Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to. So we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we can. We hope you enjoy the message.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Okay.
It's raining.
It's raining.
Hey, did you guys see the kids when they were up here for kids moment?
Do you know what I'm talking about already? Yeah.
Did you see.
Some of them were dancing.
Did anybody else catch this?
Just a few of you. Okay.
They were dancing. They were moving. They were like.
They were. Let's just put it this way, a lot of them were utilizing their bodies in ways that if you as an adult or a teenager were called up to the front, you certainly would not do.
I don't know. This isn't part of my sermon. But, like, why?
Like, just a genuine question.
I was watching the kids and they were being silly and goofy and lovely and free.
Like, totally free.
Because they don't give a rip what people think about them in the best way. Not in like an unholy, like, rude, arrogant way, but in like a. I'm totally free to be who God's made me to be. And if I dance, then I dance. And if I move around and I.
And I just get this sense. Guys, I need to start my clock. I just get this sense that God desires an increase of your freedom. This morning.
I think there are things that are binding you and me, too. I'm including myself in this. Like, I wanna live the kind of life where I'm not as much thinking about what other people think about me as much as I'm thinking about how much God cares about me, loves me, cherishes me, has forgiven me.
I want that to influence how I live, how I talk, how I behave, how I think. Because I think that there's something about that.
I think it's a. Hear me say this. I think it's a marker of the kingdom of God.
And that's why, I mean, this morning, there's my transition. Thank you, Jesus. We're in this series going through Gospel of Matthew, like, where we're talking about the kingdom of God. We're talking about what it looks like when God gets his way, his rule, his reign.
And I Just get the sense that for some of us in the room, you know, it in your spirit, you're not as free as God would have you to be.
And I think he wants to set some people free this morning internally. Just to let you know, I really believe it with all my heart. So we're gonna jump in this morning. You can grab your Bibles. I have a lot for you this morning. Grab your Bibles. Open to Matthew, chapter 19. That's where we're at.
I want to give you a little bit of a warning.
And the warning is that today's passage, it's filled with some sensitive topics to say the least, especially in this cultural moment.
Today's passage, it references marriage, it references singleness, it references sexuality, and it references gender.
Those are, like I said, those are some kind of hotly debated topics in this cultural moment.
These are things that are very relevant to us right now. But more importantly than that, these are things that God deeply cares about.
The things that God deeply cares about. And here's what we're gonna do. This morning I looked through my notes and I realized I have like two and a half sermons for you.
And so instead of preaching and trying to keep you from going to the bathroom for two and a half hours, what we're gonna do is we're gonna break up this passage. It's gonna be verses 1 through 12. We're gonna break up this passage. We're gonna go through the whole passage today, but we're gonna cover it over the course of two weeks. Cause there's just too much here. And I can't in good conscience move past what Jesus is teaching here without giving necessary time and attention to it. We're not gonna cover everything about marriage. We're not gonna cover everything about singleness. We're not gonna cover everything about sexuality. We're not gon going to cover enough as to not just move past this without gleaning as much that God would have us glean from this. Okay? So that being said, for the sake of time, I'm just going to jump right in. But before I do, I think it's very appropriate that we pray together and invite God's spirit to teach us through God's word. Okay. Will you join me in prayer, God? I feel like a sense of, I don't know, I guess humility.
And I just can almost just even confess, like, I don't know, I feel.
I feel like the weight of some of these topics and the both beauty and pain associated with some of these topics.
It just feels Heavy in my spirit.
And so I ask for your help this morning.
Holy Spirit, would you help me to serve in a way that's consistent with how your spirit desires me to serve these precious people?
We belong to you, Jesus. We confess that now with our minds, our mouths, our hearts.
And we ask you, Holy Spirit, would you show us more of the glory of Jesus, the goodness of Jesus? Would you teach us more about what your kingdom is like?
And would you give us the faith to say yes to your kingdom and experience the blessing and the glory that you have for us?
There's nobody like you, Jesus. I just honor you this morning.
Praise you, worship you, help us, Holy Spirit, we pray. And all God's people said together. Amen.
Okay, so starting here in verse one, Matthew, chapter 19, it says this. It says, when Jesus had finished saying these things.
Let's talk really quickly. I want to bring you up to speed. What are these things that he's referencing here? Okay, Jesus, this will be review for many of you if you've been journeying with us. Jesus, he just got done teaching on the severity and the seriousness of sin. Okay? Do you remember, he goes, hey, if your hand causes you to sin, what does he tell you to do?
Cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.
He's not being literal here. He's being metaphoric. But he's trying to get the point across. Like, sin's a big deal. It's serious. It's gonna harm you, it's gonna harm other people. It's not what you were made for. It's not the way to go, right? And then what he does is he tells the parable of the lost sheep.
