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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] good morning church today's scripture reading is taken from the book of matthew chapter 5 verse 27 until 32 adultery you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery but i tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her and his heart if your right eye causes you to stumble gouge it out and throw it away it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to
00:00:46 stumble cut it off and throw it away it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell divorce it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce but i tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her the victim of adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery chapter 19 verse 1-11 divorce when jesus had finished saying these things he left galilee and went into the region
00:01:28 of judea to the other side of jordan large crowds followed him and he healed them there some pharisees came to him to test him they asked is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason haven't you read he replied that at the beginning the creator made them male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united 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 while then
00:02:10 they ask did moses command that the man gives his wife a certificate of divorce and sent her away jesus replied moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard but it was not this way from the beginning i tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery the disciples said to him if this is the situation between a husband and wife it is better not to marry jesus replied not everyone can accept this word but
00:02:50 only those to whom it has been given may the lord bless the reading of his word good morning fbc good to see all of you uh let me give a wave you are still there right i see every of you linda i see set yin jamie hi vincent hi you too hi good to see all of you all right all right let's uh we're going to deal with a very important topic today the topic of relationships all right so let's before we start we'll have a word of prayer lord we ask you this morning to grace us with your presence we pray the
00:03:36 holy spirit be in the hearts and move our hearts as we explore your word as your word is preached and spoken of it will stir us to respond in a way that will be glorifying to you we ask for jesus sake amen right this morning we're going to talk about relationships and the center of our relationship is our relationship with god and if that has been transformed by god and the holy spirit then the horizontal relationships that we have with each other will also be similarly ris resolved it will be normalized as to what it actually
00:04:14 should be so when we look at a relationship to each other we're actually looking at how they are transformed by our relationship with god so relationships are important so we've got contemporary uh attitudes to relationships which is basically the pharisees their their take on the law and this is jesus command so you've got jesus saying i've heard you've heard that it was said to those of all which means contemporary society's opinions and then jesus says but i say to you he says a whole new paradigm if the righteousness
00:04:49 or the the religiosity of the pharisees was the highest echelon of perfection jesus pulls it a little bit further if i tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the contemporaries which is described as pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven so jesus sets a new standard as it were so we're going to look at relationships and the core of all relationships in our existence in this world is basically the relationship between a man and his wife which is why genesis chapter 1 starts off with creation
00:05:27 chapter 2 starts off with adam and eve together in the relationship before we actually get into the destruction of relationship with sin so therefore relationships are the most important thing now the passage deals with adultery last and all that but we're going to be focusing on divorce and remarriage because this is what is under siege all over the world all over the world this is what's tearing the world apart this is what's tearing the church apart if you look at the divorces and marriage in malaysia
00:05:59 itself there's some data looking in the past few years it's steadily rising so we are not very much different from the societal trends all over the world we have people living together as well the first british prime minister in history now uh has a live-in girlfriend or de facto partner and this is a study from the institute of for family studies in canada and their headline in 2017 was increasing cohabitation is destabilizing the canadian family in fact if you look at the data here quebec has the one of the highest
00:06:38 rates of cohabitation in the world if you look at the in 2001 there are about 25.2 percent of their total couples which are actually cohabiting not really married in 10 years to 2011 is 31 much higher than the rest of canada or the united kingdom or the united states but the rates are increasing and the problem is that you've got this cohabitation is that you actually have families children being born out of marriage out of this secure relationship which is the nidus of the society which is the family 40
00:07:15 percent of united states children thirty percent of canadian children are actually born outside marriage when you break up the traditional marital family structure you have dysfunction this is a slight taken from the united states where we looked at arrests among adolescents by family structure if you look at the arrests five percent only occur in an intact married family that would be good family or strong family as long as they're intact they haven't divorced okay there is it is the lowest number
