Matthew Part 71 - Divorce,Remarriage,& Singleness

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

Matthew 19. I'll remind you we are in the

very, very, very end of Jesus's ministry.

You think I got a lot of chapters left in Matthew?

Yeah, but they all cover a really, really short period now.

So we're probably in the last three months at this point.

Jesus is completely fixated on Jerusalem and on the cross

everywhere. He's passing through at this

point. This is his last time coming

through. This isn't the Grand Tour

anymore. He is focused.

He has been telling his disciples multiple times, I'm

going to Jerusalem, I'm going to suffer many things.

Peter already rebuked and said, no, Lord, we're not going to do

that. Jesus said, yes, we are.

So he's been walking forward, He's been moving forward.

Now here we are in Matthew 19 verses one through 12 is where

we're going to be today. Now when Jesus had finished

these sayings, He went away from Galilee and entered the region

of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him, and

he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and

tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for

any 'cause he answered, Have you not read that He who created

them from the beginning made them male and female, and said,

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold

fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So there are no longer 2 but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, Let not man separate.

They said to him. Why then does Moses command one

to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?

He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed

you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was

not so. And I say to you, whoever

divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries

another, commits adultery. The disciples said to him, if

such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better to not

marry. But he said to them, not

everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom

it is given. For there are eunuchs who have

been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made

eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves

eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.

Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it.

Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your

promise. Thank you so much for your

design. Thank you so much for your gift.

Thank you so much for this passage.

Jesus, you're instructing, You're strengthening your

teaching. Lord, you're helping your

disciples. You're correcting the Pharisees

once again. But today, Lord, your Saints

have gathered. And so whatever the need is

among this body, whatever the revelation is that you want to

bring, Lord, we just say they were open to it.

We love Your word and we love you, and we receive it with

humility. We receive it with the grace.

We receive it with the weight, with all of it.

Lord, bring the full import of what You want into each of our

hearts. That marriage would be held in

honor, that we would prioritize, That we would prioritize holy

living whether we're married or whether we're single.

And that we would understand the weight that you have put upon

this sacred thing that you built and that you established even in

the beginning. God, I pray you protect the

Saints today from condemnation, but I pray that you would fill

them with strength and conviction.

In Jesus name we thank you. Amen.

So this is the second and the final time in Matthew that Jesus

addresses divorce. He's actually addressed it once

before and we preached on it. Then here he's actually not just

settling a debate, which it seems like he's about to do.

He's revealing the heart of God for a matter.

Like I said a moment ago, Jesus is in his final leg of his

journey. He is never going to pass this

way again. He is headed to Jerusalem.

He's headed to the cross. We're looking here in verse two

large crowds followed him. So large crowds we know at this

point means thousands and thousands and thousands of

people. Thankfully, we've got a couple

of the miracles where the disciples made note of it very

specifically because if they just had large crowds, we're

like, oh, we're talking a couple 100 people maybe.

We're talking maybe 500 people. No, no, no, 5000 men alone one

day were fed. So that meant upwards of 20,000,

potentially conservatively, we're certainly at 10,000 people

that day, but you could go a lot bigger than that depending on,

you know, how, how you could measure it.

But the point is large crowds means large crowds.

Everybody has heard about Jesus. Everybody knows somebody who's

been healed or somebody who's walked with him or seen him

teach or been there when he did something powerful.

Everybody throughout the entire region knows what's going on the

water, the the, the water temperature is rising and Jesus

is raising it deliberately. And he's going to continue to do

that, especially when he gets into Jerusalem his last week,

we're going to see him drop bombs on the Pharisees, heads in

front of everybody. He's been doing it here and

there, but he's coming into their home base, what they think

is their turf. And then he's going to bring

strong correction to everybody, which is going to make the cross

really inevitable by his design, by his choice.

But here we have Jesus being approached by thousands.

And of course, Matthew makes reference again and he healed

them there. Jesus always doing what Jesus

does, healing people. Why?

Because God is good and part of his nature and character is to

heal our bodies. Why do you keep saying it,

pastor? Because it keeps showing up in

the Bible. I didn't put it in there.

It just keeps coming to us every single time we read through the

gospels. We just keep seeing Jesus the

healer. Christ is the healer.

But more importantly, Saints, it's important for you to not

believe that Christ is a healer or Christ is the healer.

You need to be able to say Christ is my healer, Jesus is my

healer. Not just Jesus did it in

Jerusalem, not just Jesus did it in Israel.

Jesus is your healer, your healer.

He wants to bless and heal and strengthen your bodies as well.

Keep going in verse 3. And the Pharisees came up to him

and tested him by asking. You would have thought these

guys would have learned their lesson by now.

Every time they think they're testing the master, they get

exposed and humiliated and he outdoes them over and over and

over again. They're testing him, though, on

a hot debate in that day. So remember, there are many

rabbis. Jesus is the rabbi.

To call him a rabbis and is like the understatement of a

lifetime. But there are many rabbis who go

around in teaching. So we've got our Jewish

synagogues and rabbis would kind of work the preaching circuit.

So as a rabbi, I'd come to your synagogue for a few weeks and

maybe preach there and then I maybe go somewhere else.

But different rabbis would have different teachings and they

would have different interpretations of the law.

So Rabbi so and so says this or Rabbi so and so says that, where

there were two famous rabbis of that day and they had two

completely different teachings on divorce.

One of them taught a man could essentially divorce his wife for

like anything. Like if she burned the toast,

then it's like, yeah, well, you know, it's kind of probably time

to trade in and get a new model. And then the other, the other

rabbi, his perspective was much more conservative and he

basically was saying you can't get a divorce for any reason

whatsoever. So there's these, there's this

hot debate happening at that time.

