Good morning.
My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.
A special welcome if you're new or visiting with us.
We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,
but because we're following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good,
they don't need God's grace, and no one so bad they can't have it,
which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in His Word.
We're continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark,
and you'll remember that the Gospels tell the story of Jesus and His life and His death and His resurrection.
When we were in the first half, chapters 1 through 8, we were asking these two questions,
who is Jesus and how do we respond to Him?
Peter gives this definitive answer in the middle of chapter 8 to Jesus' identity,
proclaiming that He's the Christ.
And from that point on in the Gospel, we're sort of following Jesus to the cross
as He explains what it actually means to come after Him.
And as we've seen, it involves tremendous joy,
but also more suffering than we might choose or like.
We're continuing that theme this morning,
and we're going to be talking about a very painful topic for many of us,
which Jesus is going to come and teach His disciples about divorce.
Now, as your pastor, I, of course, think about you all every week,
but you've been especially on my mind this week,
because as I think of our congregation, this family,
I am painfully aware of the fact that divorce is not an abstract concept for us.
I know that many of you have experienced divorce personally,
and just as many, if not more of you,
have walked with a son or a daughter through their divorce.
And if you're a parent, you know oftentimes it's more painful
to watch something happen to your child than to go through it yourself.
You're tempted to wish that you could change places with them
so they wouldn't have to suffer.
And so it's not just that it's a concrete topic for us,
but it's also very painful and haunting no matter the circumstances.
And so I imagine for many of you, as we talk about this,
there are going to be all sorts of memories that are stirred up for you.
And I just want to remind you in the midst of that,
that Jesus was your shepherd before you showed up this morning.
He's going to be your shepherd when you leave.
And he's also your shepherd right now.
And he may not make you comfortable, but he does offer his comfort.
And so Jesus is with you in the midst of that.
We don't just face the challenge of pain and memories
as we talk about this topic together, but there's also some risks.
There's some mistakes that we can make as we look at Jesus' teaching.
The first mistake is the mistake of assuming
that everyone who is divorced has sinned somehow.
I had a mentor who shared with me at one point,
after his mother and father's divorce, when his mother would attend church,
she felt like she was walking in wearing this big scarlet D on her chest,
that she was known as the woman who had been divorced.
So it's important for us to recognize there are people who have sinned in this
and there are people who have been sinned against.
And so we need to be extremely careful in making assumptions about other people's stories.
The other mistake we can make is for those who look back
as they look at Jesus' teaching and they realize,
yeah, there are ways that I've really failed in this area.
And there's a risk of just wallowing in that shame
and not knowing what to do with it.
And so it's important to recognize that as we talk about Jesus' word,
it includes God's grace to us.
That Jesus' forgiveness is real.
And so we embrace that forgiveness and we walk in it.
That's the essence of the gospel, right?
The gospel assumes that we've made mistakes,
that we've sinned, that we've failed,
and we move forward following Jesus.
And so with that being said, I'll remind you as I say sometimes,
I'm going to say something, not everything.
And this is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of a conversation.
And so if there are things that you want to discuss more,
I'm happy to meet and do that.
With that in mind, let's turn together to God's word.
You can turn with me in your Bible.
You can turn in your worship guide.
You can turn on your phone.
No matter where you turn, this is God's word.
And God tells us in 30 verse 5 that every word of God proves true.
He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
And so that's why we read now starting at verse 1.
And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan,
and crowds gathered to him again.
And again, as was his custom, he taught them.
And Pharisees came up, and in order to test him, asked,
Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
He answered them, What did Moses command you?
They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.
And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.
Verse 6,
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.
And he said to them,
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you are a good shepherd and our good father.
And like a good father, you don't shy away from hard or sensitive or tender topics,
but instead you speak to us clearly because you love us.
And we ask that you would do that this morning.
We confess that your word is always too much for us unless you help us.
And we confess that's especially true this morning.
