Covenant Is Not a Contract | 02/08/2026

All right.

So a couple weeks ago, the Lord started to talk to me.

I was asking, I always ask, Lord, what are we going to be talking about?

What is the direction for the church?

I always have ideas, but I always go to the Lord as best I can and submit them to Him, put my ear open, say, What do you want to do?

Well, he started talking to me about marriage.

I want to talk about marriage.

And so we're going to do a three-week series on marriage.

Everyone get excited about that.

If you're married in the house, raise your hand.

Okay, put your hands down.

If you're not married and you want to be married one day, raise your hand.

Alright, now everyone look around.

I'll show you how this works.

Oh yeah.

We're going to start a small group.

Oh Lord help me.

I don't even know where I'm going with that.

So we're going to do a series on marriage.

This is going to be fun.

This is going to be life-giving.

We are going to hit some real things.

I am going to say things that is going to come against the culture.

I'm going to come against some things that you may be used to.

Maybe some of these things are your normal daily life.

You thought it was normal.

I might say things that will offend you.

I want you to understand we are approaching marriage from a biblical perspective, okay?

My goal is not to make anyone mad, but my goal is to strengthen our lives and our marriages with the truth of God.

Amen.

Okay.

So before we go into this, let me go ahead and build a foundation.

This is very key.

This is very important.

The first thing is this might seem obvious to you, but as we go into this, I want us to ask ourselves a question, and I want us to be very honest.

And you might think this is silly to ask this, but this is a very key going into this series.

Ask yourself this do I believe in God?

You can hide in a church, you can hide in a Christian group and not and still be wondering and questioning, is this really true?

Is this really real?

Paul talks about one of the keys to becoming a Christian, to be considered a son and daughter of God, to when you stand in front of Jesus one day, he's going to say, I know you.

Paul says, first, you have you have to believe in your heart.

And ask yourself, do I actually believe this?

And then secondly, because belief is not enough.

They know about God.

It's not enough just to believe, but then Paul would say, you have to confess that he is Lord.

Now there's the key here behind this, okay?

It's not just saying out loud, oh, Jesus is Lord.

It's the it's the posture and the motivation of a life lived saying, Christ is the king of my life.

I'm not free to govern myself.

I want you to ask yourself, is Christ king of your life?

If you don't answer yes to both of those, then this series is not going to matter to you.

It's not going to benefit you, and you're going to struggle and get offended with a lot of things that I say.

If you say yes to these, this is going to be a lot easier.

Amen?

Second foundation.

God created marriage and God defines marriage.

God created, God defines it.

He's not looking for us to redefine it.

He's not looking for the next best seller on bookseller on marriage.

He's defined it.

It was it was perfect.

Marriage was actually in the garden before sin.

Marriage is not the cure for the problem of sin.

It was actually part of the initial perfect design.

Okay?

God's not looking for an improvement on it.

Are y'all following me on this?

Sometimes people all of a sudden like, oh, I got this new book.

Who cares?

I got this old book that's still true.

Amen?

Okay.

Secondly, we are contending for revival in this church.

The heart posture of contending is that I'm going to believe for better and I'm not going to give up.

I'm not going to get discouraged.

Even when I don't see it, I know that God's working.

That's a lyric to Waymaker, but it's felt right in the moment.

Even when I don't see it, he's moving.

Is that correct?

Sort of.

I messed it up a little bit.

But we are a church contending for revival.

One of the things the religious mocking spirit likes to do is saying, why do you keep praying for miracles?

They don't happen.

I'm like, I don't care.

I'm going to keep praying for miracles.

Mock all you want.

I know that King Jesus is the king.

I know he's the God of miracles.

I know he's the God of signs and wonders.

And Acts, they did preach the gospel.

They did preach the kingdom, but it says the kingdom was confirmed through signs and wonders.

Amen.

We're continuing for great marriages.

We're not settling.

Sometimes what we do is we get discouraged and we settle for good enough.

We get into survival mode.

I've learned how to survive.

I've learned how to survive with my spouse.

We're simply roommates.

We're just getting by.

God wants your marriage to be great.

We're making marriages great again.

No demons.

Just God.

In our marriages, every day.

That's a horrible Trump impression, isn't it?

Well, okay, have some grace and be kind.

That is step two.

Be kind.

Y'all could work on that a little bit.

Next foundation is responsibility.

Everyone will say responsibility.

Okay, you're going to be tempted in this marriage.