And you can imagine what, what, which, which side do you think

sinful flesh would want to tend towards?

You only get one guess. So sinful flesh is going to want

to tend towards selfishness. And you know, for the men who

had that authority to do so, it was a, a real problem.

And of course, the disciples basically reveal their

perspective here as well. But these two rabbis, they're

teaching different things. And you notice how when Jesus

answers, he doesn't quote either rabbi.

So he doesn't say I'm going to take the liberal view.

He doesn't say I'm going to take the conservative view.

He says, well, this is the view I'm about to give you the view.

Not well, ironically, it ends up being the conservative view, but

not for the sake of being conservative.

It's just the truth. It's kind of funny that happens

oftentimes in the modern day as well.

Are you liberal or are you conservative?

Well, I follow Christ and that's my priority.

And the Bible shapes the way I think.

That's right. Well, how do you vote?

Well, that's going to bring me over here towards conservative

voting values, but not for the sake of being conservative.

It's for the sake of I'm going to focus on.

So wherever that lands me on any particular day, it's always

going to land me on the Scriptures.

That's the priority. So Jesus is saying, I'm not,

I'll take the liberal view, I'll take the conservative.

No, this is the view. Well, that happens because I

don't care about your, your perceptions of it.

I'm just telling you how I've landed on it.

And this is where my convictions lie.

So Jesus answers them. The Pharisees ask him, is it

lawful to divorce one's wife for any 'cause they want to hear?

Yeah, yeah, you can do whatever you want, man.

Any reason she burns the toast. Enough is enough.

Get rid of her. He answered.

Have you not read? 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're no longer 2, but one flesh.

So that's enough, right? You already got the spirit of

his answer with that, with that. But now he says I'm going to

send it home and let, let there be no confusion or let there be

no question what therefore God has joined together.

Let not man separate. He gave his answer.

He didn't say I'm side with this rabbi.

I'm side with that rabbi. I said this is what the Lord

wanted from the beginning. This is what God wanted from the

beginning, guys. And they're like, yeah, yeah,

yeah. And he goes, So therefore, what?

God has joined together, let man not separate, they said to him,

but why then does Moses? So we'll get to that part here

in a few minutes. But Jesus doesn't cite anybody

except himself inciting the Scripture.

Have you not read? This isn't just a question, it's

an insult and it's a rebuke. Spoiler alert, Yeah, they've

read. They've got it read.

They've got it memorized. They know the Scriptures.

So this is another way that Jesus is is just showing his

superiority over them because he is superior over them.

And he's saying, have you not read, which is like nobody would

say that to a Pharisee. Nobody like Jim Bob walking down

the street, regular Jew boy just doing his thing.

He would never say something like that to a Pharisee and

Jesus goes, have you not read? They go on, you know, we've

read. He's going well.

Act like it then. Have you not read?

Of course they've read, but they haven't submitted to it.

They haven't absorbed it, and they have focused on exceptions

instead of focusing on the rule. You ever been there?

Everybody in the room who has flesh has been there, right?

Like I want to focus on the exception.

I hear the Word of God come and I go, but what about this unique

circumstance that I could concoct for you?

Well, do you face that often? Well, no, but if I ever did, I

want to know. Well, how about you just focus

on what you're given? There's plenty of wholesome

generalities from Scripture that I should focus on, and I'd do

real well if I'd start walking in those things just to walk in

the general will of God. A lot of times the details will

sort themselves out, but what you'll find is the hard heart

always latches on to exceptional circumstances.

The hard heart, even while a sermon is being preached,

continues to grasp at the What about isms the whole time.

But but I've got a story and I know a friend and I've got a

It's OK to have wise and respectful questions and we can

process things. But as I'm hearing the word of

God preached, as I'm coming to the Scriptures, I should always

be going. Lord transform me, Lord

transform me. My mind needs to be renewed,

that's why I came to you Lord, like you already made me new in

my spirit. I am a new creation.

Old things have passed away, all things have become new.

Hallelujah. Praise God, thank you for the

miracle of the new birth. And yet my mind, I still have

some trouble with my mind and I need to continually be

transformed here. So this is the priority.

Jesus is focusing on the intention of God instead of the

exception that man wants to focus on.

What about these exceptions? What about these specifics?

What about this unique story? So what we find here is Jesus

absolutely has answered their question.

Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?

No, of course not. In fact, Jesus, Jesus tightens

the standard so much that it makes them squirm.

Not only can you not divorce for any reason you want, you can't

divorce for any reason. Period.

Then only when pressed because that's where you left it.

He said what what God has joined together.

Let man not separate and he stopped and he was going to that

would have been the end of it. We would have no more record of

Jesus saying anything else except the exception is so we're

going but wait, but wait I but what but what about Moses?

And then Jesus brings in the exception.

He goes, well, with the exception of sexual morality,

otherwise. So, so it's so interesting how

God's normative standards are to be taken as obvious.

And then he says, well, are there exceptions?

Well, well, yeah. Could there be an exception?

Well, well, yeah. But that's not the normative

standard. That's not, that's not where

we're living. That's not how we're supposed to

be functioning. Like this is the normative

standard. This should be getting 99.999%

of your focus and meditation when you're considering the

subject matter. What about yeah, yes, yeah yeah.

There's there's legitimate opportunities for the severance

of a marriage, but those are so extreme.

And So what should be rare that like that shouldn't be your

focus and meditation. Now for those who it applies to

it certainly applies and it becomes a priority, right.

But for many that's not what's going on.