And so we ask for that help, that your spirit would be at work here,
that you would speak clearly to us,
and that you would comfort and be with us
as we face perhaps our own failures,
the failures of others,
and memories that we would rather forget.
We know that your grace is enough.
And so we simply ask for these things,
knowing that we don't have to earn them or deserve them,
but instead we ask for them in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We see at the beginning of this passage,
Jesus is on the move again.
The last time he changed locations was in chapter 9,
when he was in Capernaum.
And we're told verse 1 here,
he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan.
Now, if you're familiar with where the Sea of Galilee is
and where Jerusalem is,
you'll know at this point that Jesus is taking a journey south.
In other words, Jesus is doing what I've already told you about the Gospel of Mark.
He's heading towards Jerusalem.
Jesus is on his last journey here as he makes his way to the cross.
And as he does this, verse 2,
these Pharisees come as we've seen before,
and they test him.
Now, we talked about in the past that this word test is not a friendly word.
They are not coming with genuine questions.
They are not seeking understanding.
No, instead, they want to trap Jesus.
In fact, there's two ways that they can trap him here.
First, they are pulling him into this intramural Jewish debate
about Deuteronomy chapter 24.
Deuteronomy chapter 24 lays out conditions for divorce,
and it says you can divorce if there is anything indecent.
Now, there were two camps to translating that phrase.
One camp of rabbis believed anything indecent only referred to sexual unfaithfulness.
Another camp interpreted it as almost anything.
And so there was a strict camp,
and only if there's sexual unfaithfulness,
and there was sort of this no-fault divorce camp.
So they're pulling Jesus into this debate to try to get him to weigh in.
The other way they're potentially trying to trap him
is that Jesus is now back in Herod's territory.
Remember what Herod did back in chapter 6.
He beheaded John the Baptist for opposing his marriage.
And you'll recall that John the Baptist had married Herod,
had married Herodias, his brother's wife.
What did she have to do to marry him?
She had to divorce her brother.
And so potentially the hope is we will get Jesus on the record against this.
Herod took care of John the Baptist.
Herod can take care of Jesus for us.
They have set this up.
They're hoping here that Jesus is in a lose-lose situation.
As he always does, though, Jesus turns the tables on them.
And in verse 3, he says,
How about you answer your own question?
You tell me what Moses said.
In fact, he uses this word, what Moses commanded.
He's poking them because they have to admit the next verse
that Moses didn't command anything.
Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce
and send her away.
Jesus explains for them,
Okay, yeah, that's true that Moses allowed this.
Why did he do it?
Verse 5,
Because of your hardness of heart.
Jesus doesn't take sides in this debate.
He just says,
Look, what Moses did was not condoning or allowing divorce.
He was looking at a troubling situation
and choosing what some called the lesser of two evils.
And so he doesn't resolve this debate for us.
Is Deuteronomy talking about adultery
or is it talking about simply protecting a woman
who is in a vulnerable situation,
who's being divorced for a frivolous reason?
Either way, Jesus' point is clear.
Hardness of heart is not a good thing.
Your focus is entirely on the wrong place.
You are asking about how and when
and whether you can get divorced.
And instead, you should be focused
on the beauty and glory of marriage.
You should be focused not on how you can get out,
but how you can stay in.
Now, I just want to note for a minute
as we think about the Bible's teaching on divorce,
this is one of many passages.
And as we take all of those passages together,
the church is in agreement for the most part
that there are three categories of biblical divorce.
In other words, divorce that is not against God's law.
The first one is clear, adultery.
This was at least what Deuteronomy 24 was talking about.
Okay, so sexual unfaithfulness
is a biblical category of divorce.
The apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 7,
there's another category, the category of abandonment.
He says if one spouse leaves another,
the one who is left, the one who is abandoned,
is free to move on.
They're free to get married again.
And the third category is the category of abuse.
