Hey, good morning. It’s good to be with you. We were out last week. We were down in Florida, so it’s fun. Thank you, Chase, for bringing the Word last week, and Bill and Kathy leading worship for us. So it’s good to rest, but it’s good to be back with you this morning. And we’re going to be in Matthew’s Gospel. We’re in Matthew’s Gospel for a very long time. We took a break in the summer, and so we’re going to come back into Matthew’s Gospel in the fifth chapter.

We’re going to be in verses 27 to 32. So Matthew 5, verses 27 to 32.

And here’s what Jesus says.

He says, You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has not committed adultery. You have heard that it was said, He has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. It was said, Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Towards the end of World War II,

July, the USS Indianapolis was making a delivery. It was thought the Japanese, they were pretty wore out at this point. They weren’t going to attack. So there was no destroyer to accompany this vessel. But lo and behold, a Japanese submarine torpedoed the USS Indianapolis. And a lot of men died instantly on the impact. But far more suffered extreme exhaustion, extreme dehydration, floating at sea for days. And I think what’s worse is so many of these men suffered delirium because they drank the salt water. One sailor says who survived, men began drinking salt water so much that they were very delirious. In fact, a lot of them had weapons like knives and they’d be so crazy that they’d fight amongst themselves killing one another. And then there’d be others that drank so much salt water that they were seeing things. They’d say, the India’s down below and they’re giving out fresh water and food in the galley. And they’d swim down and a shark would get them and you could see the sharks eating your comrade. It’s a brutal situation.

But in such a state, salt water, it may look like the very thing that you need, but in fact it’s the very thing that would kill you. Salt water has too high a concentration of sodium to hydrate you. So it would dehydrate you and eventually kill you. And it’s what happened to a lot of those men. And friends, for us as followers of Jesus in a broken, sinful world, it is the very same thing. We all have desire. God has given you desire. Desires for common things like food and drink. Things like relationships. And most importantly, things of God Himself. We’re to be satisfied in God. So it’s not bad to have desire. But here’s the thing that you and I have to constantly remember. Because we’re fallen people in a fallen world, so often our desires are shaped not by God’s will, not by God’s word, but so often our desires, what we long for, what we think is going to be good for us, in fact is the thing that’s going to kill us. Jesus is talking particularly this morning about the consequence of sinful desire. It has real consequences. And we can’t say, well, I’m a follower of Jesus and there’s grace, so whatever. That’s not the case here. Jesus is giving a very real consequence for a very real sin and we ought to take Him very, very serious. Particularly, Jesus is talking about the consequence of sexual sin. And I don’t even think it needs to be said that we live in a time and place when we are in an utter free fall when it comes to sexuality, when it comes to adultery, when it comes to divorce, when it comes to lust. So Jesus is preaching to us that we would hear and not receive the consequence. The consequence. Sinful desire. Back with me at verse 27. He says, You’ve heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It’s better you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. So I want to remind us, as we’re coming back into Matthew, why did Jesus show up? Why is He here? We find out why He’s here really when we look in Kings. There’s this passage in 1 Kings 9 where Solomon dedicates the temple to the Lord. He’s praising the Lord. He’s offering all these animal sacrifices. And God’s pleased with it. And here’s what God says to Solomon. He says, Solomon, this is pleasing to me. If you will continue to obey my commands, you will always have a son on the throne.

But if you do not continue to obey me, He says you will become a heap of ruins and people will pass by and they will hiss and say, look what’s become of them. It is because they abandoned the Lord their God. So Jesus didn’t show up because, I mean, Israel, man, they used to be an economic powerhouse and they just don’t have the skills anymore, you know, in a free market society to figure out how, like that’s not what’s going on or they just don’t understand military strategy. That’s not the deal. God’s never lacked in giving His people the blessings that they needed. Jesus has shown up because particularly Israel, I said all of us as a human race, what we’ve failed to do is that very thing God has told us to do. Desire Him. Love Him. Love His commandments. Obey Him and love Him. So that’s why Jesus is here. So He harkens back to one of the most popular commandments, the Ten Commandments in Exodus, the sixth. He says, you’ve heard that it was said. Here’s what’s popular among you Israelites. You shouldn’t commit adultery. And the Tenth Commandment says you shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s wife. And nobody’s disagreeing. Remember that? All of them would have agreed with what Jesus is saying there. By and large, societies and cultures throughout human history would agree with that. You shouldn’t sleep with people who aren’t your own spouse. That’s rule of thumb we’ve generally accepted. Now, not so in 21st century America.