I know I am sometimes to want to point and look at your spouse and all the wrong things that they're doing.

That is probably one of the worst things you could do for your marriage during this series.

The goal of this marriage is for you to be responsible for yourself, to put your eyes on yourself, to allow God to put his examining magnifying glass on your life.

Okay?

Take responsibility.

What we do sometimes is that we stack all the things that we see ourselves doing right, and we put those in front of the things that are that we're doing wrong, so we don't see what we're doing wrong.

And then what we do is we focus on everything our spouse is doing wrong, and we have this checklist.

And then we get into settings like this, and all of a sudden we're just hoping pastor will just affirm my checklist against my spouse and fix my spouse.

Uh-uh.

The best thing you could do for your marriage right now is to come before the Lord just like David did and said, Here's my heart.

Here's anything, show me anything that offends you.

Understand if you do 99 things right and still have something wrong, you still have something wrong.

Okay?

And the devil can do a lot with a little.

Just a little bit of yeast mess up the whole loaf?

I believe that's a Bible verse.

Amen.

Okay.

All you so did oh, leaven?

Oh.

Is that the same thing?

Thank you.

You bunch of critical people.

All my sourdough makers.

Raise your hand if you make sourdough bread.

I know Miss Janet does.

That stuff is baller.

Who else?

Alright.

Next week, bring me some bread.

I've seen everybody, especially if you're a member.

Oh yeah, Cassie, did you not raise your hand?

Come on, girl, be proud about it.

Okay, my bad.

Next foundation, there's no condemnation.

This is a big one.

When we feel like we're not doing things right, we will go, we will spiral into a thing of shame.

And the it shame is interesting what it does to the psychology.

It can sometimes do something where we feel like a failure, so instead of trying or believing for better, we actually just give up and just get worse.

But we're okay with it.

We're like, well, it's always going to be like this, and we spiral.

Because we don't actually believe in the mercy of God.

We don't believe in the redemptive power of resurrection power working our life.

And we also don't really believe there is no condemnation.

We feel shame.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

God's will and desire for you, regardless of your past, regardless of your mistakes, is that He wants to go today.

I'm going to wash you clean, I'm going to make you white as snow.

I'm going to make you into a new creation.

And I'm not going to remember your sins.

And from today on, joy comes in the morning and we're starting fresh.

Okay?

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The point of this message is not to make you feel bad or make you feel like a failure, it's to allow the life of God to penetrate our marriages, resurrect them, and bring revival.

Next foundation.

There's a lot of foundations.

I got a little bit uh excited about the foundations.

Nothing is impossible for God.

You may feel, here's the thing, people have crazy intense, they're there are crazy intense situations in marriage, okay?

But a lot of times what people have is they have impossible problems of just complacency.

They're never going to change, they're never going to listen.

I've said things for years, I've prayed for years, I've wanted changes, and I just, and I get to this point of like, I just feel like it's never going to change.

And so even minor, what we would call minor things seem impossible.

God is the God of the impossible.

He can He can resurrect even the most dead of marriages, even the most impossible of situations.

You need to understand this is the God we serve, and this is what we're believing for and continuing for.

Amen.

Okay, thank you, Jesus.

Finally, as we go into this, this kind of ties into the whole thing of responsibility.

But um in 2 Corinthians 12, 9, it gives that wonderful verse that in our weakness he's strong.

I used to lift weights, I still do sometimes.

But one of the things I would do when I would lift weights, I would lift like heavy weights, and I would need a spotter with me.

Y'all familiar with that term, spotter?

If you can't lift it, they come and help you lift it.

I would lift and I would lift really heavy, and I would go as many times as I could go, and I would get to a point where I couldn't lift anymore.

Okay?

In the moment I couldn't lift anymore, that exposed my weakness.

And it was at the moment of my exhaustion, it was the moment of my maximum effort being exercised that I needed the help of a spotter.

I want you to hear this.

God is strong in our weakness.

The weakness is not exposed until we put effort ourselves into it, until we've reached the limit.

Lord, I've done everything I know to do, and I've tried hard, and I've come to a point where I cannot do this without you.

That's the moment that the grace of his strength intervenes.

It does not say that in our laziness he is strong.

Come on, I'm preaching to somebody in here.

I hope you're getting it.

We sit there and do nothing and think, in my weakness, he's strong.

No, he's not intervening on your half because you're not trying.

You don't care.

Well, maybe you care.

That was mean.

Sorry, forgive me.

But you're not trying.