Now, we don't have a specific biblical text
that talks about abuse in marriage,
but biblical scholars have considered abuse
to be a form of abandonment.
It's a subcategory of abandonment.
And so those are three categories
as we think about a biblical divorce.
We have adultery, abandonment, and abuse.
And this is one of many passages
that we pull together and look at
to come to this conclusion.
But Jesus here is actually not interested
in talking about reasons or pathways for divorce.
What he says here is, look,
you want to talk about divorce,
but we actually need to back up.
What I want to talk about is what is marriage.
Divorce is not going to make any sense.
I cannot answer your question.
We can't get to the heart of the matter
until we get to the foundation of the matter.
What is it that we're actually talking about?
And as we'll see, Jesus teaching about divorce
only makes sense because of,
in light of his teaching on marriage.
And so we are also going to back up
and stop talking about divorce for a minute
and just talk about marriage
because that's what Jesus teaches about here
in verses six through nine.
First, in verse six,
it's interesting that Jesus does not start
with the institution of marriage
in the book of Genesis.
He actually backs up and talks about the fact
that God has created man, male, and female.
Now we might gloss over that in an earlier time period
right here in America in 2022.
This is a reminder for us that marriage is between
and marriage is only between a man and a woman.
Amen.
And that is not arbitrary, okay?
That is not something that God flipped a coin and said,
you know, there's no real reason behind this.
I'm just going to make a judgment call.
No, there is a deep logic that's behind the fact
that marriage is between a man and a woman.
There's this oneness that Jesus is going to talk about
later in the passage.
He says they become one flesh.
That one flesh requires there to be some mission,
some purpose, some trajectory
beyond and outside of that marriage.
Full and true oneness means you're pointing
to something beyond yourselves.
That's why marriages are public ceremonies, typically.
That's why we don't treat them like you would treat
signing a loan on a mortgage
because they are a public relationship.
Another way of putting it would be this.
Unity and oneness must be about more than pleasure
and self-fulfillment.
And yes, that's the narrative that our culture tells us
about any kind of marriage these days,
that it is mostly about you.
It is only, in other words,
a heterosexual union that fully points to something
beyond itself and outside of itself.
This is a simple logic.
It is rooted not in bigotry,
but in biology.
Only heterosexual couples have the potential for children.
This does not mean you must have children
for your marriage to point outside of that.
It does mean there is something intrinsic
to a man and a woman coming together in marriage
in a sexual union that points to a mission
and a purpose beyond themselves,
whether they are kids or not.
Now, I wish I could spend more time on verse six.
That is a brief summary.
If you look with me on page seven,
I've given you a brief summary of chapters one and two
from this book called What is Marriage?
And I have a quote there from it.
If you want to dig into the logic and the argument
behind why marriage is only between one man and one woman,
that is the resource I would point you to.
And they say this,
And then, drawing here, echoing Jesus' statement,
we see this,
The vision of marriage is about a comprehensive union
of sexually complementary spouses,
that is a man and a woman,
where a man and a woman unite as a husband and wife
to then provide children with a mother and a father.
Verse six,
When we're looking to understand marriage,
when we're looking to capture the vision
of what God imagined at the beginning,
we begin by understanding
that it is between a man and a woman.
Okay, so I'm going to put a pause there.
I realize that's the beginning of a conversation,
not the end.
That might raise more questions
than it answers for some of you,
and I'm happy to talk more about that.
Okay?
We'll move on here, though,
because after laying that foundation,
Jesus then tells us,
verses seven and eight,
that not only is this rooted in sexual complementarity,
it is also what he refers to as one flesh.
A man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two,
but one flesh.
You know, if you've been with us for a while,
that if the Bible wants to underline
and highlight something,
it repeats it.
When you are married to someone,
there is a sense in which two people become one.
This is certainly much more,
speaking about much more than the sexual union
between a husband and a wife.
It is not speaking about less than that.
Okay?
It is definitely speaking about more
than just what happens sexually
between a husband and a wife.