Adultery, I hate to say it, is as common as catching the common cold. Like, it’s not going to shock you. Like, I don’t have a bunch of stats about you just would not believe adultery in the church today. Like, really, I thought it was worse than that. So we’ve learned, we’ve lost shock value when it comes to adultery, when it comes to sexual immorality. So this is the baseline meaning and definition of adultery. And friends, we lack in our culture today a healthy understanding of what that even means. But far beyond understanding that surface level commandment, don’t commit adultery, Jesus wants to go deeper. He wants us to really grasp it. And I say we need not splash in the puddles of Christ’s way, but if we’re truly followers of Jesus, like, I want to be thrown into the deepest ocean of what it means to know and follow this Christ, regardless if it’s a difficult word for me to hear. And so often, it is a difficult word for me to hear because my flesh often says, like, that’s tough and hard, and I don’t want to hear that. But Jesus is saying, follow me there. So that’s where we’ve got to go. So here’s what I want to do. I want to start with adultery as the Israelite understood it. I’m going to go back to Deuteronomy chapter 22.

And here’s what the Torah says. It says, If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. The man who lay with the woman and the woman, so you shall purge the evil from Israel. If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man sees her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones. The young woman, because she did not cry for help, though she was in the city, and the man, because he violated his neighbor’s wife, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. There’s a lot of gravity there. There’s a serious there. Like, here’s what we’re doing with adulterers. Proverbs 6.32 He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

So if I’m in the… In the ancient world, what’s going on? Like, you’re not committing adultery. It’s not like, oh, I heard about such and such. That’s terrible. Like, you’re dead. And there is a shame that can’t be washed off of your name. Like, your name is disgraced because you did this vile thing. So how far have we fallen? Again, we’ve got to be wise to our own times as Christians when you can hear about adultery and shrug your shoulders, or even I think about open marriages. An open marriage is a thing that’s… It’s propagated, and it’s becoming more and more popular. An open marriage is this. Let’s get married, and you and I just go ahead and agree. Like, you sleep with who you want to sleep with. I’ll sleep with who I want to sleep with. And that’s fine. Like, we’ll just do that, and that’ll be good, right? So we’re not even saying, yeah, that’s wrong, but whatever. We’re saying, let’s celebrate adultery. Let’s make it an actual way of life. So I just want us to understand where we are culturally before we go deeper with Jesus. It’s going to be that much harder, I think, for us to go where Jesus is if we’re attached to how culture is viewing us. We’re not even living, which we can’t do. So Jesus goes on in verse 28, and it’s this contrast. Now, here’s what you’ve heard on this shallow level understanding of adultery. But Jesus says, I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Not looking or noticing. And I think that’s not fair. Like, hey, I’m not stupid. Like, if I see a woman, she’s beautiful. Like, it’s not saying, like, oh my gosh, I noticed this woman was beautiful, and she wasn’t my wife. Lord, I’ve sinned against you. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Lustful intent, what Jesus is getting at, is a sexual craving. It’s dwelling on someone who doesn’t belong to you and was never intended to belong to you. You are, in effect, in your heart, stealing away someone else’s spouse. Craig Keener says, lust is antithetical to true love. It dehumanizes another person into an object of passion, leading us to act as if the other were a visual or emotional object of passion. An emotional prostitute for our use. Fueled by selfish passion,

adultery violates the sanctity of another person’s being in relationships. Love, by contrast, seeks what is best for a person, including strengthening their marriage. See, so that’s pretty serious. I haven’t done that. But have you done that? Because the law isn’t judging you on actualities, it’s judging you on technicallys. And what Jesus is saying is, friends, if in your heart you’ve ever looked at a woman who isn’t your wife, or a woman looked at a man, you’re guilty in the eyes of God of having committed adultery. In that seat of your person that goes on forever. Your eternal soul, where your real wants, your real desires, your real loves are found. That is what finds us guilty under God’s law. So Jesus is saying something very extreme, which He tends to do, but His solution is equally extreme. He doesn’t say, like, that’s too bad, or hey, you know, watch it. He says, hey, if your right eye is causing you to sin like this, here’s what you should do. You should rip it out. And if your hand’s causing you to sin, you know what you should do? You should cut it off and throw it away. Here’s why. Jesus is saying it’s better that you lose, it means to destroy or ruin beyond repair. It’s better that you ruin beyond repair a precious part of your body in this temporal life than that your whole self be eternally thrown into hell, forever. What part of you is scandalizing you? That’s what that means, scandalizo. What is bringing you into scandal? Cut that part off. Ruin it before it ruins you. This is what Jesus is saying.