I gotta watch out, make sure I don't get worldly here.

I've done this.

I pray to God, Lord, come and help.

But then God says, David, you've got a list of things that I've given you my word to do, and you're not doing it.

This is not your weakness, this is your stubborn laziness.

Amen?

Okay, good deal.

We're gonna talk from Malachi chapter 2.

Malachi 2 · chapter mention

God's people were in Italy at one time eating pizza, being rebellious.

And the prophet Malachi said, Hey, the Lord a God that tells you you need to repent.

Sound like Mario.

Okay, listen, Malachi is like an Pastor Pete, he's used that joke, what, a thousand times?

That's not my original joke, but so I had to add to it.

That's the reason for the accent.

This is verse 14.

I'm gonna read the first part of it.

It's not up here.

This is the first part of verse 14.

It says, You cry out, why doesn't the Lord accept my worship?

And I will tell you why.

I want you to hear this.

You cry out.

So the people are crying out saying, Lord, why are you not accepting my worship?

The idea behind this is that, Lord, why are you not blessing me?

Why are you not blessing my life?

Maybe we've cried out to the Lord, Lord, why are you not blessing my marriage?

Why don't I feel like you're listening?

That's the heart behind this, okay?

Now, this is what Malachi, it's actually Malachi, for anyone that doesn't realize I'm joking.

This is what it says.

He says, Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young.

The Lord, pay attention to the wording here, okay?

Don't think for one second that just because it's Old Testament that it doesn't apply today.

We're gonna explain this.

Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young, but you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows.

I know it's sad.

The word vow here, when I look this up, it's it's it was I was I was surprised by it.

It just says it means witness or to be witnessed.

And the idea is that what these people were doing is that they were making a promise, but God was their witness.

They were make everyone who's been married, you understand.

I mean, if you've been in a Christian marriage that you've you've said vows, you're making a promise, but but it's not necessarily the promise that you make to the spouse, even though that matters, but what's more prominent is you're making it as God is your witness.

I want us to think of it like this.

A lot of times, like you know, in marriage, you're looking at your spouse and you're saying these things, and maybe they're you know, they're real cute and stuff, and it's like I'm gonna love you till the end of time.

I told my wife that we're gonna have mansions in heaven together, even though there's no marriage.

I was like, maybe we'll ask God to make an exception for us.

But honestly, what it's like, it's like looking at God and saying, I promise that I'm going to be something, something to this person.

Are y'all catching this?

That's that's that's God's perspective.

Lord, God, I'm promise that I'm gonna be this to this person.

Okay, y'all good?

Okay.

So that is vow.

Now, if we take this one step further, what is the vow?

The vow is a covenant.

Everyone say covenant.

In Proverbs 2, verse 16, 17, it says, Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman, from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman.

Proverbs 2:16

In verse 17, it says, She has abandoned her husband and ignores the covenant she made before God.

Y'all see that word there.

She ignores the covenant that she made before God.

A covenant is a promise, it's a promise of responsibility and action.

Catch this.

A covenant is not about emotional satisfaction.

A covenant is not just filler words in a ceremony where you're dressed up, all your friends are there, you're taking pictures.

It is a promise, as God is your witness, to responsibility and action on your part.

It's like saying, God, I am responsible for this person, and I am going to take every action that you call me to take on their behalf.

Within a covenant, there is no aspect, when you make a covenant saying, I am going to wait for them to do something for me.

When we look back into the creation thing, this is interesting.

Marriage was in the garden.

Marriage, we see that I'll go ahead and read it.

In Genesis 2, 21 through 24, it says, So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep while the man slept.

The Lord God took out the man's ribs and closed up the opening.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

At the last the man exclaimed, This one is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

She will be called woman because she is to be taken from the man.

Then verse 24, check this out.

It says, This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Sin has not entered yet.

This is interesting.

I I never really thought about this before.

Marriage is not part of God's redemptive it was not it's not needed for the redemptive part of his story.

I hope I'm making this point clear.

Marriage was part of the perfection.

The original design.

Okay?

I think about this sometimes.

I'm like, I it's probably good that I wasn't Adam, because I probably would have come up with a different word than woman.

Like, wow, I will call her hot stuff.

I will call her boo-boo.

Man and boo-boo.

All throughout scripture.

God's like, you're you're definitely not Adam.

I'm like, pick me, pick me.

I told you Catherine's not here.

She is gonna watch online and grave me later.

I love you so much, honey.