It is not speaking about less than that, though.
And so I want to pause here for a minute
and talk about what it means
when a man and a woman come together in sex,
when a husband and a wife enjoy one another.
There is something about the nature
and reality of sex
that makes two people one.
And it is more than physical.
There is something about the reality
and nature of sex
that makes two people one.
It is more than physical.
There is something spiritual going on.
There is something emotional that's happening.
There is something there
that is greater than the sum of its parts.
And that thing that happens
that we don't fully have language for
that's greater than the sum of its parts,
it is not just in the moment.
It is afterwards, too.
When a man and a woman sleep together,
it changes something fundamental
between the two of them moving forward.
In other words,
there is no such thing as casual sex.
There is no such thing as casual sex.
I invite you to look with me
at verse eight of your worship guide,
which explains this better than I can.
There's this quote
that I mentioned to you all a couple years ago
from Cameron Diaz
is in Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise,
and she's playing this woman named Julie,
and she's yelling at Tom in the car
as they're driving
because she's so frustrated with him.
By the way,
I do not recommend that movie.
If you watch it,
do not come back and complain to me, okay?
But she says this,
don't you know
that when you sleep with someone,
your body makes a promise
whether you do or not?
There is something about sex
that draws two people together
and makes them one,
then and moving forward.
When you have sex with someone,
you are saying physically
what your marriage vows say verbally.
You are saying physically
what your marriage vows say verbally,
and you are saying that
whether you want to or not.
When Cameron Diaz confronts Tom Cruise,
what she's saying is,
you have done more than you realize.
You don't realize the promises
that you made to me
when we slept together.
One theologian puts it like this.
This is the next quote.
The essential moral problem
with sex outside of marriage
is that it performs
a life-uniting act
without a life-uniting intent,
thus violating its intrinsic meaning.
There's no better definition
than I can find
for what happens
between a man and a woman.
It's that their lives
are united then
and moving forward.
When you sleep with someone,
you are saying,
I will never leave you
nor forsake you.
You are saying to them
whether you want to or not,
I will be with you
in sickness and in health.
You are saying,
whether you realize it or not,
I'm committed to you
for richer or for poorer.
It is a life-uniting act
with life-uniting power.
You make promises,
your body makes promises
whether you do or not.
Finally, Jesus tells us here
in verse nine,
what therefore God has joined together,
let not man separate.
In other words,
this is not just some sort
of private arrangement
that you have put together,
but that marriage happens
in the presence of God.
Every time I officiate a wedding,
there are two sets of vows.
The first set of vows,
I say,
you're going to make these vows
before God
and these witnesses.
Because marriage
is a public relationship.
And it's after that
that they make vows
to each other.
Marriage is not a private event.
Marriage is not
a private relationship.
There is a third party
involved in the vows
that happen,
the marriages in our church.
That party is God.
Spouses make promises
to one another.
They also make promises
to the creator
of the universe.
That's what marriage is.
I want you to think about it
in this way.
There are some things
that are so powerful
that they are reserved
for very special,
specific situations.
One example,
there are some weapons
that you will not use
for home defense.
Why?
They're too powerful.
The last thing you want
is a bullet
going through four doors
into your neighbor's house.
Right?
You're going to end up
hitting someone
who's innocent.
If you're going to use
a nuclear bomb,
you don't use it
unless you really want
to obliterate something.
Right?
It's too powerful
for anything else.
Do not use sex
unless you want
to permanently
and exclusively
join two lives.
It is too powerful
for anything else.
Do not use sex
unless you want
to exclusively
and permanently
join two lives.
It is too powerful
for anything else.
This is not because
we hate sex.
It's not because
we're afraid of it.
It's not because
we're old-fashioned.
It's because we recognize
its true nature.
We understand
and realize
how powerful
it actually is.
We recognize
God's goodness.
God says,
look, let me give you
this amazing tool.
