Welcome to the preaching ministry of Tri-City Baptist Church in Chandler, Arizona. Our desire is that God would be magnified through the preaching of His Word, and that Christians would be challenged, strengthened, and edified in their personal walk with Christ. Well, it's a pleasure to be able to speak to you tonight on what I think is a very important topic, dealing with the issue Does matrimony really matter or not? And when Pastor and I talked about this, one of my burdens was the fact that there are just so many erroneous ideas out there in the world that have been given actual legitimate consideration by the world, and sometimes even by professing believers today. That it's important for us today to be reminded of some basic Bible truths that refute many errors that have become mainstream. Now Les and I have been married 45 years this coming summer. I find that amazing for two people who are barely 39. My math skills have never been that great, that's what I'm going to cling to, but I used to think people who were married 50 years were ancient, but now I hear people who are married 60 plus, 70 years, so I guess we're really just barely out of the newlywed stage. So my goal in the next five weeks is to look at five really key passages in scripture that set out the basic framework of marriage. And we're going to dive into those passages. Our intent is to make scriptural teaching on those passages and on the subject of marriage very clear. But hopefully along the way to give some practical application to the truths that we're gonna learn and that we'll be in many cases reminded of. Obviously my hope is to strengthen marriages as we go through this study, but I'm also keeping in mind that not everyone in here is married. We have young people who may or may not someday be married. We have college students who are pursuing marriage as an extracurricular activity. We have those who are single, some by choice, others because of various circumstances. And my goal is to give you answers to help in whatever stage of life you're in and hopefully to equip you to be able to help other people when they raise questions about marriage or suggest that marriage really does not matter. According to Pew Research, the share of adults who have lived with a romantic partner is now higher than the share who have ever been married. Amid those changes, most Americans find cohabitation acceptable. I know just from discussions with pastors in large urban areas that one of the most common issues that pastors have to deal with in many of these areas are young people, young couples who come to their church, often professing to be believers, who are living together outside of marriage. And the attitude is that it just doesn't really matter. It's not that big a deal. And they're often shocked to realize that the church actually expects them to be married before accepting them as a part of the church. I remember talking with a pastor who just said, I just wish I would get a young couple coming into my church who is married. Cause it seemed like everybody that was coming in was unmarried and sometimes quite upset to think that, or to suggest that what they were doing was not right. This survey and Pew research also examines how adults who are married and those who are living with an unmarried partner are experiencing their relationships. It found out that married adults are more satisfied with their relationship and more trusting of their partners than those who are cohabiting. Surprise, surprise. It is young adults who are particularly accepting of cohabitation. Today in the United States, 78% of those ages 18 to 29 say it's acceptable for an unmarried couple to live together, even if they don't plan to get married. but it's not just the younger group, majorities across the age spectrum share many of these sentiments. One third, 33% of those in the age group 35 to 49 claim to have cohabited together. 25% of professing born again Christians claim to have cohabited according to Barner Research. Concerning same-sex marriage, 32% of born again believers accept same-sex marriage. 46% for those who are under 40. So certainly today, there is a need for us to raise the banner of what the Bible teaches on marriage. And for our children and our young people to fully understand what God has told us regarding marriage so that they may understand that yes, matrimony truly does matter. The things that we're gonna teach today, tonight, are nothing profound. They are things that most everyone believed in this country probably a generation ago. At least the vast majority of people would have believed it. But tonight I want us to look specifically at God's purpose or God's intent for marriage. And next week we're going to see the origin of marriage from Genesis chapter 2. Tonight we're going to look at Matthew 19, so if you wouldn't mind turning your Bibles there. The third week we're gonna look at the model of marriage as described in Ephesians chapter five. Then we're going to look at the honor of marriage from Hebrews 13 as well as First Corinthians seven. And then finally the grace of marriage described in First Peter three. But tonight we want to answer the question of God's intent for marriage. And let's begin by reading this passage of scripture. And then we'll come back and ask ourselves a couple questions and see if we can work our way through this passage. Beginning of verse one, it says, now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed him and he healed them there. And the Pharisees also