. And this isn't with the Pharisees. This is with the Sadducees. And the Sadducees, they don't believe in the what, everybody? They don't believe in the resurrection. That's why they're so sad, you see, which is a classic example of terrible Christian humor, but in this case, is also something that will help you understand who the Sadducees are. Right? They don't think there's life after death, and so the Sadducees are in a back room and they're scheming. How can we stump Jesus? The Pharisees have failed, the lawyers and the scribes have failed. It's time for the Sadducees to rise. How can we get him? And they think that marriage is actually the way they can prove there can't be life in the resurrection. And so, here's the plot of the Sadducees, Matthew 22:23, “The same day Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question saying teacher Moses said, If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow. So now we're into Deuteronomy 25 and poor Moses is getting brought up into it again here. “If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and then his brother marries the widow, and he raises up the offspring of his brother.” Because remember, in the time of the Hebrew Bible, the whole purpose, it seems, of life, in people's minds, was the father giving inheritance to his son. Like that was the whole thing. We’ve got to have a son, and we’ve got to pass it on to the son. And so, if somebody dies without a son, well, then the brother should come in and marry his wife so that there can be a son. Now they're going to take this in verse 25. “There were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brothers. So too the second and third death. Unto the seventh brother, and after them all the woman died in the resurrection, therefore of the seven, whose wife will she be?” For they all had her stumped him. That's what they're thinking. Ha, there can't be a resurrection. She can't be married to seven bros in heaven, ha, ha, we got you this time, Jesus. Jesus' answer here is classic, verse 29, “But Jesus answered them, you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection,” now this is very important for us. “In the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” And as for the resurrection of the dead, that you Sadducees don't believe in, “Have you not read what was said to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” He is not God of the dead, but of the living. “And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.” Their minds were blown. Rather than causing the crowd to doubt the resurrection, they were more confident of the resurrection than ever. Yeah. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they're all there with God right now, what an amazing thought. But for our purpose, I just want to draw your attention to this fascinating thing that Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that in the resurrection, talking about life after death, the age to come, all right, if you die, if you were to die today, and you believe in Jesus, to be absent from the body would be to be present with the Lord, and your soul would immediately go to the presence of Jesus. Someday, all of the people who are in Jesus, we will be resurrected. We will receive a new resurrection body, just like Jesus has, and we will now be immortal. We will no longer have an inclination to sin, we will no longer get sick. We will no longer age towards death. No, we will get this resurrection body and when we are there, basking in the glory of God, seeing Jesus face to face, all worshiping Jesus together, well, there nobody marries, and no one is given in marriage. They're like angels. So even the way it's said that you neither marry or are given in marriage, that even alludes back to God's original design to male or the female that would be given away. And there's not going to be this desire to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God's not going to be seeking godly offspring anymore. No, once we're there in heaven, God will have all of his people that he has chosen for his own possession, all the people saved by Jesus, will be there with the angels. There won't be more people being populated. No, we'll all be there, and we won't be married. That means the marriage that God has given you right now, when God has joined you together, it's marriage is it's all of your life, but your life is only a limited time.
And a lot of people, they have such a laissez faire attitude about their marriage. They take it so much for granted, like we've got time to figure this whole thing out in our marriage. That's all you have is a limited amount of time together. When you start thinking about eternity, when you start thinking about the life of the age to come, the 50 years is a long time to be married on planet Earth. 50 years is nothing in the grand scheme of God's history, nothing in the scope of eternity. And so, no, God has joined you together. God has made you one. And I want to encourage you, if you're married, you should rejoice in the wife of your youth. If you're married, you should enjoy this brief, meaningless life that we have together. You should enjoy it with your wife. You should stop wasting your days arguing and separating and doing your own thing, and you should come together and live as one.
This is a unique thing that belongs to this life, and in the life of the age to come, we're not going to be married. That adds a level of perspective. And so, to the Married, I want to conclude with this, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth, because your marital status is temporary.” This is something that I've learned over the last ten years here at the church, marriage is temporary, even in the most faithful marriages, even when the husband really does love his wife and the wife really does submit to her husband. I've seen people, they got divorced. They're beyond their marriage. Our church has many widows, many people whose spouses have died and yet they live on. I mean, just to put that in perspective for you, almost fifty percent of us will outlive our spouse, and so we will have been joined together as one, but then we will have life after our spouse. And even if you and your spouse are blessed to live together, and even if you were to go and be with the Lord on the same day, at the same time, Jesus is making it very clear, yeah, there's not marriage where we're going in the life of the age to come. And so, I want to encourage you to cherish the marriage that God has given you. And I want to say to the husbands, you’ve got to love your wives. You’ve got to give your life for your wife. You’ve got to lift her up just like Jesus did for you. You’ve got to pass that on to that woman that God gave you. And wives, can you see Jesus high and lifted up? Can you see Jesus resurrected at the right hand of God? Can you see that some things someday, all things will be in submission to Jesus. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord. Do you see yourself as under Jesus? Do you willingly call Jesus Lord. Well, then take that same attitude and give that to your husband and submit to the Lord Jesus through submission to your husband, and you can come together as a couple here on Earth. You can come together and complement one another. You can be a helper suitable for each other, and you can bring glory to God in your marriage in the limited time that you have. And I want to encourage you to make the most of it, like Valentine's Day weekend. It's a time for us to think, yeah, God has joined us together as one, and it won't be this way always, so let's live this way now and then this is God's design that when a man leaves his father and mother and he's joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh.