You're my wife.

You are my hot stuff and my boo-boo.

The idea of a covenant, uh we all know this term.

I know you all know this term, but the idea of a covenant is very profound when it comes to our perspective of marriage.

In the garden, we don't see a formal official covenant.

Adam and Eve, we don't see a ceremony.

Adam and Eve don't stand in front of each other and say, you know, I vow to so-and-so, I make this promise before God.

It's just implied, it's just organic because there was a relationship naturally in the garden.

The first time that we see covenant is after sin has caused relational separation.

And the first covenant that we see is between God and Noah after God floods the earth because he's dealing with the problem, the world has just gone crazy in violence, corruption, perversion.

Okay, and God brings water, he brings a flood, and wipes out every everybody except for one man and his family.

And God makes a covenant.

I'm not gonna do that again.

I'm not gonna bring water and flood the earth.

Okay?

I'm going to restrain judgment in order to preserve creation.

Covenant, I want you to think about this.

This I may just stick on this first point because this is so profound, is our perspective and understanding of covenant.

This is deep.

Think about try to put yourself in the mind of God, even though that's impossible.

God has this problem.

He wants to be in relationship with his creation.

He wants relationship with his creation.

He is holy.

He is the reality of holiness is that anything that is not holy cannot survive in the presence of holiness.

It's not because God is like giving us the silent treatment, like, oh, I can't believe you did that.

I'm not going to talk to you, I'm not going to be with you.

It's not like that.

He understands that when you have sin, you have something that is not holy.

If you bring those people that you want to be in a relationship with, if you bring them into your presence, they're going to die.

And so we see in the Old Testament, these high priests would have to go into the Holy of Holies, and they'd have to go through this rigorous cleansing to get rid of all their sin.

It was like a ceremonial cleansing, but all their sin was addressed, and what they would do is they tie a rope to this guy's feet, they put bells on him, and when they would go into the Holy of Holies, into the presence, if they had any kind of sin, they would physically die.

This is legit.

They would physically die.

God has this problem because he's holy and he loves his creation and he simply wants to be in relationship.

Sin comes in, it separates them relationally.

So what does God do?

He creates covenant.

And covenant is the structure that God set up where a holy God could all of a sudden be in relationship with unholy people by what?

Redeeming them.

Covenant.

This is what's amazing.

There is an aspect of a contract.

We're all familiar with this.

A lot of us have probably signed a contract.

Okay.

A contract is meant to manage risk.

When I create a contract and want someone to sign it, I am protecting myself.

Y'all follow?

And then when someone signs a contract, they're also protecting themselves.

The expectation is behind a contract is that I will do my part if you do your part.

But when you don't do your part, I'm not obligated to do my part.

A covenant is not a contract.

But many people in marriage, they pursue marriage with the idea of a contract.

Okay, before God, I vow to do this.

But the moment you get in marriage and all of a sudden you feel the pain of them not doing their part, you say, Well, I don't have to do my part.

That's not covenant.

That's self-preservation.

You see, a contract agreement would not work between a holy God and an unholy people in order to redeem them into relationship.

You need something more.

You see, a contract says, I'm going to manage risk.

I'm going to keep it, that when they fail, I don't have to pay.

But a covenant goes further than that.

A covenant says, when they fail, when they create a cost, I will pay the cost to be in relationship with them.

Did you hear that?

When they don't do their part and it causes a debt, I will pay it so that I can be in relationship with them.

God created covenant because he knew we would fail.

Time and time again.

He created covenant because he knew we would fall short.

We would not be able to live up to the stand the circumstances in order to come into his presence.

So what he does, he creates covenant.

That's the heart of marriage.

Do you realize that?

We come in watching, getting critical against our spouse, counting up their wrongs, and all of a sudden decide, well, since they're not doing their part, I don't have to do my part.

That's not the idea of covenant.

Covenant says, listen, they're not doing my part, but I'm going to take the cost of that to keep a relationship with them.

It's much more profound and deep than maybe we've realized when we got into this.

He has this covenant with Noah, okay?

And what happens is the covenant over time, what it does is it's it starts to narrow in at the heart of the matter.

It starts with Noah, it deals with creation as a whole.

But then all of a sudden he moves on to Abraham.

And the purpose of this is to restore righteousness and blessing because God loves us, okay?

This is the first step.

It's to activate redemption.

It's a plan of redemption.

He meets with Abraham.

And he says, I'm going to restore blessing, okay?