But people who, who, who haven't had their spouse commit

adultery, they've, they've also just gotten divorced because

they wanted to get divorced and because they said, well, it

doesn't work anymore. Or, you know, I've, I've fallen

out of love or we don't see things the same way anymore.

There's all kinds of storylines that get built around this, all

kinds of other exceptions. And well, is that the

abandonment that Paul talks about?

Or is my spouse not willing to live at peace with me because

they're a believer? I'm not a believer.

These are things that should be walked out with wisdom.

These are things that should be walked out with your pastor.

These are things that should be walked out slowly and humbly.

So, pastor, are there opportunities?

Yeah. This is my only disclaimer.

I'm going to move back to the text after this moment.

So are there exceptions? Yeah.

But we don't preach sermons about exceptions.

We preach sermons about what the Word of God is teaching and

emphasizing. But I have a question.

Then ask me. And I love you, and I'm going to

talk with you and help you however I can.

It's no big deal. It's OK.

We're family. That's what families do.

That's good. Amen.

So, like I said, that's why I prayed.

And in my preparation, I prayed that that my church will feel no

condemnation, but that you would feel conviction and that we

would hold marriage in high honor as God does.

And that's the priority that Jesus is doing here with this

text and with this situation. So can a man divorce?

No. And again, Jesus raises the

standard like he always does, and then he mentions the

exception. But when he mentions the

exception, it's just that it's an exception.

It's not a strategy, it's not an exit door, It's just a well,

yeah, since you brought up that very specific scenario, yes,

I'll give you a very specific answer.

But Jesus wants to bring them back to the point, but they

don't want to go back to the point.

They want to go to. How do how can I find my out?

If you're looking for the out, you shouldn't even never go in.

If if you're if you're worried about the out, you're not

qualified to go in to begin with.

You should stay away from going in, which is why he goes to talk

about eunuchs afterwards because he's going.

Look, if you don't have the proper understanding what

marriage is, you don't marriage. It's not for you.

If you can't understand and commit to what it is, then you

don't do it. Let's keep going.

Verse four, he answered, have you not read he who created them

from the beginning made them male and female and said,

therefore let a man leave his father and mother and hold fast

to his wife and the two should become one flesh.

By reaffirming male and female here, Jesus defines marriage

without apology, one man and one woman.

That is not a cultural construct.

It is God's design from the Garden of Eden.

Simple stuff here. So just to give you a quick

apologetics lesson, if it could even be called that, oftentimes

people will say really foolish things like Jesus didn't say

anything about. And then you fill in the blank

here or Jesus never said anything about this subject

matter or that subject matter. Most of the time they're

incorrect and they don't understand that he did.

But one that's really common is Jesus never said anything about

homosexuality, which there's a multiple problems there.

So the first one is that the whole Bible is the word of God.

So all of scripture like Jesus isn't like some rando character

who shows up in the Bible suddenly as non believers think

about him. The whole Bible Jesus is the

word of God made flesh and he is the so.

Which brings up an interesting question right?

So like what was Jesus's form before he became flesh?

Because he was the word in the beginning was the word and the

word was with God and the word was God.

So Jesus is the word of God, which is just fascinating and

wonderful. But the word became flesh.

He wasn't always flesh. Now he is flesh and he will

always be flesh, but it's interesting.

So the point is when people think Jesus never said anything

about hang on, the whole Bible belongs to him.

The whole Bible is about him. So all of scripture is God

breathed. So we have plenty of teaching on

all kinds of things. But even then subjects where the

scripture is silent. I'm taking a sidebar here.

Even where the scripture is truly silent, like we could come

up with some weird and bizarre concepts, right?

And we could say, what about this?

Like, for example, the Scripture doesn't technically say that a

man cannot turn into a woman and a woman can't turn into a man.

It doesn't say that, right? But the Scripture takes so many

things for granted. There's so many things that the

Scripture assumes because they are natural.

And I don't mean natural as far as like look at the trees and

the wind. I just mean that the natural

state of the Lord's design for things.

So the Lord, for example, takes for granted that you love

yourself. That's not a bad thing.

The scripture takes it for granted that a man would love

himself, that a woman would love herself.

It's not evil, It's not selfish. The Lord takes it for granted.

The Lord takes for granted that you'll love your spouse.

The Lord takes for granted that you'll love your children.

These are natural things that should flow automatically out of

a healthy and appropriate life. So back to the point here.

Did Jesus say anything about homosexuality?

Technically no. Also, it's a completely

irrelevant point. It's not some nail in the

coffin. God made them male and female is

Jesus's point. He's just emphasizing God's

design again and saying he made them male and female from the

beginning. That's what marriage is.

Any other variation is a distortion and a perversion.

That's all. Satan takes what God intended as

good in every area, in everything, and he distorts and

perverts it. Everything is God's invention.

Everything belongs to the Lord. And then Satan says, well, I

will flip it upside down and I will pervert the thing.

So then we have many variations and many things.

But Saints, don't be ashamed of your Bible.

Don't be ashamed of what God's design is.

Be bold and be thankful for it because it is what people

actually need. God's guardrails and standards

and boundaries are actually what make our experience wonderful.

I spent a lot of time on the road with Natalie this past

week. There's a lot of guardrails out

there on those interstates. That is to make your trip

better, not worse, because if you go past that, if there

wasn't a guardrail and you went past that, you're going to die

because there's a giant ravine over there.

So the guardrails are servants and blessings, not who do they

think they are? I'm free.

I want real freedom. Well, you're free to go die

without a guardrail. But the standards of God are

blessings to humanity. They are not only rules,

although they are rules, and your New Testament has many of

them. By the way, contrary to popular

belief, that's the Old Testament.

