THE RULE OF GOD PRODUCES FIDELITY
Matthew 19: 1-12
INTRODUCTION
I’m going to begin this morning by asking you some very pointed and difficult
questions. These are questions that I believe every human should ask themselves
but few of us do. Do you want a god who agrees with you or do you want
to be a person who agrees with God? Do you want a god who loves what you
love or do you want to be a person who loves what God loves? Do you want
a god who wants what you want or do you want to be a person who wants
what God wants? There is no question that the vast majority of people
in the world are religious. Most people believe God exists and believe
that it is important to acknowledge him or her or it in some way. However,
what Jesus exposes in the hearts and lives of people is that all of us
naturally tend to think about god and worship a god who agrees with us,
loves what we love and wants what we want. Whether it is the religious
leaders or his own disciples Jesus’ life and teaching is a continual confrontation
to human constructions of god. Matthew 19: 1-12 is a clear revelation
of the human aim to want a god who agrees with us rather than being people
who agree with God.
While the subject matter of this discussion is marriage, divorce, remarriage
and celibacy, yet the underlying confrontation is really about whether
humans will love what God loves or insist that god love what they love.
If surveys are to be believed, most people want to live in a world that
is ruled over by a god. However, we want a god who thinks like us. We
don’t want a god who requires us to change course or alter our beliefs
or, heaven forbid, makes us feel bad about ourselves. The religious leaders
of Jesus’ day were masters of using the Bible and religion to endorse
their view of reality. This is a danger that faces all of us. We all need
to be alert to the danger of simply using the Bible as a religious cover
for living how we want. Does the Bible really critique my life? Am I different
because of what the Bible says or do I simply use the Bible to endorse
my preferred way of living? If you just assume that everything you think
is what God thinks, you are living in a dream world. Jesus uses the topic
of marriage, divorce and remarriage to confront this human tendency to
want a god who thinks like us, a god who will endorse our lifestyle. In
this passage we discover how God thinks about marriage, divorce and remarriage
but the main point here is that…
MAIN POINT
True, eternal joy comes to those who love what God loves, not to those
who use God as cover to get what they love because…
I. Humans are blind to the true God because they disagree with him
(vv. 1-7 & 10)
Chapter 19 opens with a recounting of Jesus’ travels. He leaves Galilee,
specifically the lakeside village of Capernaum, and goes south into the
region of Judea, where Jerusalem is located. He encounters huge crowds
of people and we are told that he heals all the sick among the crowds.
It’s important to remember that the last time Jesus was with crowds of
people was at the end of chapter 15 where he also healed huge crowds of
sick people and fed the 4000. At that time also, the Pharisees and Sadducees
tested him when they demanded that he show them a sign. In the intervening
chapters he spent most of his time with just the disciples but he has
now come out into the public once again. No sooner does he move in public
than his enemies the Pharisees show up to test him, to try to trap him.
In verses 2-3 there are two little statements of fact put next to each
other. We must not miss the significance of them. Great crowds are following
Jesus and he is healing them. The Pharisees come to him, in the midst
of these huge crowds, interrupt his healing ministry, and ask him a question
that does not come from teachable hearts but from malicious hearts. They
are attempting to get Jesus to discredit himself in the eyes of the people
and in the eyes of God. They are trying to entice him into disagreeing
with what God has said in his word. I want you to think about the power
of this contrast. It’s simply an astounding picture in my mind. There
are crowds of ill people lying on stretchers, pressing in upon Jesus.
He is talking with one of them and healing him. There are crowds of joyful
men and women who have been healed. In the midst of this scene, these
Pharisees come and ask Jesus a question in order to test him, to tempt
him into disobeying God and arousing the anger of the people against him.
What they do here is like a person walking into the midst of a wedding
ceremony, going up to the front of the church while the couple is repeating
their vows and asking the groom, "Is it true that you believe you
can get divorced for every and any reason?" How they are responding
to Jesus is so incongruous and out of place. How should they be responding
to what they are seeing? Shouldn’t they be praising God and seeking to
learn what Jesus has to say about God? How is it that they are so blind
to the power and love of God that is so evident in the life and ministry
of Jesus?
They cannot see the love of Jesus or the power of Jesus or the glory
of Jesus because they can only see that Jesus disagrees with them. He
does not believe what they believe about God, about how to know God or
about how to live life. This is the same reason people don’t believe in
Jesus today. People don’t believe, not because of lack of evidence but
because they don’t like who Jesus is and what he says. In this particular
case, Jesus directly opposes their view of marriage. They view marriage
as if it exists for the purpose of making them happy. They view it as
a relationship of convenience. As long as their partner is making them
happy and is cooperating with them, then they are happy to be married.
But when their spouse behaves in ways that they don’t like or the relationship
becomes too difficult, then they want to be able to end it. In fact, they
are sure that this is what God wants as well.
In Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 God, through Moses, gives some instructions about
divorce and remarriage. Let’s turn there and read it together. Moses isn’t
promoting divorce here. He is trying to regulate it and give men reasons
to not get a divorce. In essence he is telling people that once you get
a divorce you will not be able to get back what you have sent away. But
you see, what the Pharisees want is a happy marriage. What they know about
marriage is that it is very hard to live with another person and be happy.
So they want God to agree with their desires. They want a god who not
only permits, but commands dissatisfied spouses to give a certificate
of divorce and send the offending spouse away. So they have become fixed
upon this passage and read it as an endorsement of what they want to do,
rather than as restraint as God intended it. As Jesus is about to point
out, they completely ignore other passages that directly contradict their
view. When Jesus asks in v. 4, "Haven’t you read…", he knows
they have read these verses but they have willfully chosen to ignore them.
They engage in selective reading of the Bible. We all need to know that
we are in danger of doing the same thing. It is a very human thing to
do.
Jesus disagrees with their view of marriage and explains that God is
the one who made marriage and he makes marriages and therefore his will
is one man with one woman for life. He opposes their desires and will.
Therefore, they don’t like him. In fact they hate him because they disagree
with him and so cannot see what is blazing in front of their faces. If
you were to ask these men if they loved God, they would all answer yes.
If you were to ask them if God was pleased with them, they would say of
course he is. However, the god they believe in, whose favor they seek
is a false god. He doesn’t exist. They are so determined to have a god
that agrees with them that they cannot see the true God when he shows
up.
If we are going to experience the joy that is in God, then we must approach
him with the attitude that we want to love what he loves. If we discover
that he hates something we love, then we must change. The psalmist says
that those who love the Lord, hate evil. Therefore, when we discover that
God calls something we love, evil, then we must join him in hating it.
The only people who see the true God are those who love what the true
God loves.
True, eternal joy comes to those who love what God loves, not to those
who use God as cover to get what they love.
- Humans are blind to the true God because they disagree with him
(vv. 1-7 & 10)
II. God made all joys and has a way to experience his joy in them
(vv. 4-6)
The Pharisees want to know if it is God’s will for people to divorce
one another for any reason whatever. What Jesus does is answer them not
by talking about divorce but by talking about marriage. He quotes Genesis
1:27 and 2:24 in order to explain marriage. The essence of what he says
is this, God made the institution of marriage and he makes every marriage
formed within his parameters. "A marriage made in heaven"
is not just a cliché to be used to describe really happy couples
but a statement of fact about every marriage fashioned within God’s limits.
God is the creator of marriage, therefore we ought to treat each marriage
with enormous respect and protect each marriage, sparing no effort to
preserve and strengthen it. The wrong way to think about marriage is the
way the Pharisees thought about it. They view marriage as a human institution
created for the meeting of human ends. Jesus says that marriage and marriages
are created by God to accomplish his purposes. The reason God made marriage
is so that his divine mandate would be accomplished. He made marriage
as the institution through which his image would be revealed and his creation
would be filled and cared for. Marriage, like all of creation, belongs
to God and was made to serve God’s purposes.
This is not just some theological principal but a practical reality.
Jesus wants us to know that God, as the creator of all things, is also
the creator, not only of the institution of marriage, not only of Adam
and Eve’s marriage but of every marriage formed within his parameters.
The Pharisees, the disciples and we all view marriage and the rest of
creation as it relates to us, to human kind. We are naturally man-centered
in the way we think about life, which is one of the explanations for why
we have such a hard time with God. God thinks of everything in relation
to himself. In fact, not only does he view all things in relation to himself,
all reality revolves around him. Everything that exists, exists because
of him. As Paul says in Rom. 11: 36, "For from him and through him
and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever."
God makes every first marriage in every country and culture of the world.
He takes a man and a woman and makes them one flesh. God permanently unites
them for the purpose of revealing his glory as they fill and subdue the
earth as equal partners with differing roles and functions. However, Jesus
recognizes that it is possible for either one of the marriage partners
or for a third party to engage in activity that will destroy the marital
bond. So Jesus commands that humans stop engaging in activity that separates
what God has joined. The Pharisees and the disciples think only about
how to get out of the difficulties of marriage. Jesus instead says we
are to be thinking about and working on the things that preserve what
God has created.
Jesus realizes that marriage is hard. He knows that the natural tendency
of every relationship is towards dissolution. Every relationship starts
out full of romance and positive feelings. Kind words are spoken, gifts
are spontaneously given, time is invested as we seek to win the love of
and delight in the company of the one upon whom we have set our affections.
However, there comes a time in every relationship when reality sets in.
