FAITHFUL AS PARTNERS

Matthew 5:31-32

INTRODUCTION:

Do you remember the small-appliance repairman?  In a by-gone era, every town had at least one person whose occupation was to repair small appliances…you know: toasters, waffle irons, flat irons, etc. 

 

Whatever happened to these small-appliance repairmen?  They became redundant when we began to manufacture cheaper and cheaper small appliances.  Now it is actually more cost-effective to throw away the small appliance than it is to repair it.  That revolution came about with the reduced value to the small appliances.

 

 This is a parable of our society’s attitude toward relationships…and people.  We live in a throwaway society.  Everything is considered disposable…even people and relationships.  Two people have a misunderstanding and too often they are simply willing to write each other off and discard their previous relationship. 

 

And being married doesn’t seem to make much difference.  A married couple has disagreements…perhaps even major disagreements.  And too often, the first thought is: divorce.  They want to cut their losses and run from their problems. 

 

Now, as a nation, we are faced with a growing mountain of the disposed:

·         Broken homes

·         Discarded relationships

·         Cast-off marriages

·         Rejected children

 

We must face the problem of fractured families.  We must address the issue of broken homes, of failed marriages and of children who suffer as a result.  Jesus already faced that problem for us in the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew 5:31-32 comes from the early part of the Sermon on the Mount:

^31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’  ^32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

 

Most of us have no problem understanding what Jesus said.  We have trouble accepting what Jesus said.  The reason is probably because we have been so influenced by our throwaway society that we cannot imagine that he really meant that marriage is a lifelong commitment.

 

Some wag has said, “Marriage is not a word, it’s a sentence.”  To prevent marriage from becoming a sentence, we ought to understand God’s design for marriage, man’s distortion of marriage and Jesus’ return to God’s design for marriage.

 

I.    WHAT GOD SAID (Genesis 2:18)

To begin, let’s go to Genesis 2 to read what God said when he instituted the relationship of marriage.  ^18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 

 

Notice what prompted God to make marriage.  He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  God was not saying that singleness is not good.  Jesus was single and God was “well pleased” with him.  There is nothing wrong with being single but aloneness is not good; loneliness is not good.

 

So God created what the New International Version calls “a helper suitable for him” and the older King James Version called “a helpmeet” for him.  The purpose of a helpmeet is to help-to-meet that which is needful, to complete that which is incomplete and fulfill that which is lacking.  In marriage, a helpmeet compliments the deficiencies of the other.

 

It was God who created the helpmeet and the relationship we know as marriage.  Since society did not create the covenant of marriage, society cannot change the terms of the covenant.  And because society did not invent marriage, popular opinion on the subject is of little consequence.  And since I did not invent the covenant of marriage, my opinion on the subject is also of little consequence.  And may I point out that you did not invent marriage, either. 

 

In marriage, helpmeets help to meet each other’s goals, each other’s ideals, each other’s full potential and each other’s full maturity.  They are helpers, in the Hebrew, literally “like to each other.” 

 

Their sense of completing one another and their sense of bonding and identifying with one another is to be so complete that they become, as it were, one flesh.  Two separate and distinct organisms fuse to become one.  We see a parallel of this when the seed of a man unites with the egg of a woman and the result is one flesh that contains the distinct identities of both of the individuals that contributed to the new organism. 

 

God wanted us to understand that this is exactly what happens in marriage.  Two distinct, complete individuals come together to create one new organism that had never existed prior to that time.  Each contributes his own identity but the two become one flesh.

 

As a result, when a marriage dies, it is not just dissolved; it is as if one person were torn in two.  It would be the same as a husband and wife taking their children to a mad physician to attempt to separate all that belonged to the father from all that belonged to the mother.  The doctor would attempt to separate the father’s DNA from the mother’s DNA.  What would be the result?  Obviously, the children would not “dissolve”; they would die. 

 

God wanted us to understand that in marriage a new organism is created and when the partners pull out of the marriage, it dies.  It is as if the one flesh of the one person were being torn in two.

 

So let’s look at the dissolution of marriage.

II.     WHAT OTHERS SAID (Matthew 5:31)

^31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’

 

It may surprise you to know that the Old Testament is largely silent on the subject of divorce.  The one major exception is Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

 

The issue in Deuteronomy 24 is marriage, divorce and remarriage.  The point that Deuteronomy 24 makes is that whether because of divorce or death, the fact is that the couple cannot get back together again. 

 

This passage does give us some insight into the custom of divorce among the ancients.