00:07:46 of arrests the rest of them eight percent married but step family eight percent in tech cohabiting family thirteen percent cohabiting step family single divorce parent family nine percent and 13 single parent family so this matters when the relationships break down when the basic marriage unit breaks down the people who actually are casualties are not only the couple are basically also the children 2015 to 2018 looking at the marital trends in the united states same-sex couple couples cohabiting rose by 50
00:08:24 same-sex married couples rose by 200 percent all right why does it matter look at these trends in the united states look in 1960 to 1990 the crime rate is climbing in the same proportion as children living in single parent families as families break out the fallout causes crime for every 10 percent increase in single parent families there is a reciprocal 17 rise in violent team crime so as families break down the people who are disenfranchised are actually the children look at the most famous court case
00:09:05 that's actually going on you can switch on cnn or bbc you actually can catch this trial live some time ago this police officer derek chauvin subdued this man george floyd six foot four of him and he put his knee on to his neck three minutes after he actually died and this is going to the court case and you can actually notice both of them were children divorced george floyd's family divorced when he's two and derek chovan actually divorced family divorced at the age of seven children from divorced
00:09:40 families and remarried are 91 percent more likely to be divorced as well how do we solve this problem write a check right data from the u.s shows that since 1965 welfare spending has increased 80 and you'd expect the crime to go down right no the crime actually rose three times even though you spend 80 percent more you can't throw money at the situation because this is this problem lies at the core of the relationship between men and women in fact senator phil graham actually said if social spending
00:10:16 stopped crime we would be the safest country in the world and you know with america having a mass shooting every day this is not so it is a breakup of the family this lawrence jacobs was in melbourne in 2014 at the world congress of families and he actually said that the breakdown of the family is to blame for 90 percent of the poverty right when the family breaks down we have to find the truth and the truth is there's no there's statistically no better place for a child than a conventional family ninety
00:10:50 percent of poverty can be addressed by simply affirming the sanctity of marriage which is why we have this talk today in the summer amount because christians for us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world it is it has to begin at the core of society it has to begin at the core of the church and the core of the church is actually the family the married couple together so today we're going to look at marriage and divorce in the eyes of jesus not in eyes or the pharisees or contemporary societies and
00:11:22 trends we're going to look at marriage and divorce in the eyes of god the only three points i want to put forward which are fairly simple today first of all divorce needs to see be seen in the light of marriage not divorce on its own marriage needs is a calling it is not a right marriage is transformed by the cross now the first thing a divorce must be seen in the light of marriage we're looking at things in the wrong perspective the pharisees at the time they represented contemporary attitudes towards bearish and divorce
00:11:58 and all they were focused on was permission for divorce in fact jesus addressed this in verse 31 22 it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce so they were bringing up these issues jesus brings up this issue of the certificate of divorce and then in matthew chapter 19 same gospel people came up to him pharisees came up to him and tested jesus by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause now they're testing him yes there is divorce yes we can divorce
00:12:31 but what are the grounds for divorce right so basically we've got two schools of thought at that time right wing and left-bringing totally left-wing is basically the hillel school and they were the liberal scholars they said you could divorce for any reason the shamai school were the conservative right-wing school they said oh no no you couldn't do that marriage you can only divorce under very strict circumstances and that's basically marital infidelity who's right so they pulled jesus into this debate
00:13:02 to gain traction and they looked at the deuteronomy 24 passage and the deuteronomy 24 passage is very simple it wasn't designed for all this it was just designed by moses because of the sinfulness of man and what he said if man a marries wife a and unfortunately they have a divorce she runs off to man b and gets married to man b okay unfortunately uh the guy dies and so therefore she runs back to man a and and moses said no you can't remarry this woman because of the particular divorce otherwise you
00:13:38 trivialize the divorce and here you actually have um the interpretation of indecency when a man takes a wife and marries her if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her he writes a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house she departs out of his house so therefore what they're doing is that they're looking at oh you can't divorce there is a certificate of divorce i know genesis says they get married but deuteronomy says there is a certificate
00:14:08 of divorce now and then the pharisees homed in when can you actually divorce well when she finds no favor in his eyes because he's believe he has found some indecency in her nah nah now that leaves you room for interpretation right so what they did was this is writings from the mishnah which is a commentary on jewish thought at that time rabbi akuba says even if we found someone who is prettier than she since it is said it and it shall be if she finds no favor in her eyes so they looked at you try name 24 and they