Whole body, whole soul thrown into hell otherwise. So if Jesus is getting this extreme, what is He saying? What is Jesus saying? Here’s what Jesus is saying. He’s saying if we fail,

to properly deal with sinful desire, friends, we will experience the consequences. He’s telling us we must deal drastically with those sinful desires.

Here’s what Jesus doesn’t want. He doesn’t want you to actually cut your hand off. Please don’t like, I guess I’m going to go home and I’ve got this chainsaw in the garage. I don’t know. That’s not what Jesus is saying. He doesn’t want you to destroy some valuable part of your body that would be horrific. That would be a gross misinterpretation. You know, the text. And worst of all, it would be ineffective. It wouldn’t actually fix the problem. Jesus is using, as He so often did, and as we so often do, what’s called hyperbole. It’s an exaggerated statement to point out something that’s unique. He’s pointing out something that really needs to be taken seriously. Like you might hear someone say, oh, that guy’s as strong as an ox. Well, he’s not really as strong as an ox. You’re just saying he’s very strong. Or someone might say, oh, I died laughing almost. Like you didn’t almost die laughing. You’re just saying, it was very, very funny. So Jesus is using this literary tool of hyperbole to help.

He’s helping. To help the people and to help us see the severity of failing to take lust serious. So He says, cut it off. Tear it out. Not physical destruction. Jesus is pleading with us, have an acute willingness and preparedness to do whatever’s necessary at whatever time. Whatever personal cost to deal appropriately with sexual sins in your life. That’s what Jesus is saying. Jesus in His hyperbolic language is waking us up in our spiritual dullness to those things that offend the holiness of God. Jesus is waking us up here to see the drastic measures we must take. Even the ones we think are innocent.

The light of God’s law shines like the sun into every crevice. And He finds those ugly parts. The ones that we’ve grown used to aiding and abetting.

But He sees them and He exposes them for what they are. And what they are is against Him. If they’re against Him, they’re against His law. And if they’re against His law, then friends, you and I are under just punishment. The very thing that Christ is preaching to us about. The very thing He’s trying to protect us from. If we can’t recognize Jesus’ overblown language as a kindness to us, what we lack is the humility to see how prone we are to sin. We are a sinful people in heart, mind, and soul. And in this lifetime, we never, ever get to let our guard down concerning the schemes of the enemy, the trappings of the world, the sinful desires of our weak flesh. They press against us hard. Think about what the Lord said to Cain. Cain’s sin is crouching at your door. And it’s ready to dominate you. It’s ready. It’s ready to pounce you the moment you think you’re safe. So let me say it in love, all the love of my heart, you’re not strong. You and I will not, until we’re with Christ in glory, be free from a susceptibility to sin. Certainly, we’re talking about sexual sin here this morning. What we need is Christ’s wisdom. What we need is Christ’s power. And I want to point out to you what godliness is and is not. Godliness is not… This person who’s been a Christian for 20 years, so they have like this impervious strength towards sin. And it’s like, man, I can hang around any situation. I just can’t get me, man. I’ve been to church like so many times and you’re not going to believe like how much of an immunity I have towards sin. Like, that’s not godliness. That’s pride. Here’s what godliness is. Godliness is a deep, deep recognition of how weak all of us are and how much we need Christ alone. I need Christ’s power in all temptations. I need Christ’s wisdom. I need Christ’s wisdom to steer away. If I don’t have Christ, I will fall. That’s godliness.

Peter says in his first epistle,

therefore, preparing your minds for action. So, you know, you get that ancient picture of a man and he has to kind of gird up his robe because he’s got to fight and he’s going to trip all over. So, Jesus is saying the same way. You need to be like ready in your mind. You’ve got to prepare yourself. Be sober-minded. Set your hope on the grace that’s going to come when Jesus is back. Be obedient. Don’t conform to the passions of your flesh. In all your conduct, be holy.