And he says that when a person engages in sin, they're like a sheep that goes astray, right? And he talks about how God is like a shepherd who goes after even that one sheep that's gone astray in their sin.
If you're here this morning and if you're honest with yourself, if you came in here and you're like, man, I feel weird being here. Cause I feel like there's this repetitive sin in my life. There's like, I feel stuck in this sin. Like, I just want you to hear me say, like, God desires you. If you're that sheep, we've all been that sheep. You're in a room full of people that have all been that. That sheep at one time or another. God desires you. He's after you. He loves you. He wants to bring you back. Like Marla said, he wants to Bring you back home, right? So he says that God's like this shepherd who goes after even that one sheep who in their sin have gone astray. And then he, he explains how God actually does that pursuing work, how God actually is the good shepherd goes after that one sheep. And he says that God does it through his people, through the church, pursuing the person and calling them to repentance, turning away from that behavior, from that lifestyle, from that heart disposition. And then when he does, he lays out God's four step process in calling a person to repentance. We covered all this stuff in previous messages. If you missed those, you can go back and listen.
And then he gets into the parable of the unforgiving servant, right? And he talks about how reconciliation, when two parties, there's conflict or there's sin or there's a, a breakdown, reconciliation, it requires two ingredients, forgiveness and repentance.
And he says that you need both of those things for reconciliation. And then he goes.
And then that's where we pick up here in verse one.
So he's taught on all these things. When he's finished saying these things, he departed from Galilee and went to the region of Judea, across the Jordan. Verse 2.
Large crowds followed him and he healed them there.
Can we just pause for just a second? This is like a totally nother sermon. But like verse two is just like a. It's like a throwaway verse. But how crazy spectacular is verse two.
Dude, Large crowds followed him and he healed them there. No big deal. Jesus miraculously just heals all of these people. Let's keep rolling. Like there's so many like seemingly throwaway lines in the Gospels that are so filled. If you just meditated on verse two for a little while, like, think about the generational impact of people being miraculously healed and think about the faith that would be built and you observing something that dramatic like, this is not a large crowd. Imagine a very large crowd. Imagine a couple few hundred thousand people or not. That's a lot of people, a few thousand people following Jesus and him, just healing them all. And it's spectacular. Let's keep going. Verse 3. Some Pharisees approached him to test him. Underline to test him.
They asked, here's the question.
Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? Underline any. We're going to pause there.
In our culture, I think we would all agree divorce is more prevalent than any of us would like for it to be.
But especially in the first century when this took place, when this was written, divorce Was super common. Okay? Many of these Pharisees that we are encountering here in this passage. Many of these Pharisees, they would permit a husband to divorce their wife. Listen to this. For virtually any reason.
If you study and you do some kind of, like, commentary work on this, you'll find out that wives were actually not permitted to divorce their husbands, but husbands were permitted to divorce their wives for very, very trivial reasons.
Here's some that are actually recorded. These are real. Okay, get this.
Husbands were permitted to divorce their wives for burning dinner.
I'm glad you didn't laugh because I would have felt, like, weird if you did. That's pretty intense. How about this one?
Husbands were permitted to divorce their wives for having physical defects like bushy eyebrows.
I think now it's appropriate to laugh. That's ridiculous. Could you imagine standing before, like, any form of authority around marriage, Whether it's, you know, God of the state and being like, so what's the reason?
Those eyebrows, man, they're just. They're just getting out of control, okay?
But here, it's so awful, you have to laugh at it.
In the first century, women were treated like property.
I'll talk about that more in depth next week. We're going to get into this. But, like, it grieves the heart of God.
Come back next week. I'll talk more about that.
So these Pharisees, which Pharisee, if you're not familiar, it's just a Jewish leader, spiritual leader. They already know Jesus teaching on marriage. He's already taught quite a bit publicly on marriage. They already know his stance. They already know what's up. And so they ask him this question. They're testing Jesus. And the reason they're asking him this question and testing him is because Jesus teaching doesn't align, hear me, with their interpretation of Scripture.
So they ask, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?
Look at how Jesus replies verse 4.
His reply to them is this. Haven't you read?
I love Jesus?
I love him.
He's not being polite here.
He's not being like, hey, by chance did you get around to reading in, like, you know the Torah? About what? God?
No, no, no. He's talking to people, specifically Pharisees. These men. He's talking to these guys. Guys, they've spent their, hear me their whole life studying scripture.
So he says this to people who have dedicated countless hours to studying and digesting the word of God. And he's going, haven't you read?
He's not being polite here, okay? I think the reason I want to touch on this is because I think, if I'm honest, I think kind of western church culture has.
We have a tendency to kind of water down Jesus.