00:14:43 just took that part where she finds no favor in his eyes they say if someone is prettier than my wife they are married at someone else um then here we actually have mishna getting 910 house of hillel liberal school even if she spoiled his dish his dinner since he said because he has found some indecency in her in anything which means she cooks at an indecent meal she destroyed your chakwe teow that is grounds for divorce all right titus flavors josephus this is a very famous historian who writes a lot of stuff that
00:15:19 we know about at this period i divorced my wife being displeased at her baby her behavior oh goodness chinese bok choy yeah say say things back to husband she has bought me three children doesn't matter afterwards i married a woman of jewish extraction you see how they have distorted what scripture has said this is uh lppkn uh study in malaysia 2014 2015 looking at the causes of divorce or separation in marriages first marriages between the age of 15 and 59. and they looked at the reasons cited by the males and the
00:15:58 reasons cited for female number one cause is lack of understanding between the spouse 56.2 of the men said my wife don't understand me lah that's why i must divorce her at fifth 38.2 percent of the women say that the men don't understand me that's why i have to divorce him so this is actually quite frivolous it's not exactly spoiling your dinner but it comes quite close the lack of understanding between the fast spouse now you talk about infidelity you can find uh 20.5 percent of the women said that the the spouse teaches them
00:16:33 11.8 percent of the men said that spouses cheated her so now take notice men you are twice more likely to cheat on your spouse than the women all right uh meddling in birth is unique to chinese to asian culture meddling by family and in-laws six percent women complain of that and ten percent of the men complain that so eat laws should stay out they should be outlaws irresponsible spouse is interesting fifteen percent of women said their spouse was irresponsible never bring home the bread or take the
00:17:05 bread and spend somewhere else none of the men actually complain of that then there are other miscellaneous reasons so these are fairly trivial reasons that our society actually brings up for divorce and the most trivialization was some years some years ago when the certain people decided to get divorced by just smsing i divorced you three times love our bad isn't it love right so jesus addresses this problem he plunges in it doesn't matter what society says but i want to look at what jesus says he doesn't deny
00:17:41 divorce he says whoever divorces his wife let him give a certificate of divorce but i say dude everyone who divorces his wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery whoever buries a divorced woman commits adultery so therefore he's saying divorce is a no-no under any circumstances except there's one ground of exception it is a ground of sexual immorality you see jesus sees divorce in the light of marriage uh matthew 19 6 where they come up and talk to him by divorce
00:18:11 straight away he said talking about divorce you know what he did he says they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore god has joined together let not man separate so what this pharisees were coming up to jesus the first thing they asked is about divorce jesus points them back to the main thing they're actually focusing on the peripheral thing they've lost the plot they're more interested in divorce than actual marriage see sin is always seen or cast in the light of the original intent sin in the garden eden is always in
00:18:43 chapter three it's not in chapter one or chapter two because chapter one talks about the beauty of the entire creation chapter two talks about the beauty of the garden in which god has specifically designed to give the light to enjoyment of man and woman and then he brings them both together only in chapter three we buck it up and basically sydney cup so sin needs to be seen in that light to know its enormity it's like if all she can see in the garden of eden all she can see is basically the fruit
00:19:18 of the knowledge a good reveal every morning wake up see that's all i can see she cannot see the rest when when god said you can eat from any fruit of any tree of this entire huge garden she misses that and sin is always focusing on the wrong thing paulo so uh kohilo who's basically a well-known novelist actually writes life spent resisting temptation is a wasted life and that's him focusing on the exception rather than the norm sin rather than what god has given in fact was very interesting during this
00:19:53 pandemic in malaysia you complain that uh if you are caught without a mass or social distancing you get a ten thousand dollar fine right in the philippines they made this man go up and down holding his ears 300 times until he died see a law which was supposed to save lives ends up killing people right so divorce is a provision because of sin jesus said to them because of your hardness of heart moses allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so so jesus needs to focus our attention not
00:20:31 on divorce but be beyond the actual institution of marriage divorce is a provision it's a concession because of sin let's look at the original provision in matthew chapter 9 verse 4 onwards he answered them have you not heard have you not read that he who created them from the beginning which means marriage is actually a god-given creation ordinance it is not a social contract god made men and women and suddenly they got together and they said i like you you like me we have a contract we live together that we have some
00:21:06 children we don't like we split no right from the beginning creation ordinance is given by god and number two he created them from the beginning he made them male and female number two it's complementary marriage is complementary it's not same sex it is different sex number three therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife it's permanent it is not temporary he doesn't go back to his mother and father he's exclusive he holds on to his wife he doesn't hold on to his mother-in-law