But in the midst of the covenant, there is a call to responsibility and action upon Abraham's part.

Y'all follow?

And then it moves on to Moses.

Sinai, there's another covenant.

Because all of a sudden he started, he activated this, but then it narrows in.

Okay, now I'm going to create a nation.

And I'm going to create a law.

It's the idea of saying, how do how do it's the idea of saying, now that you're saved, how do you live?

You see, it's not, it's the law, the law doesn't save you, but the law does define how safe people live.

And then all of a sudden it moves on.

There's a nation, there's a people that are living under God's law, but then all of a sudden he moves even further.

He narrows it down.

He makes a covenant with David.

He says, I'm going to establish my rule through kingship.

Y'all realize this?

This covenant with David, this whole idea is being true to God, right?

Covenant.

Let's both make an agreement.

The very next generation after David, Solomon, leads the nation into idolatry.

They could not make it one.

You have this beautiful thing of covenant.

They can't make it one generation after David.

Boom, right back into idolatry.

So bad that God actually has to split the nation up.

But yet he still stays true.

And then we see in Jeremiah a new covenant prophesied.

Oh, this is beautiful.

This breaks my heart when I see my junk in my marriage and how selfish I've been.

You look through the history of how awful, idolatrous, perverted, just hate-filled, murdering God's people are.

And even we are, still to this day, still junk in our lives, okay?

And yet He's got a covenant that says, in the midst of your failure, in the midst of your shortcomings, in the midst of your idolatry, your stubbornness, you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna pay the cost so I could be in relationship with you.

That's the heart of marriage.

And yet, what we've done is we made it this contract, and we made the whole point of marriage to be emotional fulfillment.

I'm actually getting this because I just want a companion and I want them just to serve me, and I just want them to make me feel happy.

And the moment that they don't, I want a divorce.

I want out of this.

That's not covenant.

That's not God's design.

That's not what he intended.

He said, I want you to be the one that when they fail you, you're gonna pay the cost.

But what you're gonna do is you're gonna demonstrate my faithfulness in this world.

You're gonna reflect my character in this world with how you love and treat your spouse, even when they don't deserve it.

Even when they've been awful.

But yeah, no.

We get hard-hearted, stubborn, cold, emotionally distant.

Maybe we're too afraid to actually have a divorce because we don't want to pay the lawyer and the finances to go through the trouble of doing it.

Maybe our kids are still in the house and we don't want to put them through the emotional turmoil.

So we stay together, but in our hearts we're divorced.

In our hearts, we've broken covenant.

If you stay in a marriage because of your kids, your kids are your idol.

The covenant you make before God is made before him.

That's why it matters if you believe in God.

That's why it matters if Jesus is the king of your life.

Did Jesus have emotional fulfillment when he was fulfilling covenant on the cross?

Was that emotionally fulfilling for him?

I was about to be mean, I'm not.

I have messed up so much.

I have messed up so much in marriage.

If you think that I'm good at my marriage, I have so many things that I do wrong.

I have so many times I'm selfish.

I have so many times that I'm mean.

I'm so many times that I don't act is how a godly husband should act.

I just need you to know that.

I'm not a master of marriage, I don't have all the answers.

The Lord has convicted me.

And I do the same thing that we all do.

I stack up everything that I'm doing right, and all of a sudden don't focus on what I'm doing wrong.

Very critical.

Critical.

Counting up their wrong, they got so much they need to work on.

It's sad because the Lord has been really dealing with my heart.

What I've been doing, I've really tried to be truly humble before him.

And what I mean by humble is being saying, Lord, I'm willing to hear what you're gonna say to me, even if it hurts.

And the Lord's really been dealing with my heart, even in marriage, about how I treat my wife.

And my it's it's it breaks my heart.

I've been married 11 years, and I have my wife all of a sudden telling me in around New Year's, David, you've been much nicer to me this month.

David, you've been much nicer to me.

I've this is a s you see, this is the stuff we do.

We let this linger and we never are honest and let God be honest with us about our junk.

And I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear the lame excuse, well, I've been married 40 years, so I know how to do it right.

You can do the wrong thing for a long time.

And a lot of times it's way harder to reach someone who's been married a long time and thinks they have all the answers because they've just done the wrong thing for a long time and they think it's the right thing.

We need to come before the Lord and say, Lord, here's my heart.

Point out anything that wrongs you.

Lord, here's my heart.

Point out anything that wrongs you.