So, my soul, your soul, if you’re a follower of Jesus, has been paid for by the blood of Jesus. And I thank God for that. And I praise God for that truth. That truth will set you free to do the very thing Jesus is saying. Fight.

Resist. Give your all to work out your salvation. Feel trembling. Well, Jesus has saved me, so I don’t need to do whatever. He’s just going to forgive me. That’s not how it works. That’s a gross misinterpretation of grace. Friends, pride would keep us from seeing this. And it’s no wonder that the Lord has said pride goes before destruction. And Jesus, has He not? He’s just pointed out the great destruction that befalls the man, befalls the lusty heart that goes on in the sins of sexual fantasy thinking they’re all hidden within you. Your chest cavity. Let me say to you, God sees right through you. God sees right through me. He sees the intentions. He sees the desires of our hearts. And there in those secret dark places, He judges us accordingly. What’s in your chest this morning? You can hide it, you know, from the people around you. You can lie to yourself. But let me say to you, you are naked and exposed before the Lord God. The Apostle Paul said, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. On account of these things.

Following Jesus means sacrificing daily. And we’re getting this framework to follow Jesus. And outside of that is sacrifice on my part, carefulness. You’ve got a very broken framework of Christianity. As Christ suffered in the flesh, I’m suffering, which can mean a lot of things. But in this context, it means in the way that I protect and guard my own heart and soul. Which Christ paid for from sexual sin. It’s going to ruin it and destroy it. Following Jesus is not casual. Following Jesus is not light. It’s not an easy, painless process. It can’t be done overnight. And you can’t pause it and suspend it when you want. So Jesus says, you’re going to have to cut it out. Tear it off. Lunge forward. Don’t look back. Stay on the narrow road. Pick up your cross. Sacrifice the passing pleasures of this world for the eternal life and joy found in Christ. Christ Jesus. As one theologian said it succinctly, better to go limping into heaven than leaping into hell.

And I think if we did a compare and contrast from two Old Testament examples, I think about Joseph, right? And Potiphar’s wife, like, hey, what’s up? Like, just come on in here. And Joseph does not hold the conversation. He runs. And she rips his robe as he runs.

But 2 Samuel says that King David

saw Bathsheba. He saw her. And that wasn’t a…

It was a lingering. It was a lustful intent. And I probably don’t need to tell you the great fall of King David. Friends, lust will chew you up. Lust will spit you out. And I want to say this. And I know I’m talking to, largely, men. I think this thing goes both ways. But let’s be honest. Men are driven a lot of times by what they see. Okay? So let me say to you, the world is not going to help you here. I went to Florida. Not one lady on the beach said, excuse me, this thing I got on, is this helping or hurting your relationship with Jesus? Like, nobody came up and asked me that. I wish they had because I would have said no. Like, you need to go put some clothes on. That’s what I would have said. But friends, you’re not going to get a public announcement saying, hey, when you go to work Monday, that girl that just loves to wear the low-cut shirt, you probably just need to start going in the back door and avoiding her. You need to have your mind ready and be thinking about, hey, what you need to do is guard the relationships you have with people who have the opposite sex because you may not mean it, but one thing leads to another. So you need to guard yourself. Make practical decisions that keep you from sinning. I try as best I can when I have conversations with women through email or text to let my wife see. My phone is my wife’s phone. She is more than welcome to look at anything, any time. Okay? I think about the advent of the internet and the cell phone. Like, we can’t, hey, world, men having these little screens in their pocket where they can see anything at all time, that’s actually not helpful. Can we do away with these? We can’t do away with them. Sometimes you have to accept the world in which you live, but it means you make practical decisions so that you don’t sin. Amen.