00:21:40 he holds on to his wife it's permanent exclusive and it's nuclear they form the basis of a new family that will propagate in society so they are no longer two but one flesh and what god has joined together let not man separate which jesus is saying this is a divine in ordinance you are not supposed to separate them unless jesus gives the exception clause now christians are divided good christians are divided all over the world no need to fight about it all right we need to respect each other's views that
00:22:16 those who will say there are there's no divorce and only remarriage at all that's fine uh there are those who say you can divorce but no remarriage then there's those who say you can divorce on biblical grounds and then remarry and then those who are basically saying you can divorce in marriage just like the hillary school under any other causes all right now i want to go through these views very quickly the actual topic is a little bit more complicated but let's take it from this passage itself
00:22:45 first of all we look at this passage divorce and remarriage under any circumstance like the hillel school is actually not on because jesus didn't say that he didn't affirm the hillary school he didn't say you could divorce your wife because you found her cooking indecent all right now the other issue is that well i don't believe you can have a view where you have no divorce or no rematch at all because jesus actually mentions the exception clause very clearly in chapter 5 and chapter 19 both in the same gospel jesus says
00:23:19 to you whoever divorces what except for the immorality and marriage another commits adultery there is an exception clause why because of the hardness of men's heart all right so by say to you this is chapter five except on the grounds of immorality so matthew writes it twice okay and and the reason of uh infidelity uh sexual immorality the greek word is basically pornea and pornea is actually any extramarital sexual activity any one flesh experience which is outside your wife which is pre-marital sex
00:23:58 incest sexual sins that destroy a marital covenant covers homosexuality sexual animal sex with well sexually anybody else other than your wife is covered by the word porneia and and and you destroy the marriage relationship with this now there are two other gospels mark and luke which are primarily written for more gentile influence audiences which actually don't mention it right whoever divorces wife and marries another commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries does she commit adultery but no
00:24:32 mention of sexual immorality luke chapter 16 verse 18 uh luke is a gentile he writes everyone who uh uh they said sorry he's a he's a doctor who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who commit marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery peop scholars will look hey there there's there's no exception clause here but you know in graco roman society divorce and remarriage are usually universally permitted especially mandatory when there's actual adultery so therefore just because they don't
00:25:06 mention it doesn't mean that this accepted clause does not apply because matthew mentions it twice and so therefore you bring it together these four gospels it is still coherent right so we're going to look now that we'll look at when you divorce can you remarry or not all right now i say to you everyone who divorces wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery which means it is actually in the re-marriage that has adultery not if you divorce and
00:25:40 then you didn't remarry that's not adultery involved it's the remarriage that causes adultery now but if you look back in jewish times where the pharisees and sadducees were operating remarriage is implicit in the divorce the whole idea of getting divorced is so that you could remarry uh on the twenties uh uh divorce writ which is taken i will read to you the actual divorce rate on the 20th day of seven year three of the freedom of israel i shall miss your daughter of joseph kripchan from engetti with you
00:26:16 use elysia son of hanonaya who had been my husband before this time that this is this certificate this is for you from me a bill of divorce and release this bill of divorce and release the bill of right laws a divorce comes with release uh this is another one from mishnah getting 9 3 our judah says let this be from me your writ of divorce letter of dismissal deed of liberation that you may marry anyone you want so therefore divorce automatically comes with re-marriage this is paul now paul also subscribes to
00:26:57 this because he says in 1 corinthians chapter 7 verse 15 if an unbelieving partner separates which means divorce let it be so in such case the brother or sister is not the word is enslaved god has called you to please don't go and fight about it the brother sister is not instead what does he mean not enslave well if you go a few verses further up it says interest 10. to the merit i give you this charge not i but the lord the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does she should remain
00:27:30 unmarried or else be reconciled to a husband and the husband should not divorce his wife which means when paul talks about being enslaved he means that that divorce comes at remarriage because if he wanted them not to remarry verse 10 he would specify if she does she should remain unmarried right if paul said divorce means no remarriage he would have stated specifically which he did right so therefore we're looking at divorce only on biblical grounds and remarriage in that situation now let's get that passed i want to focus on more
00:28:12 important things marriage is a calling it is not a right the disciples look at the dog's face all of them right you know what the disciples said to him if such a case you can only divorce only in sexual immorality heartbeats it's better not to marry everyone who said not everybody can receive this saying only those to whom it's given and why are they shocked why do they look like these dogs well because unhappy marriage you're trapped for life habits every morning wake up look at your face you look at my face we're not happy