Verse 15 it says, Didn't the Lord make you one with your wife?

The oneness is not just some numerical thing, okay?

When you see a husband and wife standing next to each other, it's still two people, it's still two personalities, it's still two callings.

This is a oneness of unity and relationship.

This is a oneness of vision and direction in our life.

And it says, in body and spirit, you are his.

In body and in spirit, you are his.

This is not just a sexual thing.

This goes much deeper, much further.

We see this, the two shall become one.

Let no one try to separate or divide what God has joined together.

At the beginning, I'll put it back up here real quick.

I wasn't trying to be funny, but I put a thing of people getting married, a husband and wife, in army clothes.

And the reason I did that is because the moment that you say I do, you are you are gr you are drafted into a war.

God created marriage, and one of the things it does is it reflects his character, his it reflects his faithfulness.

Okay.

And the devil does not like that.

The devil comes, okay, if if God comes to give life, what does the devil do?

He comes to bring death.

The very opposite, alright?

If God comes and he wants unity in your marriage, what is what does the devil want?

Division.

Okay?

If God wants humility, if God wants personal ownership of our life and our responsibility and our personal sin, what does the devil want?

A spirit of accusation, a critical spirit that is going to count up their wrongs, which by the way, Paul defines love and he says, love does not count up wrongs.

So I appreciate your laundry list that you keep bringing up your spouse, but maybe you need to repent and stop it.

Well, I just want them just to grow.

Well, you've not given them the chance because all you do is you keep pushing them back into the past of all their past mistakes and all their past failures.

That's ungodly.

Well, you know, men are fountains, women are wells.

Well, I'm like, maybe the wells need to get a little bit more shallow.

Stop counting up the wrongs because that's not love.

That's not God's love.

How would you like it if God counted up your wrongs?

Much bigger than a laundry list.

Dry cleaner list.

That's right.

Write that down.

I do this, by the way.

I I I do this.

I do this with my wife.

I have a critical spirit I've had to repent of.

I I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna I'm gonna read something really quick just to kind of ease the room a little bit, because this is marriage is a very sensitive topic.

Marriage is something we all care about and we can feel a lot of shame with this.

I know I have.

But also, marriage is a reality of God is wanting to do something in and through you personally.

Okay.

But also, there's a lot of complicated discussions and questions to answer within the context of marriage that we don't have time to fully dive into today.

But let me go ahead and hit one of these and just clarify something for you and put some ease into the room.

The topic of divorce.

The Bible says a lot about divorce.

People, there's lots of different, there's different takes on divorce, there's different, there's misunderstandings on divorce.

I'm gonna go ahead and what I did is I did a study of every single Bible verse about marriage divorce.

I consolidated this, okay, and what I did is I tried to package what I would say is the safest interpretation that we could say across the board on what is the safest biblical interpretation of how we treat divorce.

Because there are times, I'm gonna go ahead and let you know this, there are times that you have biblical grounds that it's okay to be divorced.

Then and God is going to bless your life.

You're not in sin, you're not adultery, you're divorced, and it's fully legitimate, and you need to know that.

I'm going to clarify some stuff.

So let me just read this.

Just listen closely.

The Bible presents marriage as a lifelong covenant, and God says he hates divorce because it wounds people and violates the faithfulness he did for marriage.

And at the same time, Scripture is honest about the reality of sin and recognizes that there are situations where marriage is so damaged that divorce becomes a tragic concession.

Jesus named sexual immorality as a grounds for divorce, and the Apostle Paul adds abandonment.

Abandonment is when a spouse leaves and refuses reconciliation.

In that case, the faithful spouse is not enslaved anymore.

They are free to marry.

Paul also teaches that if a believer is married to an unbeliever and the unbelieving spouse is willing to remain in the marriage, the believer should not seek divorce because God can work through that covenant.

Scripture is also clear that God does not require anyone to remain in danger, and many Christians understand ongoing repentant abuse as a form of covenant abandonment.

However, the Bible does not permit divorce simply because a marriage has grown cold, affection is faded, emotional connection is lacking, or the relationship has become difficult.

Those realities are painful and serious, but Scripture calls us towards repentance, help, and restoration, not escape.

Divorce is never celebrated, but where the covenant has truly been broken, the faithful spouse is not bound and may be free to remarry.

When people experience their unfaithful spouse break covenant, whether through abandonment, whether through adultery, when they divorce, they'll carry a guilt.

Jesus says that divorce is permitted because of people's hard hearts.