The gifts aren’t so frequent. The kind words and thoughtful deeds are
not so spontaneous. In fact, hurting words may be spoken. Conflict enters
the relationship. Feelings are hurt as things we expected to happen don’t
happen and so we begin to resent the other person. Finally, resentment
becomes rejection as expectations are repeatedly frustrated. This pattern,
romance, reality, resentment and rejection is the natural direction of
every relationship. Jesus says that we are to stop engaging in activity
that perpetuates this downward cycle of separation and to engage in behavior
that joins or unites.
What makes marriage, even a difficult marriage, a source of joy is that
I live in it with God and in God. You can be happy no matter what circumstances
you find yourself in, if you will live in the circumstances with God as
the source of your joy. If knowing, trusting, loving God is your highest
ambition, then you can do this no matter what. Your marriage can be the
place where you discover more of the sufficiency of Christ and the joy
of living upon God. When you pursue Christ by pursuing your spouse, regardless
of whether they pursue you or not, then you will experience the joy of
knowing Christ. The orientation of the Pharisees’ hearts is not towards
God. In spite of all their religious talk and behavior, they do not think
of life in terms of God. Their questions about marriage merely reveal
that their hearts are in love with a happy life on planet earth without
reference to God. But God has made all of life, including marriage, for
us to enjoy him in and through. This is what Paul means in 1 Cor.
10:31, "So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do
it all to the glory of God." God has created the world for the purpose
of expressing or showing forth his greatness and glory. When we try to
enjoy the world without seeking to know and enjoy him through it, we offend
him and live contrary to reality. The Pharisees are not interested in
glorifying God in marriage. They are interested in having a happy marriage.
As a result they are only interested in how to get out of marriages that
don’t make them happy.
True, eternal joy comes to those who love what God loves, not to those
who use God as cover to get what they love.
- Humans are blind to the true God because they disagree with him
(vv. 1-7 & 10)
- God made all joys and has a way to experience his joy in them (vv.
4-6)
III. Humans disregard God’s way because they are by nature rebellious
(vv. 8-10)
The Pharisees demand to know, in response to Jesus’ description of marriages
as created by God for his glory and therefore permanent, why Moses commanded
men to give their wives certificates of divorce and then send them away.
Jesus now informs them that God, through Moses, gave them permission (note
the difference in language) to divorce because of their hard hearts (Also
could be translated, stiff-necked). God never wills, he never commands
the dissolution of a marriage, that is always the result of human sinfulness.
That’s what Jesus means by using this term "hard-hearted". This
is the same word that is used repeatedly in the OT to describe the nation
Israel in their relationship to God. God tells Moses, after the people
make a golden calf and worship it, "I have seen these people and
they are a stiff-necked (hardhearted) people. Now leave me alone so that
my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them." Then
in Deuteronomy God reminds the people, "Understand, then, that it
is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving
you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people."
I know and God knows that marriages are full of pain. There are few experiences
in life more painful than being in a relationship that you expected to
fill you with bliss and happiness that is instead filled with rejection
and disappointment. Jesus wants us to know that the pain that we experience
in marriage is not the result of being incompatible. The pain in our marriages
is not because we got married too early in life or because we didn’t get
premarital counseling. The pain in our marriages is due to the hardness
of our hearts towards God. We believe we deserve to be treated well by
our spouses. We believe that we cannot be happy unless our spouse treats
us well. There is no more important discovery to be made than this; life,
including marriage, is about God. The purpose of marriage is not to get
my needs met by my spouse. The goal of marriage is for me to love my spouse
so that God’s purposes are fulfilled. This is the way it has been from
the beginning. But because humans love sin and not God, sometimes God
permits the victim in the relationship to end the relationship. Sometimes,
one partner so violates the marriage by their conduct that the other partner
has permission to dissolve the marriage and enter into a new marriage
without sinning.
Jesus says there is only one form of sin that permits a spouse to end
the marriage and enter into another marriage without sinning. Only when
a partner engages in sexual immorality are you permitted to divorce. Again,
you are not required to get a divorce, you are permitted
to get a divorce. The word that the NIV translates as "marital unfaithfulness"
is the word for "sexual immorality". Adultery is a form of sexual
immorality but sexual immorality includes more than adultery. I know this
because in Matthew 15:19, Jesus sets these two words, "adultery"
and "sexual immorality" next to each other in a list of vices.
Jesus permits, but does not command, that a man or a woman has permission
to pursue divorce and ultimately remarriage if their spouse is found to
have engaged in any manner of sexual misconduct and he or she refuses
to repent and work at reconciliation. The word Jesus uses here would include
adultery, homosexual behavior, any inappropriate sexual contact with another
person and all manner of sexual addictions. Let me emphasize that it is
permissible to seek a divorce only if the spouse has demonstrated an unwillingness
to turn around and make things right. It is the act of last resort. There
are other reasons where divorce is permitted but remarriage is not permitted
except when your spouse has engaged in sexual immorality. To divorce and
remarry for any other reason is to engage in adultery.