When your family goes to bed at night, it’s not a good idea to hang around on the internet for hours. It’s just not a good idea. And I think, if you say, well, I don’t know, what’s the problem? What we could do is find man after man after man who say, well, I was just looking around, I was bored, and like five years later, here I am with this porn addiction I can’t get out of. It happens. And so again, my heart pastorally, and I’m being very serious when I say this, my heart pastorally when I’m reading Jesus here is having a man in this room and you have a casual attitude. For some reason, you think you’ve found a piece of the Bible that you just don’t have to listen to. Like, you’re an exception to the rule. Like, I would never do that. That’s not me. Sin is crouching at your door. And you and I will be sitting in my office years from now and your wife’s going to be crying her eyes out and I’m going to be calling Mark. Hey Mark, I got this guy and he’s a great guy, but he’s hooked on porn. Like, you know, you’ll help that. And again, I know that it’s funny, but it’s not funny because it’s real. And Jesus says the consequences are real. So can you get in that humble position that says, like, I don’t know where I am and I am not susceptible. Like, I probably am stronger than I think I am, which is true. We generally think we’re stronger than we are. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to obey the Scriptures. I’m going to be above reproach. I’m going to cut it off and I’m going to be really careful to be a man of God that honors marriage, that honors marriage, and does what Christ would approve. That’s what we need in the church. I can’t shock you with stats. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to waste your time. Stats are bad, right? So I’m just going to preach Christ to you and pray the Holy Spirit wakes us up to taking that kind of sin serious.

Consequence of desire. I want you to look back at

verse 31.

Jesus says, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual morality makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman

commits adultery.

So what I want to do is go back to Genesis chapter 2 because Jesus’ argument as He makes it here and other places in the Gospel, it’s, all based on the very creation institution of marriage. So I want to go back and I want to read this in Genesis chapter 2 verse 18.

It says, Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Or it means to correspond to him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every life, every living creature that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found an aid or a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So God has created everything and God has said, Hey, everything is very good. Except there’s one thing that’s not good. What’s not good is that man is alone. It’s not a good thing. So God says, What I’m going to do is I’m going to create this helper, this aid that corresponds perfectly, that fits, that complements perfectly who the man is. And I want to draw this out. In a pre-sin world,

man should not be alone. It’s not good. So woman is not some kind of like, Well, man made this huge mistake and now God, God created the woman to kind of help him figure this thing out. In a pre-sin world, woman is a necessary aid because woman is a necessary aid in a perfect situation. So what we have here is something beautiful, something pure that God created. Man lacks on his own. He was not created to be independent of woman. God has made women distinct from man that the two would perfectly complement and help one another in their greater, greater task of loving and enjoying God,

enjoying one another, which includes sexual relationship in the confine of the man-woman marriage, and having dominion over God’s created world, which would include being fruitful and multiplying, raising up children to love and obey God as well. So the institution of marriage was and is, outside of God Himself, the greatest gift He ever gave humanity. It’s different from friendship. Friendships can be deep and friendships can be meaningful and purposeful, but marriage is different in this way. When God looks at a man and a woman, He doesn’t see two, He sees one. Puritan theologian Matthew Poole says, The two shall be esteemed by themselves and others to be as entirely and inseparably united and shall have as intimate and universal communion as if they were one person, one soul, one body. So husband and wife in a pre-sin world, perfect situation were to love and care and cherish one another and in so doing were loving, caring, cherishing themselves.

That makes the marriage union the best and most important relationship where God’s love and truth ought to flourish among people. Man has the responsibility to lead his wife in fulfilling God’s expectations on both of them in all love, truth, and righteousness. Woman has the responsibility to help or aid man to that end. So here’s what marriage is. Marriage is the indissoluble union of two people, male and female, who have devoted their lives to one another for the common and divine purpose of loving and obeying God. God’s way. Loving one another. God’s way. Which is to say fully. Which is to say perfectly. So the superior human relationship over friendships, family bonds, ethnic native ties, it becomes the context in which two people, man and woman, best experience God’s love as they love one another the way God loves us. But it also becomes a very beautiful picture of God’s love to the surrounding world. How so? I’m going to read Paul in Ephesians chapter 5. Here’s what Paul says. He says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. His body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, and he gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that, why did he do that? He might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it, cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, and here’s what Paul’s doing, he’s quoting the same scripture back in Genesis that Jesus uses in the Gospels. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound. And I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

What Paul is talking about is the greatest purpose, the greatest satisfaction that marriage could ever bring. Here’s what it is. All the way back in creation, before even the fall of man, God hid a great mystery in the husband and wife relationship. He says all along it was referring to something. It was referring, to Jesus, who would be perfectly devoted to the church. And the church, who would be made right, who would be loved, who would be cared for, who would be led in a direction that’s best for her.

Husband and wife, that’s what it’s supposed to look like. Now, it doesn’t always look like that, does it? Because we’re sinful people. I don’t always lead my wife well. Now, she always perfectly submits to me, but I don’t always lead her well.