Like, like the, kind of, like the, like the. Just the. Listen, he's meek? Absolutely. Is he gentle? Absolutely. Is he lowly? Absolutely. Like, he is these beautiful qualities of not. Of not. Of not being an abusive form of authority. Absolutely. Okay, but I think, I think we've kind of watered down Jesus, is that he's like only those things.
Hear me. With broken and humble people.
Listen, Jesus is gentle.
He's the most gentle. He's so patient with broken and humble people. He's so kind with broken and humble people. But listen, man, with the proud and the hard hearted dude, he's confrontational to the point where if you read the scripture and you put yourself in the shoes, you're like, dang, bro. Like with proud and hard hearted people, he's confrontational, he's bold, he's strong.
Like, this was offensive to these Pharisees.
The moment they heard this. They were like, whoa, I want to ask you just a simple question this morning. When you engage with Jesus, does he ever offend you?
When you engage with Jesus, does he ever offend you? Does he ever say things that you don't like or that you disagree with even? Does he ever confront you with things about you that you're like, whoa, man, please hear me. If Jesus never offends you, you're either sinless and perfect or you're not actually engaging with Jesus.
And hear me, he's not offensive just for the sake of being mean or rude or cruel or anything like that. No, he can be offensive at times. He can be offensive not because there's something wrong with him, but because there's something wrong with me.
And in his loving kindness and in his grace and in him moving towards us with mercy and love, he's trying to point it at.
He loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. And then he in power and in grace and in mercy helps us not stay there if we say yes to his kingdom.
So even with the Pharisees, you might read this and go, dude, he's being offensive for the sake of being offensive. Or you could read it as like, oh, he really loves those guys.
He really loves them enough to not just water things down.
Keep going. Verse 4.
So he's trying to point. Haven't you guys read that? He replied that he who created. He's going to refer back to the Old Testament here that he who created them in the beginning. Remember, he's talking about, can husbands divorce their wives for any reason?
Haven't you read? He replied that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female.
And he also said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two will become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.
Why, then they asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? Underline command.
What they're doing here is these Pharisees. They're referencing back to Deuteronomy, chapter 24, the first few verses of Deuteronomy, chapter 24.
And what they're doing is they're totally. Excuse me. They're totally misinterpreting that passage.
They're totally misinterpreting that passage. They say that the passage commands divorce, which isn't true.
And Jesus is gonna call them out on it. Look what he says in verse 8. He told them, moses permitted. Commanding and permitting are two different things.
Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because what does he say?
The hardness of your hearts. Underline that.
And then Jesus goes on, he says, but it was not like that from the beginning.
I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. Excuse me. Verse 10.
His disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, better not to marry.
Verse 11.
Jesus responded, not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given.
For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.
There are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept it should accept it.
Okay, that's our passage.
I want to hone in right now on verses eight and nine. Go ahead and look there.
I want you to see what these Pharisees are doing. Because it's not unique to them.
What these Pharisees are doing is what people have done for thousands of years.
They're reading only what they want to hear from the Scriptures.
So they're going to the Scriptures not to hear what it says and have that change them and them yield to that. They're going to the Scriptures to pick out what they think is good. They're going to the Scriptures to reinforce their preference. Hear me. You can go take one verse out of context. In all of the Bible and kind of paint whatever picture you want to paint.
People do it all the time. That's kind of what's happening here with these Pharisees. Instead of reading God's word and letting it change them, they. They read God's word and pick and choose what they want to hear to promote their preferences. And that's what they're doing here with divorce.
And Jesus, he uses the language that they have a hard heart.
Do you know what that means, scripturally? A hard heart?
I think it's hard. I think it's difficult for us because our.
Our kind of modern culture, I think we view the heart through the lens of emotion, and it involves that. But biblically, the heart is so much deeper than that. The heart is like the operating system of your life. It's not just your emotions, it's not just your feelings. And I think in our culture, we separate the heart and the mind. We separate. Like, heart doesn't think, the mind thinks.
That's not the way the Jews viewed the heart. So when Jesus talks about. When the Bible talks about a hardness of heart, it's talking about like the. In the operating system of your life, it's the core of a person. It involves the mind, hear me, the will and the desires. I want you to think of it like this.
Your life.
Your life is consistently. You're making choices, you're thinking thoughts, you're taking actions, you're doing things, you're going places, you're operating. Are you not all the time? No matter what you're doing, you're always operating in wherever you are operating. And whatever you are doing and wherever you are going, your heart is sitting in the driver's seat.
Get the picture here?
The Bible says your heart can either be hard or it can be soft.
You ever play with Play doh?
Raise your hand if you've ever played with Play doh.
Most of the room. If you haven't played with Play DOH in a long time, I would encourage you to play with Play doh.
There's a lot to learn with Plato. I.
Gosh, I just had this. I was prepping this message and I had this flashback memory of my kids sitting at our kitchen table a couple few years ago.