Go with me to Ephesians real quick. We talked about this at the Marriage Conference, but I just want everybody to see it, because along with Jesus, this is Ephesians, 5:31, along with Jesus, talking about God's design in Genesis 2, Paul also writes about God's design in Ephesians, chapter 5, and he quotes it's always been male and female and the man, he's going to leave his father and mother. God's going to join the man together to his wife and the man and the woman, husband and wife, they're no longer two, but one. And I've been blessed at many marriages here at the church to say, “You may kiss your bride, and let me be the first to introduce Mr. and Mrs. And when the husband really does love his wife, and when the wife really does willingly submit to her husband, look what it says here in Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 31, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound.” It's a great mystery, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Marriage is a picture. It's an analogy. It's about something greater than us. It's not just about a man loving a woman, knowing that husband loves his wife. It's a glimpse into how Jesus came to love us, that Jesus laid down his life. He sacrificed. He was willing to give his life to pay for our sin, to sanctify us. And someday, when we're all there praising Jesus, we're going to be called the Bride of Christ, like, hey, it's the marriage supper of the Lamb, and here's Jesus with all the people he purchased with his blood. And what are we going to all be wearing when we're there with Jesus? White robes. What does the bride wear when she walks down the aisle? A white dress? See this brief human picture of love between a man and a woman is just a glimpse into the way Jesus loves us. And so, if the marriage is here, don't just stay together, but they live as one. And if people can tell that husband really loves that wife and that wife, she's really willing to follow that husband, when people can see that, guess what? They could get a glimpse into Jesus and the good news that he came to get his bride to get his church. And some people, they don't come to church. Some people, they won't read the Bible, but they will see your marriage, and when they see your marriage, will they get a glimpse into ultimate reality, not just temporary things, but eternal things, that Jesus will have a whole people for himself, and we will all be there so happy to worship Him forever? Marriage is a glimpse of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so, Ryan, he wrote a song. I got to be there at his brother's wedding, and I got to see his brother get married. And Ryan, he wrote this song about marriage. And so, we're going to hear this song now, and while we hear this song, I want to give you a chance to pray to God. Maybe you could pray about your marriage. Maybe you could pray for a future marriage. Maybe you know you want to be single, and you could pray about that to the Lord, how you have a singular focus on Jesus. Maybe you know somebody who's having a hard time in their marriage, you want to pray for them. Maybe you know one of these people who has been wrongfully divorced, or maybe you know a widow here at our church, and you want to pray for them, that they would be cared for and loved by God's people. So, this is a time for us to pray for the marriages here, that we will represent Jesus, because God has joined us together as one, and what God has joined together let no man separate. So, I’ll pray for all of us, and then you'll have a chance to pray during this song.
Father in heaven, we come before you, and we're so thankful that today we got to gather together in the name of Jesus, and we got to hear what Jesus actually says, not what people are saying Jesus says, or he doesn't say what Jesus actually says. And God, I just pray that everybody here, that you would give them the ears to hear Jesus, that you have always had a love-plan for man when you made us male and female, when you join a husband to his wife, when you make us to become one, this has always been your intent, not just to be fruitful and multiply with children, but to put the gospel of your Son, Jesus on display. And so, Father, I pray for everyone who's married that they would realize here today, that they would be reminded and affirmed that it is one hundred percent your will for them to be joined to their spouse for the rest of their life, till death do us part, or the Lord Jesus returns. And I pray that they would be committed to that relationship. I pray for the husbands that they would lay down their lives for their wives in the way that Jesus did for us. And I pray for the wives that they would willingly place themselves underneath their husbands in the way that all of us do with the Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray that you will use the marriages here to give people a glimpse of the love that you have for us in Jesus, that people could see that you have a beautiful plan. And the plan is not just about us living our lives here on planet Earth. The plan is that your Son, Jesus, would have a people who could live with him for all of eternity, and that people would be able to see what love really is. It's the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, paying for our sins and offering us, through his resurrection, an eternal way of life. And so God, let marriage be here at our church what it was meant to be, a commitment two people make before you as the witness, a commitment that we honor for the rest of our lives as husbands, as wives, and most importantly, a commitment that shows people that Jesus loves us and that he gave his life for us, and the purpose is that we will be the people of Jesus forevermore. And so, God, please let the marriages here at this church be a glimpse into your glory and the way you love us in your Son, Jesus. We pray this in his name. Amen.