00:28:51 is this for life so in that case better not marry isn't it divorce gives you options pre-nuptial give you option family trust give you options you can protect your wealth what you're doing is that jesus you know what he's doing he's closing the back door he's closing the back door which is terrible for the average contemporary person you see marriage jesus saying is not for everyone it's not a right for example verse 19 verse chapter 18 verse 12. for there are eunuchs who have been sold from birth you know
00:29:27 what the eunuch is everybody anyone know what a unit is this person who has no ability to have sex all right and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men and their eunuchs have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven let the ones who have been able to receive this uh receive this so what he means is that marriage is not for everyone because there are people who are single from genetic causes born sometimes you're born and and you look at the genitalia you don't know whether male or female you're gonna
00:30:01 scratch your head and then the doctor gonna make this horrible decision whether you're male or female or you're traumatic if you happen to work like the uh shadrach meshach abednego in the persian emperor's court most of the court officials the admiral ching-ho the famous one well they're all eunuchs they actually cut off the genitalia why because they don't want you kachowing their wives the empress all right or the last one the people who basically are you nuts for the choice of the king because the the the the
00:30:32 agenda for the kingdom is so important they don't have time john the baptist was a single person jesus never married and philip has four unmarried daughters who are basically uh prophetesses right so their singlehood is an option all right now the tension that's baked into marriage is already seen in genesis chapter two two shall become one flesh and in genesis chapter three we have the consequences of sin the consequences that for the woman your desire will be for your husband it's not sexual desire a desire to
00:31:08 dominate because this same word is just genesis chapter four where sin wants to you know desire to to to to overwhelm man so your desire will be to basically control your husband and he will rule over you so you have got two competing desires the detention is baked into marriage which makes it very very difficult marriage is a calling paul calls in the calling when he's talking about marriage in general 1 corinthians chapter 17 he says only let each person lead the life that the lord has assigned to him to which lord has
00:31:42 called him this is my rule and all that jesus and all the churches he's saying that every single one of you out there in zoom there is a calling there's an assignment and your assignment may be marriage it is not a right i mean i wake up i'm a man and you're a woman so therefore definitely we have a right we have a god-given right and god didn't give me a uh wife i get upset i'm scold i won't pray to him anymore no marriage is a calling look at the situation to discern your calling if you're a single person look at your situation
00:32:12 chapter 7 verse 26-29 i think in the view of the present distress which means difficult times in the world it's good for the person to remain as he is are you bound to a wife are you single don't seek to be do not seek are you bound to wife if you're married do not seek to be free are you free from what don't seek a wife but if you do marry you haven't sinned and never betrothed woman marriage she has not sinned so therefore there is a situation when you look at and you can discern your calling but paul is probably the
00:32:47 only person who has a realistic view of everybody else sings you the song and done you find your soul mate you'll be happily ever after if you didn't live happily ever after means you chose the wrong person right but if you look at what paul says those who marry will have worldly trouble and this is not just financial it is interpersonal where your desire will be for your husband he will rule over you and i would spare you that this is what i mean brothers the appointed time has grown short the you know the time that we have to
00:33:18 serve god and earth is so short don't spend it fighting with each other all right those who marry will have worldly trouble i will spare you of that so today instead of regarding marriage as a calling we actually remake weddings and marriages according to our own image how do we do that we look at the modern marriage they each sit down and spend days writing their own script writing their own vows they don't want to say i will i will obey the husband they don't want to say in sickness and health till death does
00:33:53 part no we'll say something else it's couch in romantic language and that's what we are trying to do we're trying to remake marriage according to our old image we want to look at the spouse you want to look at that person and that's the only person on which will place all our hopes of happiness procreation fulfillment companionship sexual satisfaction everything that is what marriage is about the marriage is focused about what the effect the person has on me i'm married because i'm looking for personal happiness and fulfillment
00:34:25 that's the nature of what marriage is in today's society let's look at the popular culture movies eat pray love julia roberts okay the soul mate you're looking for will will will cause you to change so you'll never be the same a true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet why because they'll tear down your walls and smack you awake you you'll be awake and you'll be enlightened you'll be awakened to a new dimension of life your your whole world will will come apart will blossom