And I came home and they were playing with the Play doh. And they were making like this Mexican feast, like this, like cuisine. Like, there was enchiladas and there was tacos, and there was burritos, and there was all. And it was like, it was shockingly well done. I was like, how did. Like, is that play doh? And they're like, yes. And they're rolling and they're doing all their things and they're molding the play doh. And I just remember being shocked, like, wow. I always ever just rolled into a ball and tried to like, you know, do that. And I was done. But they're like actually making these beautiful works of art with their play doh, you know?
But if you've ever used play doh, what happens when you leave the top of that canister off for too long?
It's not play doh, it's play rock. At that point, it's like, it's so hard, it hardens up so quickly and it's no longer kind of moldable, right?
But when that play dough, when it's soft, it's moldable, it yields to the artist's hands, right? But when it's hard, it no longer yields. It's taking its shape.
Jesus is telling these Pharisees that their hearts were hardened.
They made up their minds.
This is what I want to do. This is what I think is right. And I'm going to search and scour God's word to find anything that I can that out of context. It will reinforce the decision I've actually already made.
Are you getting the picture?
They made up their minds, unwilling to yield to God's hands, unwilling to be molded into what God wants.
And that's exactly what's happening here with these Pharisees. Their hearts were hardened. They made up your mind. How's your heart?
Like, really, how's your heart?
Not just your feelings, your feelings matter. Your emotions matter. It's part of it.
How's your heart?
What do you want? What do you desire?
Like, really desire? Like, what's going on in there? How's your heart? Are you open to God molding it?
Are you open to God molding you?
Like, hear me, in a way that you wouldn't mold yourself.
Like, I'm talking full on yielding, not just rolling it into a ball, but maybe he wants to make you into an enchilada, I don't know. But like, are you open to him molding you? Especially in ways that you would not mold yourself?
How about this? In the ways that you serve or the ways that you don't, in the ways that you speak or in the ways that you don't, into how you spend your time or to who you spend your time with. Like, is your heart really open to living the kind of life where you're like, I am Play DOH in the hands of my maker.
Do with me whatever you want.
If not, maybe, just maybe, there's hardness in your heart that God this morning wants to shine some light on. Not to condemn you, but like we talked about this morning, for freedom.
That's what's happening with these Pharisees.
Are you open to doing things differently? Are you open to thinking differently? Are you open to believing differently about your life, about God, about you?
And I just.
I just get the sense that for some of us in the room, that top of the canister of your heart, it's been off for a while.
And day by day, your heart's getting a little bit harder and a little bit harder and a little bit harder.
Set in your ways.
Because our hearts can be hard or they can be soft.
And when it came to marriage and divorce, Jesus told these Pharisees straight up, their hearts were hardened.
If you're taking notes, my first point you won't be surprised by is this. A hard heart keeps you from the kingdom.
A hard heart keeps you from the kingdom of God.
Okay, my next point for you is this.
Marriage matters to God because he made it.
Marriage matters to God because he made it.
I've lost count how many wedding ceremonies I've performed at this point. There's been a lot of them, and the vast majority. Dude, performing wedding ceremonies is one of the best things that pastors get to do. It is awesome. Like, it is. It's such a day. The vast majority of time. It's such a wonderful day. I mean, you have this couple, they're getting ready to make vows to each other for the rest of their lives. There's an excitement, there's a joy, there's a love in the air. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've been performing a ceremony. I look out and. And I see, like, an older couple, and, like, the husband will grab the wife's hand and, like, hold, like, they have, like, a moment, you know? Like, weddings are just. They're special times. They're celebratory. They're great.
One of the things that I've discovered in doing a bunch of weddings is oftentimes Ebony and I will do premarital counseling before I perform the wedding.
And it's a cool opportunity.
Listen, young people, before you get married, if you can hear me say anything this morning, make sure you do premarital counseling. It's hugely valuable. But it's really funny because the vast majority, like I said, vast majority of weddings that I've performed me And EB have done some premarital counseling with these couples. And what you do is you basically have several meetings with a couple, and you hear more kind of depth about their story, about their life experience, about their. Their faith and what God's up to in their lives. And basically the whole point of it is to help them understand what marriage is biblically, not culturally, what marriage is biblically. And what we try to do in that time is help them get on the same page.
Cause if you're not on the same page, you shouldn't get married. Okay? So we try to help them get on the same page or help them not get married if they're not interested in getting on the same page, which has happened once.
But my biggest takeaway, pastorally and all of that and being able to walk and journey with couples is, if I'm honest, the vast majority, they don't.
I'll say this. They have a poor understanding of what marriage is like, what it really is.
And it's been so encouraging to watch in that process of the counseling where they have a greater understanding and they see more of the depth, more of the beauty, more of the purpose, and it strengthens them as they step into it together.
And I've often thought, like, well, what is it? Because it's a pretty consistent pattern.