And sometimes people think because they're the ones choosing to get divorced, they're the ones with the hard heart.

No, it's the one who broke the covenant who has the hard heart.

And there are also circumstances where people are betrayed and they have every right from a biblical standpoint to divorce them, but they choose not to, and they choose to show the mercy of God.

That too is an act of God's heart.

And there have been many marriages that have been reconciled, healed, fully restored, and even better than they were before when someone shows the mercy of Jesus.

But also the unfaithful spouse has to be repentant.

If your spouse is not repentant, there's not much to forgive.

I want to set it at ease, and I know some people who have been divorced and they've been divorced for the right reasons.

And God blesses you, God blesses your new life, He blesses your marriage.

And your first and your spouse really messed up.

And hopefully God will forgive them.

Hopefully they will repent.

God can take everything and turn it for good, but that doesn't mean He's going to restore everything from the past.

Some of us we just have to learn a lesson and move on and keep following the Lord.

Amen.

Let me hit one other thing, because this also can be a sticky issue.

If someone divorces for the wrong reasons and then later remarries.

So maybe you were younger, you weren't fully living for the Lord, you made some mistakes, and you got divorced, okay?

But then later you remarry and all of a sudden you dedicate your life to the Lord, you repent.

Scripture does not call them to leave their current spouse or return to the former one.

Two wrongs.

Don't make a right.

Well, bye, honey, kids.

Fixing my life.

No.

It's not what God asks you to do.

Repentance means acknowledging the sin, walking faithfully from where you are now, and not undoing your life to recreate the past.

God's grace redeems broken stories, and obedience means honoring the covenant you're in today.

Amen.

Does that help?

Okay.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Some of you, and I know the stories, you are sticking with it and you're believing God and contending for your marriage, and I applaud you and I commend you.

Sometimes people are called to do very hard things, and it's not because it makes sense, and it's not because it's justified.

Sometimes your spouse deserves a divorce.

And sometimes your spouse deserves to see you go and marry off and then later regret their decisions and their sloppiness.

But what you're doing is being patient, continuing for your marriage, and I applaud you.

And it's not easy, and it hurts, and you may do it for years.

I applaud you.

What you're doing is you're operating in the midst of covenant because this has been the heart of God for us.

He tells a prophet Hosea, I want you to demonstrate through your life my heart for my people.

I want you to marry a prostitute, and you're going to marry her, and she's going to be unfaithful time and time again.

And when she's unfaithful, I want you to take her back.

That is how I am with my people.

That is how God is with us.

That is the heart of covenant.

That when you do the thing that's wrong, when you mess this up, I'm going to pay the cost because I want to be with you.

And I want to redeem you.

When we say I do, that's what we're trying to demonstrate to the world.

The loving faithfulness of the Father.

The redemptive love.

Who believes and hopes for the best, who doesn't just quit.

Thank you, Jesus.

Go ahead and stand.

I feel led to wrap it up here.

I had two other points.

Maybe we'll get to them next week.

This may be a 50 series message.

I'm not trying to be weird, and I'm not going to.

I want you, if you're married, I want you to come up here to the front.

If your spouse is here with you, come up with them.

I promise we're not going to do anything weird, but I want you to come up front.

If you are married and your spouse is not with you or here today, I still want you to come up to the front.

I felt led to do this.

You can fill this area, okay?

Come on.

Gary, will you hit the little instrumental, please, on the pro presenter stuff?

This is going to be beautiful.

I I felt the Lord asked me to do this.

This is going to be beautiful.

Um, we're going to renew our vows.

And um it's gonna be one simple line, but but we're gonna do it in the in the witness of the Lord.

We're gonna re-establish just under this perspective of covenant that I'm taking responsibility for you.

And I'm take I'm I'm saying that I am taking the actions necessary to fulfill a covenant with you.

Can we turn that down just a little bit, please?

This is beautiful.

This is beautiful, okay?

And this is not how our world and culture does this.

This is not how the world, and even some of your friends and your worldly friends are gonna counsel you otherwise.

The heart of God is not always fair.

The heart of God is not gonna say, well, they deserve that, all blah, blah, blah.

Just leave.

You need to stand up for yourself.

Your self-help books in modern psychology, oh, you need to stand up for your rights.

Well, did Jesus have rights when he was naked on a cross, creating a covenant where you could come into his presence?

No, that's not fair.

Get the language of fair out of your minds.

How can I demonstrate the love of God to this unworthy person that I've married?