There's a lot of commands in the New Testament, like 1000 or more

in the New Testament. But Jesus has a lot to say about

a lot of things. But the point is here, yes,

Jesus's emphasis is there's male and there's female.

That settles a lot of debate and conversation in our culture, in

our world. I know that many of you already

know that, but I want you to understand why you can know

these things. Keep going here.

Verse 5. Therefore a man shall leave his

father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two

shall become one flesh. We'll take another thing for

granted here that Scripture is implying.

And a wife should leave her father and mother and cling to

her husband. So it's not like only the

husband's supposed to. No, they both are.

Well, she's living at her house and he's like, this doesn't make

any sense. Of course it's taking for

granted here. This is the natural thing.

This should take place. They are being joined together.

They're no longer 2, but they are one flesh.

What does this mean? This means that your spouse is

your closest family member in the entire world.

Closer than your father and closer than your mother, right?

I just pulled that right from the Bible.

Your spouse is your closest family member in the entire

world. Closer than your children.

You and your spouse have become one.

No other human outranks them. Not your brother, not your

sister, not your son, not your daughter, not your boss, not

your pastor, not your friend, not your president.

If the whole entire world was about to fall off of a Cliff and

you had to choose between saving the entire population of the

human race or saving your spouse, you save your spouse.

And your spouse should know that without hesitation that that's

how it would happen. Now, husbands, of course, we

would say like, don't save us. We would say that because our

wife would be like, I'm going to say like save the whole world.

Like this is a pretty epic way to go.

But wives especially know that their husbands immediately

choose them. But the wife chooses her husband

and then she obeys her husband when he says, no, don't save me.

You can go save the world. That's how that scenario should

play out. You should both have this

certainty and this confidence and know that this is the heart

of the one that they exchanged vows with.

And that's a bond that cannot be broken.

It can't be broken by sickness or by poverty or by burnt toast,

or by inconvenience or by stress or by boredom, or by age or by

income, or by body fat or by wrinkles.

Am I being real enough? Marriage vows are sacred.

Marriage is a covenant, not a contract.

So a contract is based on performance.

And it gives me lots of outs in business, we use contracts as we

should. And we're saying, hey, if you

violate this thing that poo I've got.

I got a lot of exits built in here.

Got a lot of exit doors built in.

I can I can scoot out any direction I want to.

Marriage doesn't have a bunch of exit doors built in.

Is there an exit door? Well, yeah, technically, but

that's not the focus for anybody.

Anything. Well, I just want to.

Yeah, well, there is, but that's like super rare and frankly

really unlikely in a lot of cases.

So just focus on making the thing thrive as it should.

Marriage is a covenant. Covenant is based on my promise.

And when things get hard, you don't start looking for an

escape hatch. You remember your vows.

For better or worse. You said it, so live it.

When marriage feels dry, what do you do?

You water it when it when you feel distant, you close the gap.

When something's off, you look to yourself 1st.

And you never use divorce as a weapon.

You never weaponize divorce. You always focus on what can I

be doing differently? What can I be doing better?

And you say, how can I continue to keep my vows?

Act like marriage is lifelong, because it is.

That's what covenant love does. What if Jesus treated the church

the way society treats marriage? But that's what marriage is.

It is a picture of Christ and his bride.

That was the Lord's intention always is that it would actually

be that picture, so that the church, the Lord, forms

marriage. Technically, in the timeline of

things, marriage came first and the church came later.

But in God's heart and his design, marriage was always to

be a representation of Christ in the church.

So chronologically, it seems as though marriage comes first and

the church comes second. But basically, the Lord has

always had the church in his heart.

And he says, I'm going to give them marriage as a picture so

they can see what it's really supposed to look like.

And now our marriages preach the gospel.

It's another opportunity so that though an unbelieving world can

look into a Christian marriage and say, wow, if that's Jesus in

the church, the husband and the wife, sign me up.

Sign me up for the Kingdom of God because look how much this

husband loves and treasures and adores this woman.

Look how much she honors and reveres and respects this man.

Look how they both thrive in God's good design.

If that's a picture, it is though your, your home is to be

an embassy of the Kingdom of heaven and you are ambassadors

who are representing and showing this is a picture of heaven on

earth. It's a micro picture.

It's a small picture, but it is a clear picture.

It's a good picture. Look at the sacrifice, look at

the way this man will lay down his life for his love and look

at the way she responds with gratitude and joy and delight.

This is the picture of Christ and His bride.

This is His intention for us. Keep going here in verse 7 they

said to him, so Jesus has just told them what God has joined

together. Let man not separate.

He's saying marriage is sacred, marriage is important.

Well, God is brought together. Don't separate and they go here

they are in verse 7. Why then did Moses command one

to give her certificate of divorce and to send her away?

Which is a really interesting way of phrasing things because

spoiler alert, Moses did not command you to get a divorce.

But if you're listening to these guys talk about it, like, why

did Moses command us to get divorces then like interesting

argument, right? Which is how a hard heart always

argues. Well, you said this.

I didn't say it that way. Well, you said this.

I did say that second thing, but I didn't say the first thing you

said. Let's be clear, let's be honest,

let's be fair, let's be accurate and let's stick with what is

actually said. But Jesus just takes the bait

because he's not afraid of where any of this is going because

he's still leading. But they said, why did Moses

command one to give a certificate of divorce and to

send her away like God, like Moses commanded everybody send

your wife away. I want you all to divorce your

wives. But we're going to go check that

out. So what are they referencing?

We're they're referencing Deuteronomy chapter 24.

Deuteronomy 24 · chapter mention

So Deuteronomy 24 the law is given 24 verse 1 verses one

through 4 Deuteronomy 24 when a man takes a wife and marries

her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found

some indecency in her. And again, this is where the

entire interpretation comes from, the word indecency.