It's going to be better
than anything
you've ever experienced
before
and it's going
to glue
two people together.
So, wow,
be careful with it.
It's great.
It's wonderful.
It's powerful.
Also,
be careful
how you use it.
And so,
for our young adults,
our youth,
I want you to
especially hear me.
You can believe
in gravity
or you cannot
believe in gravity.
If you jump off
a building,
you're going to
hurt yourself.
You can believe
what I've just told you
or you cannot
believe it.
You can learn
the easy way
or the hard way.
please learn
the easy way.
Either way,
sex without
vows
is taking
a great risk.
Sex without
vows
is jumping
off a building.
Only vows
make sex
safe.
Okay?
Remember,
John 8,
44
tells us about
the devil.
He's a liar
and the father
of lies.
What our culture
wants you to believe
right now
is that sex
is not a big deal.
What the Bible
teaches us
is that it is
an amazing,
big,
powerful deal.
Use it.
Be careful
where you aim it.
Now,
I mentioned before
it's certainly
more than sex.
It's not less
than that,
but it is
more than that.
And so,
having discussed
that one flesh
unity,
it's important
to recognize
that it is
what one of the
quotes I read
you called
a comprehensive
union.
That when you're
married to someone,
the way in which
you become one flesh,
yes,
it's inseparable
from your sexual
relationship
and it includes
everything else.
It means that you're
one financially.
It means that you're
one in where you live.
It means that you're
one emotionally.
There is a package
deal that goes
with marriage.
You are united
to this person
in every way.
There's a reason
why in our vows
we talk about
forsaking all others.
And so,
it's this background,
this meaning,
this power to marriage
that Jesus has to
lay the foundation
before,
before he jumps
back into the discussion
about divorce.
Look,
first thing you need
to know about marriage,
it takes two people
and it makes them
as if they're one.
It takes two people
and it makes them
as if they're one.
And so,
you're asking the wrong
question.
You have the wrong
vision here.
Your focus should not
be on when you can
divorce.
Know that marriage
is much greater
and more powerful
than you realize.
Let your focus
be on the beauty
of marriage
and how you can
stay together.
You are one person
now.
Do not separate.
You're one person.
Do not separate.
Okay,
it's with all
of that background,
Jesus lays out
the vision for marriage
that we can jump
back in now
and talk about
divorce.
Verse 9,
he says this,
what therefore
God has joined
together,
let not man
separate.
And then,
he says this
interesting thing
in verses 11 and 12,
whoever divorces
his wife and marries
another commits
adultery against her.
And if she divorces
her husband and marries
another,
she commits adultery.
Now,
that,
at first glance,
doesn't really make sense.
How can you commit
adultery when you're
not married anymore?
Adultery,
by definition,
requires marriage.
What Jesus is saying
is this,
even if you're
separated on paper,
you can't just
undo your
one flesh union.
Even if you're
separated on paper,
you can't undo
this one flesh
reality that's
happened between
the two of you.
Paper
can't take a person
and cut them in half.
Paper can't take
a person
and cut them in half.
There is a sense
in which you are
still connected together
because that oneness
is so intense
and comprehensive.
You are not
business partners
who have parted ways.
You are one body
that has been
ripped in half.
You're not business partners
who have just
simply parted ways.
When divorce happens,
you are one body
that is ripped
in half.
Now,
that may sound
harsh to say out loud,
but the reality is
if you
have been
divorced,
you know
those words
are perhaps
not strong
enough.
If you've
experienced divorce,
what I'm telling you
is something
that you
already
know.
You already
know that it's
one of the most
traumatic
and painful
things
that could
ever
happen to
someone.
And so,
I'm simply
giving language
for what it is
that you have
already
experienced.
This simply
explains
what we already
know from reality,
explains why
it is so
devastating
and painful.
Jesus is
outlining the logic
for us
so that it
finally makes
sense.
In other words,
this is not,
Jesus' words
are not
what's
painful.