Sinful people, though, we don’t do that, do we? We don’t love as we ought. We don’t respect as we ought. So what Paul’s saying is that, even though it’s a pale picture, it’s a beautiful picture of Christ’s devotion to us. And it’s a beautiful picture of what it means when the church surrenders to Christ’s love and good leadership, how the church becomes pure and has the best life it was intended to have in Christ. And so we read that back into marriage. What does that mean? And it’s a really tall order Paul gives. Husbands, love your wives the way that Christ loved the church. I can’t do that. I can’t do that at all. But it’s a constant reminder for us in marriage. Marriage should be a striving for. It’s a context within we’re loving one another and fighting to find that fully devoted love of God within ourselves. And when we do that amongst ourselves, when I love and lead my wife well, and my wife, she submits to that loving spiritual authority and I provide for her and she receives my provision, what it’s doing is it’s preaching the gospel in my own house. It’s preaching the gospel to the world. The way that we’re loving one another is the way that God loves us. It’s the way that God said people ought to love one another because this is how He has loved us. That’s the power and that’s the purpose of marriage.

So all of that to take us back to our passage in Matthew. What is this certificate of divorce business?

Well, the certificate of divorce is a reference to Deuteronomy 24. And here’s what happens in Deuteronomy 24. Moses says to the people, you can divorce your wife. Not you should or you must. You can. You can. Jesus says when the Pharisees try to trip him up, hey, Moses did not command that. They said, how come Moses commanded you get a divorce? See, that’s not what Jesus, that’s not what Moses said. Jesus says He permitted them to get a divorce because of their hardness of heart. They were unwilling to be fully devoted to their wives as they should have been. So for her good, the law said, hey, she can break away. She has this certificate. And what the certificate does is it guards and protects her from slander and it allows her to remarry, which would protect her from economic hardship. But that’s not God’s intention. Divorce was never God’s intention. And let me say this, and the same I’m talking about the severity of lust. God hates divorce. Why? Because it ruins the picture of His love for us. That’s why. It ruins that context and training ground in which we become more like Christ, in which we believe and obey the Gospel as we strive to love and be more like Christ in the way that we can. We love our spouses, husband and wife.

Here’s what the Pharisees are actually asking when they say, you know, is it allowable for a man to divorce a woman for whatever reason? Here’s what they’re really saying.

In short, how little devotion can a man show to his wife and get away with it? That’s what they’re saying.

They’re saying, what is the smallest fragment of love that must be shown in a marriage? Before a man can abandon a woman or a woman can abandon a man. That’s what they’re getting at. These great keepers of the law have no idea what marriage is about. It’s standing in front of them in the person of Jesus, but they can’t see it.

And hear me say to you this morning, devotion by its very nature cannot be optional. Devotion is devoted no matter what. And even while Jesus says adultery is a permissible reason, He doesn’t command it the way the law commands. And in that way, Jesus raises the standard about what it means to be one of Jesus’ people. There should be within us as the people of God a supernatural love, a supernatural forgiveness to desire to be devoted even when it’s difficult. It’s a Christian marriage. Christian marriage should be. But Jesus exposes a tough truth here where so often lovers of self and lovers of sin, God has called the union of marriage sacred, because of its holy nature in which we love one another, yet divorce so often is the hard and hideous proof that we cannot abide in love as we ought.

I’m going to read you this short little story here I found by this old preacher who’s long passed away, but he’s telling about someone he knew. He says, A good many years ago, I knew a working man in north of England whose wife, soon after her marriage, drifted in vicious ways and went rapidly from bad to worse. He came home one Sunday evening to find, as he had found a dozen times before that she had gone on a new debauch. He knew in what condition she would return after two or three days of a nameless life. He sat down in the cheerless house to look the truth in the face and to find out what he must do. The worst had happened too often to leave him much hope for amendment. And he saw in part what might be in store for him. He made his choice to hold by his wife to the end of his life. And to keep a home for her, though she would never keep one for him. Now that a new and terrible meaning had passed into the words for better or for worse, he reaffirmed his marriage vows. Later, when someone who knew them both intimately ventured to sympathize with him, he answered not a word.