It means nakedness. It means foulness.

But this is where the the the liberal interpretation was

going. If she burns my toes, I find her

indecent. If she does whatever, you know,

she didn't make dinner on time. Like who knows what what all the

excuses were, but they were bad and it was common and it was a

very popular teaching. While I find some indecency in

her, Careful, you're going, you're going kind of crazy with

that word. Well, what's that word mean?

Well, that's a good question, But that is the question, isn't

it? We should be saying, what does

it really mean to find some indecency in your wife?

And in the context, they weren't really interested in that.

They were just saying, I think everything's an indecency.

What's that? That's a hard heart.

That's a selfishness. Is that a Christ's likeness?

Do you wish that Jesus would discard you when he finds some

indecency in you? No.

So remember to picture Christ and the church.

But this is where they got carried away.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds

no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecence in her.

Indecency in her lewdness, nakedness.

Well, what exactly does that mean?

Well, I don't think it means burnt toast.

In fact, I'm certain that it doesn't.

And he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her

hand and sends her out of his house.

And she departs out of his house.

And if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the

latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and

puts it in her hand and then sends her out of his house.

Or if the latter man dies, he who took her to be his wife,

then her former husband who sent her away may not take her again

to be his wife after she has been defiled.

For that is an abomination before the Lord.

And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God

is giving you for an inheritance.

So let's understand what's happening here.

This is the law that the Pharisees are referring to.

So this is where they're saying Moses commanded us to get

divorces. Moses wants us divorcing like

crazy. It's, it's in the Bible, Jesus.

That's their argument. Here's what you need to

understand what the Lord intended as a guardrail in

Deuteronomy. This was intended to be a

guardrail for inevitable sin. Remember, before Jesus has

talked about inevitable sin, he's like, it's inevitable that

sins coming into the world, but woe to the one who through it

comes. So there's sin that's inevitable

and the Lord is putting up guardrails around it, but people

have turned it into a license for sin.

So the Lord is saying for this exceptional situation, here's

what I'm going to do and I'm going to show you how this is a

protection to women here in a second because it legitimately

was, but people have turned it into I see an opportunity.

I found an exit strategy and this is what liberal theologians

were doing at that time. They were going, I found a way

to just move on, get a new wife whenever I feel like it.

So let me teach this to you and explain this law brought

protection to women who otherwise would have been left

vulnerable. How so, pastor?

Because without the certificate of divorce, what was happening

was men were just putting their wives out.

Men were saying get out, I'm done.

And she has no option at that point except to get out and be

done. But she can't remarry.

Why? Because she's married to that

guy, but he won't have her in his house.

Yeah, but nobody else can take her.

So who's going to cover her? Who's going to protect her?

Who's going to provide for her? Who's going to actually say she

can be mine and she can come under my covering and under my

love and under my care? No one.

So this certificate of divorce, Moses even said he has to put it

in her hand. Moses was that precise because

he knew what these loopholes were going to do.

He knew they were going to go. I wrote a certificate of divorce

and it's in my pocket. And now she's still vulnerable

and still can't remarry and still has no opportunity to be

covered. She can't return to her father's

house, potentially, for shame. She might live with distant

relatives, but she's left in limbo.

She's completely vulnerable and isolated all because of a hard

hearted man who doesn't have the heart of God and never loved his

wife and he's gone the burnt toast or whatever his issue was

and he's going, that's it. No, you will write her a

certificate of divorce. You will put it in her hand and

then she will have possession of it.

And she can say I've been divorced.

I'm essentially a free woman. I'm free to remarry.

And their context and their setting that was appropriate.

They didn't have the added standards that we have in the

New Testament that Jesus put upon us.

So this is what's happening here.

She would have been stuck in limbo without any opportunity to

remarry. But now with her certificate of

divorce in hand, she is free to remarry.

So verse 4 here in in chapter 24, then her former husband who

sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she

has been defiled for that is an abomination before the Lord and

you shall not bring sin upon the land of the Lord your God is

giving you for an inheritance. What's happening here in this

verse? In this verse, the command came,

you can't remarry your ex-wife. Moses saying why?

So that you don't think you can play musical chairs with a

woman's life so that you can't treat her as an object, but she

has to be cherished as a person because she is someone.

So that men can't treat their ex wives like a backup plan that

they could return to. So a woman's life isn't treated

carelessly or like it's something to be thrown away.

She is someone to be loved, someone to be cherished, someone

to be protected and provided for and LED like Jesus does for the

church. It's the hard heart that's

hunting for reasons for divorce. And a hard heart can always find

1A hard heart can always justify what the Holy Spirit never

would. So the Lord's motive in

Deuteronomy 24 is not so that people would get better at

divorce. His motive is that we would not

divorce or that they would not divorce.

He wasn't making divorce easier. He was making it rarer.

Men were just sending their wives away without any process.

Now she's a woman, or whenever they send her away without any

process, now she's going to be a woman without a home, without a

husband, without protection, and no standing in society.

And the Lord was stopping that. And now men are going to have

pause. And they go, wow, like the

disciples. Maybe it's better for a man not

to marry. Yeah, maybe so.

Maybe so if that was your attitude, if that was your

expectation. Yeah, buddy, you ought not get

married. I thought if I just didn't like

things after a few months and I could.

Yeah. Thank you for saying that out

loud. Definitely don't get married.

Definitely don't. Now we know your perspective.

We understand your immaturity. And praise God, now you've been

scared of that. I don't say that to condemn you,

little Johnny. I say it to say who?

You dodged a bullet to your own condemnation.