00:35:00 you see i mean marriage will marriage do that for you finding a soul mate this uh old movie jack nicholson and helen hunt as good as gets marriage should make you a better person if you make you make me want to be a better man he's a horrible man jack nicholson and because of helen hunt he she makes him want to be a better man fools rush in by janice thompson the movie you're everything i never knew i wanted wow isn't that romantic so you need girls you need to find somebody out there who who will basically you know make you
00:35:34 want to be everything that i never knew i wanted uh what about dawson's creek what's a soul mate a person who knew you accepted you believe in you before anyone else did or when no one else would you see the kind of pressure you place on your husband on your soul mate it's marriage reconfigured to find the soul bait which means even you watch movie and netflix with your wife and then she'll turn around say to you hey actually your husband you're not my soul mate you're very far from what is this is this describing so this
00:36:09 must not be a good marriage right because it is a wrong premise for marriage to be on here's a soulmate checklist okay which you tick young people before you get married you must person must help you build self-awareness ask a thought-provoking questions do you want bhakti or not uh gives to us without expectation sparks meaningful conversations helps us love and accept ourselves show appreciation to us this is all about us we look at the idealized couple in netflix and we re-imagine ourselves like them
00:36:50 that's that perfect if i've only found the correct person that will be us but that's a totally unrealistic image of what marriage is because sooner or later my husband disappoints me all the time our vision is clouded by our own needs and expectations what we're doing is that we're looking at that person and we are projecting all our needs and expectations to that other sinful person and expecting that person to meet all of that and then marriage becomes an entire negotiation period where you try to beat my niece i meet your
00:37:25 niece because you meet my needs and it's a battle on and off and you can take this from the longest uh you know married couple in the uk united kingdom philip and elizabeth love marriage and you know on the 50th anniversary what he said tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage that's the closest ideal to what paul said in life you will have trouble right marriage is a calling verse 39 or chapter 7 a wife is bound to a husband as long as he lives but if her husband dies she's
00:38:02 free to be married to whom he wishes but only in the lord if marriage is so difficult you actually may get married because marriage is the lens through which we see christ and the church and so how can you see that lens how can that marriage of yours be the lens through which society can see reconciliation and forgiveness if you're married to a person who is not of the lord so marriage is a calling so i'm not gonna have anybody come and tell me oh i married a person because i like the person he fulfills me a soulmate but
00:38:34 what god paul is saying you marry in the lord because that's your calling we need to differentiate between a disappointing difficult marriage and a destructive parish the exception clause which jesus gives in matthew chapter 19 is a destructive marriage when you've got infidelity or the threat to life and limb in that particular case yes there is divorce is in the picture because of the sinfulness of the man but the important things that most marriages have disappointing times and difficult times and we need to
00:39:04 be able to differentiate between them and marriage needs to be seen in the light of your overall kingdom commitments verse 29 and 31 paul says this is what i mean brothers the appointed time has grown is always saying that pointed time has grown very short which is the end times from now on let those who are wives live as if they are none very shocking right and those who mourn as though they were not in the morning and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as if they had not
00:39:35 goods that those who deal with the world as though they had no delays to the world for the present form of this world is passing so therefore we are at the end times people are going to get more evil the need for the gospel the kingdom is so great that we actually have to reconfigure our marriages in such a way our lives in such a way as to have the overall overriding priority is the kingdom of god so marriage as a calling needs to be seen in the context of the kingdom of god my last point is marriage
00:40:12 is transformed by the cross there's nothing like this in the world you see the problem of marriage is the hardness of heart sin all right your desire the wife will be for your husband and he will rule over you marriage is hard this is always the underlying dynamic how do we solve it well if you're a psychologist you look at all the studies to see whether you actually find the right husband maybe you'll find the right husband wife then there won't be any divorce or maybe uh you should date for a longer period of
00:40:47 time here's some data from the west which i've gotten this is duration of dating before proposal if you date for one to two years there's a 20 less likely to divorce if you date for three years or more 39 percent less likely to vote to divorce but all date for 10 years i wonder what the figures will be if you did for 10 years right what about uh income level do you know that the wider the higher your income level the less likely you are to divorce so those who earn 125 000 is a couple less likely to divorce what
00:41:24 about the people attending your wedding you find that this is the less peop the more people attend your wedding the less chance you got to a divorce if 200 people come and attend your wedding your 92 percent less chance of getting divorced which is church wedding very good because we're at least 300 of us and uh what about spending on wedding all right so if you were to spend 10 to 20 000 or more 20 hours and you're probably less likely to uh the more likely to get divorced if you spend too much wedding then you