I wouldn't say that like in a wedding ceremony, by the way.

I vowed that when you're a pain, I'll get over it and still love you.

But that is true.

Sickness and health, richer and poorer, better or worse.

That's what we that's the promise we made for the Lord.

If you're not a Christian, this doesn't matter.

But when you are a Christian, you're making this promise to God.

And the devil wants to kill, steal, and destroy from your marriage.

But you know what also one of the greatest enemies of your marriage is your flesh.

Your desire to not just want to do it, your desire and thinking that you always know what's right.

One of the biggest mistakes I make with my wife is I think I know what she needs.

Oh, we're gonna hit it.

I'm gonna kick everyone's to she next week, including my own, by the way.

So I want you to look at your spouse.

And if they're not here today, I still want you to turn and pretend that they're here.

I'm gonna do the same.

My sweet wife is driving home from Pigeon Force.

She preached to a couple thousand teenagers bringing repentance and revival fire to a bunch of young lives this weekend.

She's gonna be driving home today, but I'm gonna say these to her.

Lord, I thank you that your presence is here.

King Jesus, I think you're here as a witness to see this, Father.

I thank you that you're breathing life and revival into marriages, Father.

We just repent for the sin that we've entertained in our marriages and life, Lord.

We repent for being selfish.

We repent for being nearsighted, we repent for having a critical spirit.

Lord, forgive us for our pride, forgive us, Lord, in the areas of our weakness, and I thank you that your blood covers that and cleanses us, Father.

I thank you for the blood of Jesus that is coming into marriages right now.

I thank you for the resurrection power coming into marriages, breathing life and revival where there's not been life.

I thank you that you're breaking the stubborn-hearted right now, Father, the hard-hearted, the ones that think they have it all, Lord.

I thank you that you're bringing us into a posture of humility, Father.

So we all say this together right now.

I take you to be my wedded spouse.

Say that to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until the end of our days, according to God's holy law, and as God as our witness, I pledge my word.

I speak over these marriages right now, and I come under the authority of Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, with a blood shed, the Lamb of God, and I speak the blood of Jesus over every marriage right now.

And I rebuke you, Satan, you lying demonic spirits, you spirits of division, I rebuke you, and I call you out of the dark right now and into the light.

Every stubborn spirit, every prideful spirit, every selfishness, Lord, we put it on the altar and we say, Father, pour fire upon our marriages, Father.

And we say in the name of Jesus, the fires of passion are restored in the name of Jesus.

We say that the fires of selflessness are restored in the name of Jesus.

And I thank you, Father, that the image of Jesus on the cross is going to be the image that guides us, Father.

It's going to be the image that shows us the covenantal love of a gracious, holy God who reaches out to an imperfect people and says, I'm going to redeem you and restore you.

Holy Spirit, come.

I thank you, Lord, before revival can go out into the world, it's got to hit the home.

We speak revival in the name of Jesus.

Thank you, Father.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

Let's just wait a second.

The presence of God is here.

Let's just wait a second.

Lord, you're healing the hearts that have been betrayed in the deep wounds, and it's been talked about.

You and your spouse have talked about it, and it feels Like there's healing, but there's not.

We speak to the deep wounds right now where you feel betrayed.

Father, come and heal the deep wounds.

There's some ladies here, some your your husbands have said things to you, and it hurt, but they repented.

The Lord is healing that.

It's stuck with you.

The Lord's healing that we break off and the infirmities connect to those word curses that we've said to each other.

Sometimes when we fight, we say things that we never intended to actually say.

We just, well, you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna renounce the curses that we've said.

We renounce, Lord, we repent for the curses that we've said, even that we've said in secret about our spouse, the thoughts we've entertained, the thoughts of adultery, the thoughts, Lord, of just leaving.

We repent in the name of Jesus.

Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness.

Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness, Lord.

Amen, amen, amen.

Isn't God good?

Isn't it beautiful?

Isn't it beautiful the story of the covenant?

Thank you, Jesus.

Yeah.

Lord, we give you praise right now.

Let's give the Lord a praise.

We thank you, Father, that you're God of mercy, Lord, that you're a God that loves us, Father.

That you're a God, Lord, that we're when we've created the massive debt, you are the one that paid it, Father, to redeem us, Lord.

We give you all the glory.

We give you all the praise this morning.

We say you're the God of our home, Lord.

We say that we're united and we are one under the banner of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Go in the grace and the peace and the blessing of God.

One.