That would have been bad for you.

That would have been bad for everybody.

So let's get more practical for you, though, for a second.

Because you're not a Jew living under the Law of Moses.

If you're bored in your marriage, if you're not having

frequent and passionate sex with your spouse, if you're not

laughing together, if you're not chasing a shared vision that

actually excites you, then you're already in some danger

and you may or may not know it. So how do you course correct?

You start hanging out again. You go on walk and talks

together. You sit on the sofa without

having a screen between the two of you.

You pray together. You cultivate the boyfriend

girlfriend energy again. You create margin in your life

so that there is space for sweetness and spontaneity.

A lot of times I just refer to it as a boyfriend girlfriend

dynamic. I tell couples like be boyfriend

and girlfriend. Are you having fun?

Are you laughing? Like, no.

OK, whoa. Like that's a good thing to do.

It's like you talk to the person who's like chronically exhausted

and like how much you sleep like an hour a night.

Like good news. I found your problem.

Like, let's prioritize this thing couples like, are you

enjoying each other? Are you laughing?

Are you having fun? Are you flirting?

What can we do to rebuild some of those things?

And as soon as our minds hear these kinds of things, they go

well. But they you come to the wrong

guy if you want to talk about but they because I'm the master

at bringing you back to the mirror.

This room has mirrors in it. Not strategically, we just

happen to have them. But if you want to know who to

work on in your marriage, you can always find them in the

mirror. That's the best person to focus

on in any marriage, because otherwise, whenever you take a

hey baby, let's do this thing together approach.

You've also made yourself hostage to their willingness.

So what if Natalie's the willing, great, If she's willing

to go and I'm willing to go and we're saying let's do it

together, that's wonderful. But what about when we do that

together for a time and a season?

And then she says I'm kind of kind of kind of lean back now.

What do you think? The first feeling I'm going to

feel is I'm going to feel bitter, I'm going to feel

frustrated, I'm feel resentful. Hey, we had a deal.

I'm going to do my part. You're going to do your part.

As long as you're doing your part, I'll keep doing my part.

That almost sounds like a contract, doesn't it?

Versus a covenant saying I'm going to do my part.

Period. There's nothing else coming.

I'm. Going to do my part.

And that's what grows that's. What changes marriages?

That's what changes people. I've worked with a lot of

marriages. I've worked with a lot of men.

I've worked with some women as well, and the number one thing I

always do for them is I say you focus on you, you focus on you,

and they go, yeah, what about and I go, Yep, all that stuff is

bad. Yep.

Now stop talking about it. Back to you.

Let's focus on your obedience to Jesus.

Why? Because we're counting on the

fact that God's good design is actually going to build warmth.

There's actually going to build attraction.

There's actually going to build desire and build delight.

Should we walk? Through this with nuance and.

Wisdom. Yeah, and you shouldn't walk

through it alone, especially if you're in a difficult place.

But the basics are pretty basic, folks.

Is not the science of rocketry. It is simpler than that,

thankfully. So those are some of the course

corrections you can make. And what else should you do if

you're stuck? Ask for help, get support, come

to your pastor, then do what you're told.

Re listen to the marriage series that I preached.

Husbands, listen to the Family Captain podcast.

Wives, go through the first officer's primer.

These resources are gold, absolute gold.

And I'm not afraid to tell you, aren't you the one who taught

him? Yeah.

And it's the best marriage teaching I've ever found in my

entire life. And I'm not sorry.

It's true. I'm not sorry.

You're welcome. And you should be eating it up.

You should be devouring the things that I teach regarding

marriage and family and male and female.

And if you find something better, I want you to bring it

to me, 'cause I want to learn from it.

I mean that sincerely. I want to learn and I want to

keep growing. But if you can't find something

better, you among the whole world are without excuse.

Because there's strangers listening to me from Australia,

hanging on every word I have to say regarding marriage and

family, and it's changed their lives.

And sometimes I talk to folks and they go, man, your church

must just be and I go. Praise the Lord they go, man,

the men in your church. Must be and I go praise the

Lord, I love my church and I'm going to shepherd my church.

The women in your church just praise the Lord.

I love my flock and I'm going to shepherd my flock and I'm going

to care for my flock and I'm also going to tell my flock the

truth from the pulpit in moments like this and say, hey, family

talk, little reminder time, you know, just just do.

What you should? Do and you'll be blessed by

that. You've got lots of opportunities

for growth. And I would love to bend over

backwards and continue to pour my life out for you personally

to help you. So if you're struggling, you

don't have an excuse with this guy as your pastor.

Or you can skip everything. I just said and do this instead.

Look up every Bible verse on marriage.

Go to Google and look up all the verses on marriage, particularly

in the New Testament. Ignore the ones that are written

to your spouse, right? Yours on the mirror, put them in

the car, put them next to the toilet and obey them and make

that a way of life. And there I just closed every

marriage counselor's office and I shut down the family captain

for life. And we never have to have it

ever again because Christians are just taking what they're

supposed to do and walking it out in obedience.

You might not come to every single conclusion that I've come

to on every single verse, and I'm completely fine with that.

I can live with that and I can still sleep good.

But you know what you're going to do?

You're going to absolutely change your life and your

marriage. It'll be enough because the book

of God is safe for the common man to pick it up, read it,

believe it, obey it and be transformed by it.

And that would be enough. There'd be no more marriage

counselling. There'd be no more books, my

book, my podcast, all the things.

We just have to shut the doors because people be like they.

We'd have to just call it the the Captain Obvious instead of

the family captain because everybody goes, yeah, it's just

the Bible, dude. I know I didn't invent this

stuff. It's not new.