I know that I am making a number of you squirm right now. There are many
in this room that are divorced and many who have remarried after a divorce.
John Stott, in his commentary on Matthew 5: 31-32, another place where
Jesus talks about divorce, says this, "There is almost no unhappiness
so poignant as the unhappiness of an unhappy marriage, and almost no tragedy
so great as the degeneration of what God meant for love and fulfillment
into a non-relationship of bitterness, discord and despair." Many
of you, sitting in this room, have experienced the great unhappiness of
a marriage gone bad that has ended in divorce. Nobody I’ve ever met has
been happy about being divorced. For many it is a source of great shame.
For others it is a subject not to be discussed and which arouses anger
and defensiveness. For others it is a source of great hurt as a result
of being rejected and found inadequate by the most important person in
your life, your spouse.
I do not wish to add to the pain that many suffer. However, if I am causing
greater pain I intend it to be the pain of healing. I want to maintain
Jesus’ aim in discussing divorce—to bring each of us to a greater reliance
on his death for our sins and his life for our righteousness. Our sin
and failure cannot prevent us from knowing the joy of God’s forgiveness
in Christ and the joy of living in his will in our present circumstances.
Whether you were the victim in a divorce or an agent or both, you need
to know that there is nothing beyond the forgiving, healing power of Jesus.
Divorce does not stand in a separate category from all other human failings
and forever consign a person to a second rate status. Divorce does require
an honest evaluation of your own heart and actions and the appropriate
application of Christ’s work. If your behavior has not conformed to what
Jesus clearly says here, the solution isn’t to try to justify your behavior
by blaming your ex spouse or your parents or your circumstances at the
time. Rather, if you have sinned, you should confess your sins and go
to Christ as the only Savior for sinners. You should do all you can to
reconcile past relationships and admit your sin to those you have sinned
against, which may include your current spouse.
True, eternal joy comes to those who love what God loves, not to those
who use God as cover to get what they love.
- Humans are blind to the true God because they disagree with him
(vv. 1-7 & 10)
- God made all joys and has a way to experience his joy in them (vv.
4-6)
- Humans disregard God’s way because they are by nature rebellious
(vv. 8-10)
IV. God gives humans the ability to find his joy in his ways (vv.
11-12)
The disciples are shocked by what Jesus has just said about marriage.
They, like us, lived in the midst of a divorce culture. The difference
was that only the men could do the divorcing. They know how painful marriages
can be, how difficult it is to live with and love only one other person
for life. So they declare that if the only way out of marriage is if your
partner engages in sexual immorality, then a life of celibate singleness
is to be preferred. The disciples are saying that if you cannot divorce
and remarry for any and every reason without incurring the wrath of God,
then it is better, safer, to live a life of celibate singleness. The disciples’
problem with what Jesus is saying is not the same as the Pharisees. They
do not want to commit adultery. They do not want to sin against God. But
divorce and remarriage is such a part of their way of life that they cannot
imagine how anyone can get through life without divorcing and remarrying
and thus committing adultery. So, rather than commit adultery, they say
it’s just better to not get married at all.
Jesus’ response to them is so important. "Not everyone can accept
this word, but only those to whom it has been given." To what "word"
is Jesus referring? Is he saying, "Not everyone can live a celibate
life, but only those to whom God gives the grace to do so"? Or, is
he saying, "Not everyone can love and obey this command about marriage
except those who have been given the grace to do so"? I think primarily,
based on v. 12, Jesus is saying that some people voluntarily live a single,
celibate life because God calls them into this life and gives them the
grace to live it. Some people willingly forgo the legitimate pleasures
of married life so that they can give themselves more fully to the work
of building God’s kingdom. However, I would also say that Jesus, especially
by his concluding remark, "Let those who have room for this make
room in their hearts for it", is saying that the way that people
live happily married or happily single and celibate is by the grace of
God. God is eager to give the grace that is necessary to live joyfully
either as a married person or as a sexually pure single person.
Jesus’ entire argument is based upon a view of reality that is so contrary
to how we think. The goal of life is to know God, love God, and delight
in God in all the circumstances that God places me. If I am married, then
I am to pursue my joy in God in the joy of my spouse. If I am single,
I am to pursue my joy in God in the joy of loving others without being
sexually intimate. Loving my spouse, especially when he or she is not
loving me, reveals the greatness of God’s love and mercy in far greater
ways than divorcing my spouse because it hurts so bad. Living sexually
pure as a single person shows forth the ability of God to satisfy my heart
far greater than engaging in illicit sexual relations while professing
to be a follower of Christ. God gives the ability to do both.
© Copyright 2002
John Swanson.
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