She is my wife. And I loved her when she was a little girl. And I’ll love her as long as there’s breath in my body. She did not mend and died in his house after many years in a shameful condition with his hands spread over her in pity and prayer to the last. And I think there’s something in him that says, if that ever happened to me, you better believe I demand my rights. There’s no way that’s realistic. But friends, the love of God in Christ Jesus, it’s not realistic. It’s impossible.

But yet it has been shown to us.

Here’s what I’m not sure about. What I’m not trying to do in talking about divorce, I’m not trying to stir up guilt and shame

if perhaps this morning you’ve been part of a wrongful divorce or you’re very close to someone who has. That’s not what I’m trying to do. There’s repentance and there’s forgiveness for you. Nor am I, just to be clear, I’m not talking about every single situation. I know life is messy and sin makes life and every situation very messy. So I’m not addressing divorce on the whole. Paul has quite a bit to say about divorce and abandonment and different things. Not what I’m saying. I think what Jesus is saying to us in this passage and it’s what I want us to grab is that the love of God is devoted.

And as God is devoted to us, so we should be devoted to Him and so devoted to one another. And I believe that if you have been a part of a wrongful divorce and you’ve truly repented, you’re not going to say, don’t talk about that. You’re going to say, amen. Amen. God is good and He’s forgiven. This is what marriage is like. You’re right. Are we devoted to devotion? Are we as Christian as God is?

We are His people. And no, we don’t get to pause Christianity when it’s difficult.

So the consequence of sinful desire is severe. Christ has said that. The adulterer, whether it’s in heart or it’s in real life,

it’s hellfire. Jesus is the one that’s going to throw you in there.

But there’s good news for us in this, friends. Christ bore our consequences on the cross and He has been faithful in the place of our infidelity.

Jesus dealt drastically with sin where Adam failed.

Satan said, take a bite.

And you listened. And you failed.

But Jesus said, get thee behind me. Not once did He fall. Not once did He fail. Not once did He fail in fulfilling the law of God. Not once. And in our place, He was righteous. Jesus has dealt drastically with sin where we have failed, where Adam has failed. And friends, Jesus’ devotion is perfect where ours is not.

Adam gave but one of many ribs for the sake of the woman. But the Lord Jesus Christ laid down His one and only life for the sake of the church. Christ has given His all to us. He’s devoted to the Father in all righteousness and truth. And He’s devoted to the Father and He’s devoted to us in love. And He has bled and He has died to prove it. Christ has always been. Christ is. And Christ will forever be our perfect bridegroom who will someday come back and He will present us to Himself. And we will be pure and we will be spotless. Not because we have been devoted to Him, but because He, by the grace of God, has been devoted to us. Amen.

Let that kind of love shape your marriage, shape your mind, shape your heart. Let that kind of love and devotion and commitment shape our church.

Jesus says, hey, here’s how the world is going to know your mind. When you put on a bunch of fancy programs, you’ve got like a big building, you do all this really cool stuff, and you just keep the engine going, that’s how they’re going to know.

No, Jesus said, here’s how the world is going to know my love. When you love one another with that same love. When your relationships look different. When your marriages look different. Friends, let’s follow Jesus and look different.

Let’s pray.

O Lord, You are good

and Your mercy endures forever.

As far as the east is from the west, so You have separated us from our sin. And You have not forgiven alone. You have forgotten.

So Lord, this morning, I just pray

just for a divine awakening of how deep and how full, how real Your love is seen on the cross. That Jesus who is perfect, Jesus for whom the cosmos were made, there He is hanging and bleeding and dying for sinners such as us.

Lord, I pray that Your Spirit would just convict us that we would desire purity. To be pure as Christ is pure. To be holy as You are holy. This is what You’ve called us to. This is what You’ve empowered us to do with the Word and the Spirit, Lord. So let’s not be talkers. I pray by Your grace we would be doers.

Lord, I pray that for the men in this room, we would be men

who love our wives by making decisions that honor our marriage covenant. That we would go out of our way to love, to care for our wives, to keep ourselves holy, to keep ourselves pure. Let us love our wives, Lord Jesus, as You loved us. Bless our marriages in this church. Guard them from the enemy.

So that You will not leave and we know that You will not forsake and we know that Your Word is powerful to do these things. Lord, we just ask that all we can do is humility. Just ask that for ourselves and for our church.

Lord Jesus, we just thank You for Your sacrifice and Your unending love to us. And we always live in it, believe in it, and show it. Let’s pray that in Jesus’ name.

Amen.