And I'm of the opinion, I think, why so many couples, as they're stepping into marriage, in my experience, they didn't have a poor understanding of what marriage is. Is. I think it's because we've been so.
I think we've been so discipled by Disney and, I don't know, Hollywood. And just like the culture around us that we take on different definitions for what marriage even is. Because if I'm on, like, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at this objectively and go, our culture treats marriage very different than the scriptures treat marriage. It references marriage very different than the way the scriptures reference marriage. Our culture promotes marriage as like, a conditional relationship and a consumeristic relationship.
Conditional, as in, if you're not meeting my expectations, this isn't working.
Consumeristic is like, if I'm not getting what I want, this isn't working.
And that's perpetuated and it's reinforced. And the stories that we. The narratives that we watch on tv, that's just all over the place, right? Our culture teaches people that marriage is primarily for individual happiness, self fulfillment, emotional satisfaction.
And when one or more of those things is missing, well, it's time to get divorced. Because the marriage is no longer fulfilling.
Because that's why it exists in the minds of our culture.
Our culture promotes marriage as conditional and consumeristic. But that's not like. That couldn't be farther from the truth of what the Bible teaches about marriage.
Marriage is not a conditional relationship. It's not a consumer relationship. Write this down. My third point. According to the maker of marriage, marriage is a covenant.
It's a covenant. That's what it is.
In all of the wedding ceremonies I've ever performed, I read a quote from Tim Keller that I think is just. It's the best thing that I've ever found that helps practically illustrate to people what a covenant is. I'm gonna read that for you right now. This is a quote I read at every single marriage I've ever performed.
I think I gave it to you guys. Yes, perfect.
Keller says this quote, a covenant. Listen to this. This is gold.
A covenant is a relationship more loving and intimate than a merely legal relationship, yet more binding, enduring, and accountable than a merely personal relationship.
It's a stunning blend of law and love.
It's a personal relationship made more loving and intimate because it's legal through voluntary, mutual, binding promises and vows to be loving and to be faithful. Listen, no matter what the circumstances, modern society doesn't really have a category for this. Modern society orders everything around the experiencing individual self and the happiness and fulfillment of the individual self. In modern society, two people will look at each other and say, I will be what I should be. Listening as long as, and to the degree that you are what you should be. And if you're not, I'm out.
But in a covenant, two people look at each other and say, I will be what I should be, whether you are being what you should be or not.
Therefore, it's scary to enter into a covenant. And it only works if both people agree to the terms.
Both parties have to say, I will be what I should be, even if you are not what you should be.
Listen to this. If one party says that, but one does not, you have exploitation or even abuse.
If both people are saying, you are more important than me, the relationship is more important than my needs.
I will be committed to your needs before my needs. I give you my independence. I give you part of my freedom as a gift of love. If both people are saying that, then that is a far more fulfilling, far more deep and profound, far more life changing and rewarding relationship than a consumer relationship in which each side says, I will be in this as long as you're meeting my needs. End quote. I Know it's long, but fire, hear me.
Marriage is a covenant.
It's a covenant. It's not a consumeristic relationship.
It's not a conditional relationship. And when we approach it that way, things go south.
Marriage is a covenant. This is why God uses. So, guys, you read your Bible, right? This is why God uses so much marriage imagery throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, right? God describes himself. He's like. He's like, I am Israel's bridegroom.
Why covenant?
The church is the bride of Christ. Why? There's a covenant going on here, right? Marriage. It's this living picture.
Marriage is a covenant.
The rain was crazy at my house yesterday.
Like, my whole front yard, sunny nose. It was crazy. It was like. It was out of control. It was gnarly. I've never seen rain like that up there. It was crazy.
And it brought me back to a memory of when I was in high school.
I'm gonna share. Young people, I'm gonna share something with you.
I'm not proud of it.
I do not endorse it, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.
So it was a very similar day. I'm 17 years old, and it was raining like crazy. It was Friday night, and me and six other friends. No, five other friends, there's six of us total, we decide to get together.
And because there is a large number of us, we didn't want to take two cars because it's raining.
And my friend's mom had a minivan. Okay? This was back in the day when the minivan doors were only on one side. So a long time ago.
And so we're all just imagine six dudes. We get in this minivan, and we're just driving around. And very quickly, because the rain was so intense, very quickly, we discovered that these puddles that were on the side of the road could be used to project, like, to shift water in areas that water probably shouldn't be shot, whether it be people or things or whatever. And so we spent literally hours driving around, just hitting puddles, shooting water wherever we could. It was a blast. It was so much fun. We're thinking, this is great, and getting all riled up, as teenage boys tend to do.
And then we turn the corner and we see a body of water that is. It's not a puddle.
It's not even a pond at this point. This is a lake and a road.
It is huge.