It's super, super old and it's super, super good.

That's all I'm doing. That's my big secret to success.

I just keep focusing on what the book says and finding ways to

apply it. So this is how we become men and

women who don't need marriage counseling because we actually

read and obey the word of God for ourselves.

This is how we stop handing the enemy our marriages on a silver

platter. This is how we really strengthen

the body of Christ. This is ultimately how we change

the world. The Lord started with a family

and He ends with a family. Family is important to him from

Genesis to Revelation. It starts with a married couple

who are butt naked. Praise the Lord.

And it ends with a marriage supper.

Of the lamb, where the whole family has come together and we

live together happily ever after, the groom and all of us

the bride. Marriage is supposed to be a

rich, deep blessing. Is it going to be sanctifying?

You better believe it. Is it going to get on your

flesh? Absolutely.

Are you going to grow in holiness?

Yeah. And is that the reason that we

all went to the altar? No.

No, I did not stand there with Natalie that day.

Like, I'm just here because I want to grow in sanctification.

And she was like, me too. I just want to be more holy.

That's all I want. Happiness, fun, the marriage

bed. Who needs any of that stuff?

I'm just here for saying, for the sanctifying goodness.

I just want to. I just want to crucify the

flesh. But what?

What do we get all of? It.

All of it. Marriage is supposed to be a

rich joy and a deep blessing, not a contractual place where I

say, what can I get out of this, but what can I bring?

So look at how the disciples really out themselves.

Oh, go back to Matthew now. After the disciples hear Jesus's

strictness on marriage, they hear how he raises the

standards. They say to him, If such is the

case with a man and his wife, it's better to not marry.

They're basically saying well Dang, if you.

Can't just get divorced for anything.

You ought not get married at all.

Well said guys. You're right.

If that is your approach to marriage, you truly shouldn't

marry because you clearly don't have an accurate understanding

of marriage. A godly, mature husband will be

focused on his responsibility to protect, to provide, and to lead

his wife. He won't be thinking about his

exit strategy. And a godly mature wife will be

focused on helping her husband, being his glory and bringing him

life, not thinking about her exit strategies.

If they can't say they want to do those things, then it's true

they shouldn't marry because of their immaturity.

But that's not condemning. The word immaturity might sound

condemning to you, and I do not intend for it to be.

I just contend it to be. I just intend for it to be

sobering. Why, let's keep going here.

Jesus answers right after the disciples go, maybe we ought not

marry. And Jesus said, fairpoint boys,

not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom

it is given. For there are eunuchs who have

been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made

eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves

eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.

Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.

So a eunuch, I'm going to be graphic, so steal yourself for a

moment. A eunuch was a man who had his

testicles removed. All right, now we're back to

normal talk. I just want to be clear because

if you say he had his stuff cut, like what stuff?

So now, you know, like, all right, sorry, I belabored it

probably too much now. Now, everyone's uncomfortable,

all right? But we've got three different

categories of eunuchs, and most commentators believe that Jesus

wasn't referencing literal eunuchs in each case here, he's

he's referencing the concept of being a eunuch without

necessarily going the full distance.

So the first, and didn't have to make that gesture either.

That was unnecessary, unintentional, unhelpful.

All right, So the three kinds of eunuchs that he references here,

he says those, the some, some are born as eunuchs.

What's he referencing? Probably not that they had a

birth defect, but more likely he's referencing they were born

maybe, maybe to some degree, without the capacity or the

opportunity to marry. So for whatever reason,

circumstance lent itself to here we are.

And this person has never married.

They never had a strong desire for marriage.

But they never had an opportunity for.

Marriage, potentially the second, those who are made this

way by others. This one is the literal version.

So like in a Royal Court, men were castrated so that they

could serve the King's wives or they could serve the King's

concubines without threat. So these men, they didn't have

an option. This thing was done to them and

said now you're going to serve in the King's court.

And this method, in this way, that's what Jesus was

referencing, those kinds of eunuchs and then three, those

deliberately who chose singleness to serve God more

fully. That's the purpose.

And that's the point that Jesus is honoring and that he's

referencing. He says some have done this for

the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.

Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it.

So Jesus is saying that worth and usefulness in the Kingdom of

heaven are not tied to marriage. Worth and.

Usefulness in the Kingdom of heaven are not tied to marriage,

so for the married people, good. You can grow in your.

Sanctification in your marriage for sure, but Jesus is also

clarifying. Single people that you're not.

Second class citizens, you can continue to serve faithfully in

the Kingdom of God. Your worth and your usefulness

and your value are not tied or connected to marriage.

Whether someone is single by nature or by circumstance or by

choice, they are called to faithfulness, to holiness, and

to purpose in their singleness, not selfishness or fornication.

So that's the other disclaimer, because the other thing that's

happened in the past couple decades in the body of Christ is

a glorification of singleness, as though singleness in itself

is a virtue. And that is completely

unbiblical. Marriage is the normative

standard of God's design starting from day one.

So it is the normative standard. But Jesus saying, but no, there

are there are some who have not married and with with their with

them not having the responsibilities of a spouse

like Paul talks about, they can devote themselves more fully to

the Kingdom. Why?

Because a married man's thinking about what his wife wants and a

married woman's thinking about what her husband wants.

Was that bad? No, the Lord built it that way.

And yet it's an inevitable outcome.

And he says the single person doesn't have to think, what

about my spouse? What about my kids?

They can go the Lord, it's me and the Lord and yes, the body

of Christ around them and others.

He's Paul's gone. I wish everybody was like me.

He's like, but it's better to marry than to burn.

And he means burn passion. I feel passionate burning.

He's saying it's better to marry than to have that going on.