Jesus'
words
describe
and help
us
understand
the pain
of what
is going
on.
If you've
experienced
divorce,
if you've
walked with
your child
through divorce,
if your
parents were
divorced,
you know
this is
true.
You don't
need me
to tell
you.
And so,
that helps
us understand
Jesus'
words here.
It helps
us understand
God's words
in the book
of Malachi.
It says,
God hates
divorce.
I had a
mentor
who was
divorced
and is
in a mixed
marriage now
and he told
me,
he's a
pastor,
he said,
Matthew,
before I
got divorced
and I
thought about
those words,
God hates
divorce,
I thought
about it
in terms
of God's
holiness
and his
law.
And that's
true,
but now
that I have
been divorced,
I know
why God
hates
divorce.
He hates
it because
it's so
devastating.
He hates
it because
of the
wreckage
that it
causes.
And so,
in the midst
of this,
that's the
glimmer of
God's love.
Jesus'
warning here,
God's
teaching in
the Bible
is not
out of
cruelty
or anger,
it's not
because God
is mean,
it's because
God knows
how painful
it is.
He wants
to spare
you.
He wants
to protect
you.
Now,
you might
be wondering
why we
haven't
talked about
Ephesians 5
and the
fact that
marriage
pictures the
gospel.
It does.
Talk about
that.
The challenge
before us
this morning
is simply
that that's
not the
thrust of
this passage.
So,
when we
get to
Ephesians 5,
we'll talk
about that.
We're in
Mark 10,
and Jesus'
argument here
in Mark 10
is one
based on
the one
flesh
reality.
We're going
to focus
on that
together
this morning.
I'll give
you a few
applications
as we're
here together.
First,
we need to
know that
we live
in a
society
of self
fulfillment
and we
follow a
savior of
self
sacrifice.
We live
in a
society of
self
fulfillment
and we
follow a
savior of
self
sacrifice.
In other
words,
the vision
that our
culture has
for marriage
is completely
wrong.
self
fulfillment
gives us
these reasons
for divorce
that make
no sense
in light
of the
one
flesh
union.
Self
fulfillment
looks for
the first
way out
when happiness
is declining
or when needs
aren't being
met.
Self
sacrifice
looks for
a way to
serve and
meet the
needs of
others.
Shine
Mountain,
I want to
tell you
three things
about our
marriages here
together this
morning.
First of
all,
don't go
it alone.
Please get
help sooner
rather than
later.
If you are
struggling in
your marriage,
please talk
to someone.
It is not
a badge of
honor.
It is not
something to be
proud of that
you've never
been to marriage
counseling.
Okay?
Remember,
we've talked
about over and
over in the
gospel of Mark,
need is the
price of
admission.
All of us
are broken
and need
help.
All of us
face
challenges
and sin
in our
lives.
Divorce
is one of
the hardest
things that
someone can
experience in
this world.
If you don't
believe that,
you've never
been divorced.
Do not
go it
alone.
Do not
walk by
yourself.
second,
don't believe
the lies
that our
culture tells
us.
There's a
genre of
movie and
novel right
now that's
been affectionately
or pejoratively
titled divorce
porn.
The most
clear example
is Eat,
Pray,
Love,
the movie
with Julia
Ross,
which presents
divorce as
this wonderful,
beautiful thing
where if you do
it, you get to
go visit Italy
and meet a man
who's a
10.
Brothers and
sisters,
you're harder
to live with
than you
realize,
and you
ain't a
10.
Okay?
It's a
believable
myth.
Do not
believe,
eat,
pray,
love.
That is
not the
reality of
divorce.
Okay?
Finally,
be careful
who you
marry.
Hormones
in the
Holy Spirit
are both
real.
They are
not the
same.
Marriage
is a
very,
very
serious
commitment.
Can't get
out of
marriage
lightly?
Don't go
into marriage
lightly.