And instantly, like telepathy. Like telepathy, whatever. Telepathy. Like, telepathically.
All six of us look at each Other. And we're like, this is our moment.
This is our moment.
And so the guy who's driving, let's call him Roger to save his identity. He looks around and everyone's like, do it.
Except for one guy.
One guy was like, roger, don't do it.
Don't do it, man. Everyone do it. Let's go. Yeah, right.
So guess what Roger does.
He pulls that shifter from behind the steering wheel. Cause it's a minivan.
And he floors his mom's green Dodge Caravan into this. Like this.
I'm expecting water to shoot for miles, right?
He floors it. And like, guys, instantly it just.
The minivan just broke.
And now there's six of us, guys.
And we're now in a minivan, stranded almost like in the middle of a lake. It's just water as far as you can see. And it's way deeper than we thought.
And one of the, one of my colleagues opens the sliding door and water starts rushing into the minivan.
I don't know if you know this.
Minivans, they're not made to traverse deep water.
That's not the way that they were designed to operate. They're not designed to traverse deep water. They're not designed to float in deep water. Because they're not boats. They're minivans.
Hear me?
Minivans break down when you use them in ways they weren't designed for.
The same is true for marriages.
The same is true for any and all marriages.
God designed marriage.
He designed it as a covenant relationship.
When it's treated like a conditional relationship or when it's treated like a consumeristic relationship, it breaks down.
It stops functioning the way it was designed to function.
It breaks because the designer didn't design it for that. Tim Keller, again, quote.
Married couples, listen to this.
Your marriage isn't yours.
It's an invention by somebody else.
And you have to enter in under the design and the regulations of the designer. If you're going to use it, if you're going to prosper in it at all.
End quote. Your culture is not going to tell you that.
Your maker will.
And maybe some of you feel unsettled, maybe you feel offended.
Don't let your heart be hardened right now, friend.
Let it be soft. Let it mold you.
Minivans break down when you use them. Wrong. So do marriages.
These hard hearted Pharisees, they were treating marriage contrary to how God designed it. They were treating it conditionally. You burn my food, you're gone, woman.
They were treating it conditional and consumeristic. But according to the Maker of marriage. Marriage is a covenant. Marriage breaks down when it's used in ways it wasn't designed for.
Listen, I know a large percentage of the room.
I know many of us in the room, like, you've witnessed a marriage break.
You've witnessed a marriage break. You've felt the sting of divorce.
Some of the most godly people I know have suffered through a marriage that ended either their own or their parents or somebody close to them.
Remember when I said in the beginning, there's some, like, sensitive topics here. This is a really sensitive topic because just statistically, half of the room.
Half of the room has felt that awful, terrible sting.
And Jesus, he makes it clear in this passage, divorce is not what God intended from the beginning. But nevertheless, it happens.
It happens when one or both parties stop treating marriage the way the designer designed it to be treated.
The Bible is super clear on this.
God designed marriage.
It's his idea.
He designed marriage to be one man and one woman in a covenant for life.
Look back at verse 5 with me really quickly.
Verse 5. He also said, for this reason. Again, he's quoting the Old Testament. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be, underline, be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Where it says be joined there in the Greek, the original Greek, it means this. It means to glue. It means to glue or weld together, to cling, to join, to unite.
That's covenant.
That's covenant. Literally, we see it right here. To be joined, that's covenant. No, you're clean. You're united. You're joined, you're glued, you're welded.
You ever welded something before that ain't coming apart?
To be welded together? It's covenant. Do you know what else it is?
It's sexuality.
He says it to become one.
And all the young people just got really uncomfortable in the room.
Youth in the room. I know that I'm gonna talk about sex just to warn you.
I know it can kind of feel awkward, like, oh, gosh, this is weird.
But God's got so much to talk about, this so much to share about sexuality. Why? Because it's a sacred thing.
It's a sacred thing, and it matters to him.
In our passage, guys, Jesus is reinforcing what the Bible explicitly teaches. Listen.
And that's this.
Any and all sexual activity is to be done exclusively within the context of the covenant of marriage between one man, a husband, and one woman, his wife.
That's the way the designer designed it.
And there's all sorts of cultural Narratives around sex. There's all sorts of opinions around sex.
The TV's got a lot of really terrible ones.
But God made it. It's a good and a beautiful thing. How can I say that? Because God designed it and it sounds really exclusive. I think one of the hardest parts, I think one of, in my experience, in engaging with people around conversations, people outside of the church, people that don't follow Jesus. I think one of the hardest things for them is the conversation around the exclusivity of sex within marriage between one man and one woman. They're like, why is this, like, this feels so exclusive?
Exactly.
That's God's point. Here. It is exclusive. And the questions become like, well, what about dating relationships?
Well, this isn't like my opinion, but like, according to God the designer, no.