 

The oldest custom was that if you became displeased with your wife, you could just “put her away”.  That is, you could cast her out with no legal ceremony…and with no legal protection.  All that was required was to say, “I divorce you” three times and that was it: you were rid of her and rid of responsibility for her.

 

Under the Law of Moses, a man could divorce his wife if he “found some uncleanness.”  That meant if he found that she had committed adultery.  But people being people, they began to look to relax the Law of Moses so eventually, to have “found some uncleanness” came to mean any dissatisfaction with the woman.  If she burned the toast, that was reason enough for divorce in the minds of some.  If she no longer looked as lovely as she once did, that was “uncleanness” to some. 

 

But these Jewish leaders thought they were being charitable to the women by requiring that they be granted a bill of divorcement.  You don’t do that when you sell an ox or any other livestock or property.  They thought they were really valuing women by granting them their legal freedom from the covenant of their marriage and giving them the right to remarry.

 

In contrast to that is:

III.     WHAT JESUS SAID (Matthew 5:32)

^32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

 

Jesus said that marriages are not disposable.  Jesus said people are not disposable.  You do not cast off your wife; you do not discard your husband; you do not throw away your children.

 

In Jesus’ day, there were tremendous consequences to divorce. 

Socially: divorced women were treated as outcasts because they were always under the suspicion of adultery.

Morally: divorced women had very limited career options so most became prostitutes or they became easy prey for unscrupulous men.

Emotionally: the self-esteem of the divorced woman was another victim of the divorce process.

 

We seem to have misunderstood the intention of Jesus in his prohibition of divorce.  Some think his restrictions are unkind or unrealistic.  The fact is, they are both kind and realistic. 

 

The kindest and most realistic counsel I can give to partners in a troubled marriage is: don’t divorce.  Divorce is not an easy solution.  It is not easy and it is not a solution: it creates more problems than it solves. 

 

And it is imminently realistic to say, “don’t divorce.”  Any two committed Christians can learn to have a rewarding and fulfilling marriage.  But they’ve got-a-wanna’.  If the same effort were invested in solving problems that is typically invested in running from problems, they could be corrected.  If the same money were invested in counselor’s fees that will be invested in attorney’s fees, spousal support and child support, the troubled marriage could be healed…in time.  But we become impatient and fearful so we divorce before we invest more of ourselves in what we fear may be a lost cause.

 

What we need are two people to make a life-long one-flesh commitment “until death us do part”.  Then there will be less hesitancy in investing ourselves in the marriage because we know that it is not a lost cause.  We would know that we will be sticking in this relationship for the duration, and so will our partner.

 

I said earlier that any two committed Christians can learn to have a rewarding and fulfilling marriage.  With Christ as the Lord of their lives and the Head of their home, they have a common life-time commitment that is larger than themselves and bigger than their individual lives, their individual desires, their personal wants and preferences.  They can make it.  It may not be easy…it probably won’t be easy.  But they can make it and can find fulfillment in their marriage. 

 

That’s the reason that Paul cautions against being “unequally yoked together with an unbeliever.”  It stacks the deck against you and makes the life-time one-flesh commitment harder and less likely to happen.  But if you find yourself in a marriage where you are unequally yoked with an unbeliever, Paul addressed that relationship in I Corinthians 7.  Read it and you will find God’s will for your marriage now.

 

CONCLUSION:           

I am well aware that in this congregation, there are probably people who are considering divorce.  Let me say to you that God’s word is clear: don’t do it.  It is no solution and it creates more problems than it settles.  Invest yourself in the healing of your home and in the building of your marriage.  I will help you.  I will meet with you and work with you and, as a church, we will help you get the best counseling available.  And understand: GOOD PEOPLE HAVE PROBLEMS, TOO.  AND GOOD MARRIAGES HAVE BAD TIMES AND MUST OVERCOME ROUGH AREAS,

 

I am also aware that in this congregation there, are those who have been divorced.  To you I must say, “divorce is not the unpardonable sin.  You can get beyond the decision to divorce.  The method is the same as for any other time we have acted contrary to God’s will:  Confess to God that you have disobeyed His will for your marriage and receive His forgiveness.  And then go on to walk with God in ever-closer fellowship.

 

And I also want to say to the previously divorced: we must ask your forgiveness for the fact that the church, at times, has acted as if divorce were the unpardonable sin.  Jesus took a five-time divorced woman who was living with a sixth man to whom she was not married and he allowed her to be an evangelist to an entire Samaritan village.  I apologize for the fact that the church has been less loving and less sensitive than Jesus was.  And I pray that we will go on from here to walk in closer fellowship with Christ and that we will act more like Him whose name we wear.

 Back to Sermons