It takes
time for
someone's
character to
reveal itself.
It takes
time for
you to
finally
understand,
oh,
he has a
real problem
with anger.
That doesn't
show up on
the first
date.
Okay?
Trust me.
It takes
time to
realize,
oh,
this person's
emotionally
unstable.
Okay?
That may
not show
up in
month one.
Be
careful
who you
marry.
People
can hide
things for
a time.
They
cannot hide
them
forever.
Take
time.
Know.
Know who
you're
marrying.
Okay?
Know what
you're getting
into.
Don't go
it alone.
Don't believe
divorce porn.
Be careful
who you
marry.
What does
this all
have to do
with the
gospel?
Well,
part of what
the gospel
tells us is
that God is
coming to
restore this
world.
And so
when Jesus
presents us
this great
vision of
what marriage
is meant to
be,
saying,
look,
let's get
back to
the way
God
intended it.
Let's
not try to
focus on
these
exceptions.
Let's
go back
to
restoring
this
world.
Marriage
is not
easy.
It
actually
turns out
it's
really
hard for
men and
women to
try to
figure out
how to
get along
with
each
other.
Jesus'
commitment
empowers
our
commitment.
Jesus'
commitment
empowers
our
commitment.
We look
to Jesus'
model and
love for
us so
that we
can give
that love
to others.
I'm
stealing
this from
another
pastor,
but he
says marriage
is two
ticks and
no dog.
You have
to find the
source of
your love
somewhere
outside of
your marriage.
That
source is
God's
love
for
you.
Finally,
it's
Jesus'
death
that
covers
our
failures.
In
Matthew
chapter
one,
we find
that
about
Jesus'
genealogy,
all the
people
who've
come
before
him
that
lead
to
Jesus'
birth.
And
you know
what?
Jesus
comes
from a
long
line
of
people
who
messed
up
marriage.
Jesus
comes
from
Jacob
who
was
a
polygamist.
Jesus
comes
from
Tamar
who
pretended
to be
a
prostitute.
Jesus
comes
from
David,
King
David,
who
committed
adultery.
Jesus
came
from
Solomon
whose
many
wives
led
him
astray.
Which
reminds
us of
this.
Your
hope
this
morning
as you
leave
is not
that your
marriage
would be
perfect.
your
hope
this
morning
as you
leave
is not
that your
past
has no
mistakes
and
failures
in it.
Your
hope
this
morning
is
Jesus.
Jesus
is the
one who
lays out
the
standard
for
marriage.
He's
the
one
whose
lineage
includes
many
people
who
messed
up
their
marriages.
Jesus
is the
one
who
dies
to
cover
the
sins
of
our
failures
and
our
mistakes.
As
long
as
you
are
breathing
and
alive
in
this
world
your
story
is
not
over.
Jesus
is
with
you
and
for
you.
And
so
that's
our
hope
that
we're
going
to
sing
together
on
page
eight.
Jesus
is
a
friend
for
sinners.
We're
told
the
first
verse
Jesus
makes
us
whole.
Jesus
is
our
comfort.
He
helps
our
soul.
And
no
matter
what
our
story
includes
we
know
that
we
are
his
and
he
is
ours.
So
we're
going to
sing
that.
Let's
pray
together
first.
Our
Father
in
heaven
we
praise
you
and
thank
you
for
your
word
even
when
it's
hard
and
challenging.
I
do
ask
for
your
comfort
for
your
sons
and
daughters
here
this
morning.
As no
doubt
painful
memories
and
experiences
have been
stirred up
I ask
that you
would
remind
them
that you
are
their
good
shepherd
that
you're
with
them
that
others
may
have
left
them
or
forsaken
them
but
you
don't
and
you
won't
and
that
your
grace
and
your
forgiveness
are
real
that
our
hope
is
not
that
we
would
have
perfect
marriages
but
our
hope
is
in
you.
I invite
you to
stand
for our
closing
hymn.