Well, what about like a boyfriend and a girlfriend in a really serious committed relationship? It's like, well, according to God the designer, no.
What about even same sex relationships where there's like, there's mutual love and there's like commitment there? Like, according to God the designer, no.
And the question that comes up with that more often than not is, okay, well, why not?
Why not?
There are several reasons. I'm gonna give you two this morning. The first one, and this is the most important reason, is because God is worth worshiping with your sexuality.
That's the biggest reason. Cause he's worth it. He's the designer, he's your maker.
He's worth worshiping with that very sensitive part of everybody's life.
Listen, if you're a Christian in the room, that means you belong to him like you belong to God. That means your body belongs to him, your sexuality belongs to him. Every single part of you and I, every single part. Mind, body, soul, heart, all of it, it belongs to him. Look at First Corinthians, chapter 6, 18, 20. This is Paul like reinforcing this. He says flee sexual immorality. Listen to what he says.
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body.
But the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God. Listen to this.
You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.
So glorify God with your body.
Bought with a price.
How much? What's the price tag?
The blood of Jesus.
The blood of Jesus.
One of the hardest parts about pastoring people is watching people doubt their value.
There's been so many times, maybe you've actually been in the room with me when I'll get all antsy because so many times I'm watching somebody I love and they're struggling with their value in life. And because they're struggling with their value in life, behaviors and thoughts and actions are happening that aren't good for them and other people, but they're struggling at the core. They're struggling with their value in life. And I just want to go, you're worth the blood of Jesus. Like, you're so valuable. And I want to, like, shout it, not to be mean or arrogant, because I care. And I can see the breakdown happening. It's so. It's challenging. It's hard. Guys, do you ever question your value?
Do you ever genuinely go, like, man, I'm not worth as much as her or as him or as her or as him. And if I was more like him or her, then maybe I'd be more valuable if I could clean myself up a little bit more. If I was stronger. I'm a man, right? If I could bench press just a little bit more, I might be as valuable as.
Or whatever.
We can giggle about it. But listen, there are narratives all around you that would reinforce that your value is associated and attached to things that your value's actually not associated and attached to.
Do you have any idea how much you're valuable? Do you have any idea? It's the blood of Jesus. You're bought. Purchased at a price.
And because of that, that's a Christian. Because of that, the Christian says, Jesus willingly gave. He willingly gave his blood for me, so I willingly worship him with my sexuality.
The biggest reason, he's worth it.
He knows best, and he's worth it. And the second reason is we already kind of talked about it. Things break down when you use them wrong.
Things break down when you use them. Minivans break down when you use them wrong. Marriages break down when you use them wrong. Sexuality, same thing. It breaks down when you use it wrong.
But God designed you.
He designed you.
You weren't an accident. You were designed.
He designs you. And he really knows what's best for each one of us.
That's my long way of saying my fourth and final point, that God designs sex exclusively for marriage, parents and teenagers in the room.
If you want to maybe do some more helpful reading in that world, there's a really helpful book by a guy by the name of Sam Alberry. He's brilliant.
He wrote a book called why Does God Care who I Sleep With?
Super short, really accessible, really digestible. I cannot encourage you enough Maybe even go through that with your teenager. Tnj. Maybe go through that with your parent. If you feel uncomfortable, if you feel like the time's not right, talk about it, Wait till later. That's fine. You know, you parent your kids the way that you feel called by God to parent them. But the day is coming when those conversations need to take place that they haven't already, and it's important to do so. Okay, Sam Alberry. Why does God care who I sleep with?
All right, Band, that's my transition into response time. This is beautiful.
So, Ben, come up. So the reason why my transition is so bad right now is because, like I said, this was like two and a half messages, and we do not have time for another sermon and a half.
We're gonna pick this up again next week.
Band, come on up.
This is when like, to be continued flashes across the screen right now, and you're like, ah, this is lame. Like, that was really bad. Yeah, I know. To be continued next week.
I'm gonna close with this. So last night was crazy for me.
I'll say this.
I think most Saturdays, most Saturday nights before I preach are crazy. They're weird. Like, specifically, like, during the night, the rate of nightmares increases.
The weird stuff happening in my home increases. Like, the. Just the. Like, the spiritual temperature gets turned way up on Saturday night.
That happens often. Like, it's a typical thing.
And what I've noticed is that oftentimes, if I'm preaching on one of a few themes or topics, it gets real wild. Like, it gets, like, accelerated. It gets intensified.
And maybe you're here and you're like, this guy's weird. He's being overly spiritual.
It's real.
It's real. The warfare is real.
And there's a reason why it happens. Whenever I preach on prayer, it's like, hunker down, log household. It's about to go crazy.
And whenever I preach on marriage and sexuality, similar things happen. That was last night. Last night was insane.