00:42:00 start to fight about it right what about honeymoons anyone here like honeymoons raise your hands all of you binu honeymoons married couples right do you know that divorce is less likely if there was a honeymoon no honeymoon dingy fella are more likely to get divorced all right so that's what the world does it looks at statistics and you try to avoid all this right in the old testament moses certificate divorce protect the women in the new testament is the cross it is the cross the cross is actually
00:42:35 the game changer absolute game changer in any marriage therefore a man will leave here is paul he adds to what jesus says therefore a man should leave his father and mother hold fast to his wife the two will become one flesh then he goes on this mystery is profound and i'm saying that refers to christ and the church however let each one of you love his wife as himself and the wife see that she respects her husband so what he's saying is that today all right the picture of marriage is the lens to which the world will see christ and
00:43:11 the church now when you look at christ in the church it's like the most perfect person in the entire world more handsomer than brad pitt and he marries the ugliest person in the world why because we at the church are horrible horrible sinners and how can he marry us right see when we look at marriage or the handsome fellow accordion star mary the the the handsome the beautiful woman no no no the picture of marriage is christ the perfect god marrying the imperfect church and making that church perfect
00:43:45 because of his love right christian relationships are no longer based on intrinsic worthiness of every single person by the pattern set by christ when i look at my wife and look my friend i look my brother i don't look at them based and base my response to them based on their intrinsic worthiness whether they're good enough whether they're handsome enough or the water they've treated me right i look at them based on what christ has done which means the cross gives us a picture of marriage as one by sacrifice
00:44:17 forged by forgiveness enabled by grace and empowered by the holy spirit that is the picture of the new testament christian church that kind of marriage only that kind of marriage will be a salt of the earth and the light of the world so therefore when you have a christian couple they're like covered by the blood of christ underneath this cloak of christ the husband sacrifices why not because the wife didn't cook a good dinner or whatever or how beautiful she is the husband sacrificed because christ
00:44:56 sacrificed for he was a useless hopeless sinner and christ died for him and so therefore when he looks at his wife he loves her and sacrifices for her based on what christ has done and then she looks at his husband her husband and she submits to the husband as if the husband is christ because what christ has done for her and sacrificed also she belongs to him so she low owes allegiance and submission so therefore christ and the cross covers the marriage and if you are divorced which is the sad reality of life
00:45:35 stay single if you are not biblically divorced repent and remain single for the kingdom of god if you are already divorced and remarried and it was an unbiblical divorce it wasn't for just sexual immorality we need to repent of that and remain faithful to your current wife so all of us as christian couples we are called our divine calling assignment to us is to be that kind of couple that will reflect the most important thing grace and forgiveness we're not perfect you know as christians we walk around
00:46:12 and we sometimes we feel a bit reticent or afraid to share our testimony because the people the world look at us we still fight with our wives we still have sin we still have shortcomings and the non-christians will be the first person to come up and tell us about our sin and then we try to be hypocrites and live up to that particular image but the most important thing that actually happens in our life that they cannot see replicated in any religious system is that they cannot see grace they cannot see forgiveness
00:46:44 in any other system except christianity because ours is the faith forged by grace forgiveness so when we look at our lives our wives or the wives look at our husbands we don't look and see all the past hurts insults time he let you down we don't see all that what we see is how christ forgave us we don't see and assess each other based on how each of our intrinsic worthiness we look at each other because of what christ has done and we will respond to that person as if that person was covered by the blood of
00:47:26 christ and with that kind of cross-filled christ-filled marriages then only can we actually have a righteousness greater than that of the pharisees and the sadducees because they were just looking at divorce as a way out we need to look at the true purpose of marriage transformed by the cross because of the one magic word forgiveness we're not perfect but we need to forgive we're struggling with this and we need people to pray with us you can't do this alone send pray to fbc in the chat room by the zoom and we will
00:48:13 pray for you we will pray for your marriage we will pray for the situation we'll pray that the bitterness and the walls come down you need to break those walls and break those walls are only broken by the power of the holy spirit and for each person in this church all right then those walls need to come down so if you need for us to pray please send pray or scan the qr code if you've got other responses i've decided to follow jesus you want to attend alpha which is a great course that will help get us on the road to
00:48:46 understanding who this jesus is who will transform your marriage or we'd like to attend a life group or you've got any other prayer requests please scan this qr code to respond