And then of course to burn later.

Of course, if I had unrepentant fornication.

So it's better to marry. Marriage is the normative and

appropriate design of the Lord. And yet some are single by

situation, some are single by calling.

Either way, their life should be powerful for the Kingdom, not

just the glorification of singleness going.

Like I think marriage is an idol.

I don't think our society with the body of Christ right now is

at risk of making marriage and idol.

So I won't play that game. If you're called to singleness,

it should look like not selfishness.

It should look like Kingdom focus.

I'm just called to singleness. Also live my best life now and

my life's all about travel. I want you to travel, enjoy the

Lord's beautiful creation. But I don't think you have a

proper understanding either. Just like the disciples thought

they had. Just like they had a bad

understanding of marriage, they're probably also going to

have a bad understanding of singleness.

Why? Because they're selfish.

That's their whole problem. I better not get married then,

if that's what marriage is all about.

You're right. But you're not going to be a

very good single guy either if you're this selfish.

So either way, you need to prioritize the king and his

Kingdom in a new way. Because either way, you're

called to serve the king fully and completely in your marriage.

I don't know if I want to deal with a woman.

Fine, you don't have to, but you're going to follow the King

fully and completely. Your life is all about him

otherwise. All right, sign me up for that.

Fair enough, fair enough, but you're giving yourself to the

King in both cases. One's not.

One's not putting him on the back burner.

He's always the priority. So what do we see through all of

this? Jesus was not building around

the exception, which is all of our temptation.

I want to build around exceptions with the Scripture.

What about how come I got a story?

And again, I, I don't want to silence any of you.

If anybody wants to talk to me, you got questions, exceptional

story, I'm here for it. We can talk through it.

Let's pray through it. Let's consider it and I can go,

I can give you, here's what I would think and here's how I

process that. We can do all of that.

But we're taking the text for what the text says for us here

today. Jesus doesn't build around

exceptions. He is restoring our focus to

God's intention and we're closing now.

Sinful humanity wants to major on the miners and make the

exceptions, the priorities. As always, Jesus is raising the

standards for righteousness, never lowering them.

The new covenant has far higher standards than the old covenant,

which is why you and I must be made new creations.

That is the priority for us to be made new.

Does any of? This feel heavy, Yeah.

Pastor, good news, the Lord will lighten your load because he is

the one who will do the work. Unless the Lord builds the

house, those who labor build in vain anyway.

So we got to bring all these things to the Lord and we got to

go. I was thinking about that wrong.

OK, join the club. And now let's think about it,

right? That's what repentance is.

That's what sin is. It is to miss the mark.

I fired the arrow. I missed the.

Mark fired another one. I missed the mark.

We will need to keep firing to hit the mark.

We have all sinned. And fallen short of the glory of

God. Some in marriage, some in

divorce, some in sexual sin. That's why the cross isn't

optional. It is necessary.

Like we talked about as we open service today, as we're all

rejoicing the forgiveness of our sins.

Hallelujah. We don't just need commands,

though. We need a Savior.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us

of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Moses went up on a mountain and he brought down commands to

obey. Jesus ascends into heaven and he

sends the Holy Spirit who gives us power to obey.

That's the difference between us and them.

They got the commands and they were crushed by them, which was

kind of the point, to show them their need for salvation.

You can't do it. You need the Messiah to come.

You and I already see that we got the advantage of hindsight.

We get to look back and go, I'm doomed.

I could do nothing apart from Christ.

I can do nothing apart from Christ.

And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are

in Christ Jesus. So I said this before when I

preached on divorce. So for those who like, well, I'm

divorced and I remarried or what about and how come where we are,

where we are now and we cover it with grace and we say, Lord,

help me to walk in freedom and faithfulness.

Now we don't get hung up and we don't let the enemy take us back

into some courtroom. We just say, Lord, help me to

walk out the light that I have now with fullness, with joy,

with love, with devotion. We need a Savior.

So whether you're married, divorced, single, something else

in between, follow Jesus with everything you've got and let

him shape your heart. Heavenly Father, you love your

people and you have given us your ways so that we would

thrive, so that we would please you, and so that we would enjoy

your highest and your best. God, I thank you for the gift of

marriage. I pray for the marriages in Salt

Church. God, I pray you would protect

them from. Bitterness.

I pray you would protect them from boredom.

I pray you would protect them from the enemy.

I pray you would protect them from temptation.

I pray that marriage would be held in honor in Salt Church and

that families and households would be strong.

I pray that that this whole, that this whole church body

would be built up in such a way that all of our marriages were

preaching the gospel in a way that was beautiful and enticing

and a sweet aroma to the world around us.

So they would look in that they would see and they would say, if

that's Jesus and the church, then sign me up.

If that's what it looks like, if that's what it feels like, then

I want to be a part of that God. I pray for the single among us.

I pray that they would more and more have lives more deeply

devoted to you that they would take If it's a if it's a

temporary season or if it's for the rest of their lives.

I pray that it would be a joyful devotion for them, not a

burdensome weight. But then it would be a joyful

delight to say, Lord, I am yours fully and completely.

I always was and I always AM and even more now.

I had the privilege of bringing all of my attention to you

undivided, fully yours, God. That's the prayer of our hearts.

Make us strong, make us healthy, help us to thrive.

And yes, Lord, we want also to be happy.

But even when circumstances don't allow for happiness, we

thank you for joy. Joy that.

Comes from what? Christ.

Has accomplished that nothing could ever change that I plead

the blood of Jesus over your people, bless them, keep them,

make your. Face shine down upon.

Them be gracious to them, lift up your countenance upon them,

give them great peace in Jesus name, Amen.