I'll spare you the details, but it was not fun. But I woke up this morning kind of going, dude, what was the last five or six hours? All of that was crazy.
And then instantly, I got excited.
And the reason I got excited was because when the enemy is threatened, that's when you experience the most opposition.
When I talk about prayer, the opposition increases significantly. When I talk about marriage and sexuality, the opposition increases exponentially. It's intense. Why?
Hear me.
Because the enemy of your soul is threatened by your prayer life.
The enemy of your soul is threatened by the Marriages represented in this room, the enemy of your soul, the enemy of the kingdom of God, is threatened by the unmarried people in this room, guarding, protecting, glorifying God with their sexuality. He's threatened by that. Why do you think that is?
Why?
I'll tell you why.
Because the ripple effects of God's kingdom coming, specifically in your prayer life and in your marriage and in your sexuality, are a tremendous threat to the kingdom of. Of darkness. And Satan knows it.
Will you stand with me? If you're able.
If you're married in the room, I'm going to ask you to grab a hold of your spouse's hand. If you're able to at all. If you need to move towards them, I'd encourage you to do so.
Oh, sweet.
It was a test. She passed.
Keep her. Yeah, well, if you're not married, you matter just as much.
We're going to get into that next week, I promise you.
If you're not married, I want all of us to close our eyes right now. I'm gonna pray over us. I want you to close your eyes.
If you're not married, I want you to hold your hands out in front of you just as a posture, as a sign of, like, I want to receive from Jesus, Holy Spirit.
Marriages really matter.
Marriages really matter.
And, Father, I want to pray for anybody in the room right now.
If they're honest, whether they're married or not, if they recognize the condition of their heart is hard, maybe not in every area, but in areas that matter, in areas that matter to you.
I pray, Father, that you would soften our heart with the reality of your love and your mercy and your forgiveness.
I pray for anybody in the room that's struggling with a hard heart.
And it's keeping them from the kingdom.
It's keeping them from the abundant life that you desire for them. God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would soften their heart.
I pray that there would be a yielding to the hands of the artist, to our maker, to the lover of our soul.
I pray for married couples in the room now.
If they've been using marriages in ways that the designer didn't design for it to be used.
I pray for those that just have kind of slipped into it, becoming conditional, more consumeristic, instead of covenantal.
Father, I believe with all of my heart that you desire to restore marriages. This morning, I feel like even right now, like there's.
I feel like God's highlighting.
You came in this morning with your spouse and you're not united.
There's hurt feelings, there's unmet expectations, there's unhappiness.
If that's you, I feel like God's inviting you this morning.
He's inviting you to soften your heart and let him mold you into the man or the woman that your spouse will be blessed by in ways that bring transformation and bring more of God's kingdom in your life and in theirs.
And so, Father, we pray right now collectively, as people who need you, as people who don't have it all figured out, as people who want to not be stubborn.
Hard play. D'oh. That is just. We've already made up our mind.
We want to yield to you, God.
And so, Father, I release your spirit now, have your way among us for the remainder of our gathering.
Lead on, Jesus.
And Father, I thank you that every single one of us was bought with a price. The precious blood of Jesus. I pray for anybody in this room now who's not yet yielded to your lordship in their life, Jesus, that today they would. They would see you as trustworthy, they would see you as faithful, they would see you as the perfect, the perfect one, the bridegroom of all of our souls. And I know that can be kind of weird for the men, you know, but like, no, Jesus, there's nobody like you.
You made us to be in covenant relationship with you. And I pray for anybody who has not yet received your invitation to covenant relationship with you that they would embrace you this morning, increase your kingdom, rule and reign in all of our lives. We pray, Lord Jesus, in your name.
Amen.
If you're on the prayer team this morning, would you make your way to the front?
We're going to respond. We're going to take the next 15 minutes.
You can stand, you can sit, you can dance if you want to, you can be free. But hear me like, this is a time I want to invite you to respond. I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond to God.
If anything that I've said, if I've been talking to you, you're like, ah, there's something that's happening here with me. There's something happening with my. In my marriage. There's something happening in my heart. There's something happening with my. The condition, the hardness, the softness, whatever it is, that there's something there for you. There's trust in men and women that would love to pray for you. You can come forward at any time the next 15 minutes, and we're gonna fill this room with praise, with gratitude for the lover of our soul, the Savior, the redeemer, Jesus. There's nothing that Jesus can't forgive. There's nothing that he can't redeem. There's nothing that he can't restore.
I just can't help but wonder what would happen if we fully yielded to the artist's hands and let him shape us and mold us into the people that he's made us to be. I think we would experience levels of the kingdom that would bring us more pleasure, fill us with more power, give us more faith and more hope than anything else I can think of.
All right.
Enjoy him. And then Mikey will be up to close us and shepherd us. Okay? Love you guys very much.