came to him, testing him, saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And he answered and said to them, have you not read that he who hath made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. And they said to him, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away? And he said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say unto you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. His disciples said to him, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, all cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it. Let's look to the Lord together in prayer. Father, I pray for your grace, your help. I ask, Lord, that we would understand your word tonight, that you would make it very clear for us. I pray that you will bless your word as it goes forth. I pray that you'll use our thoughts tonight and your word today to accomplish your purpose and will in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. The discussion of God's intent for marriage leads us to this really, I think, interesting passage. The question we wanted to ask ourselves tonight is basically what is God's intent? What is God's purpose for marriage? And this passage is a debated passage at least in some aspects as he gets into the issue of divorce and divorce and remarriage. But what is interesting about this passage is that it really helps us to understand this basic question. Because the question that was asked of the Lord, it says it was asked to test him. Testing him, the Pharisees asked this, verse three. The idea of testing here is not that they were giving him a pop quiz or giving him an exam where he could pass or fail. They were trying to trick him. They were trying to entrap him because this was a hot button topic in Jesus' day. Basically, as you've heard this before, many of you, there were basically two primary schools of thought. One that thought marriage or divorce and marriage was acceptable for almost any reason. In fact, the illustration is often given from one ancient writer that if the wife burned the food for meal, that was a justifiable reason to file for divorce. The other view was that there was absolutely no divorce and no remarriage. And so you had two schools of thought and two groups of people among the Pharisees and Sadducees who held to these positions. And so the question is ask of the Lord, not to really find out the answer, but to alienate him from his followers and to alienate his followers from this. Because no matter which way you answered, You're gonna have half the people who were upset at you and half the people who were on your side. But Jesus doesn't fall for the bait. He doesn't fall into the trap. What he does, even though the point of the question was to trap Jesus and to alienate his followers, Jesus sidesteps the trap by going at what God really intended for marriage from the very beginning. And that is what will help us answer this question tonight. What is God's intent or what is God's purpose for marriage? So as we work through the passage, we're gonna find some very clear elements that God intends to be represented as a part of marriage that hopefully will make for us a clear definition of what marriage is according to God's intention. This passage begins in the first four verses. But it talks about how he says in verse four, when he answered them and said, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? Now, there are two sexes created as such from the beginning of creation, male and female. That would not have even been an issue except for perhaps the last five to 10 years. We're not going to play the game, I'm not gonna play the gender game versus the sex game that people like to play in words. There is no difference really between gender and sex. There is male and female. God created us that way. You are a male or you are a female. It's based on your chromosomes, you're born, If you have a question about that, maybe someone can help you with that afterwards. But it's amazing that we even would spend time having to discuss it and talk about it, but it's a major issue of course today. That does not mean that there are not sometimes males who exhibit sometimes what we in our society might consider female characteristics or females. who exhibit what we might consider more male characteristics, has always been as long as I remember, different types of personality, and frankly there's nothing wrong with that unless it goes to an extreme that interferes with your testimony or your usefulness of Christ. I was just reading this past week the story of Esau and Jacob, Esau would be considered the man's man. Hairy, outdoorsman, loved the outdoors, loved to hunt, loved to do all the things that we would classify in our society as strong male characteristics. Jacob liked to stay at home. He liked to cook. He wasn't much of an outdoorsman. It wasn't because God made a mistake at birth and Jacob really should have been a female. No, those are just, that's human nature. That's the way God had designed us with variety. Sometimes there are birth defects that may lead to grotesque combination of features, but those are very, very extremely rare and do not negate the fact, the obvious fact that God created male and female. All of our society since creation has understood this and revolves around this. We have fathers, we have mothers, sisters, and brothers, grandpas, grandmas, and on and on we could go. Not birthing person or birthing assistants. And you really don't help someone who is struggling with lies and confusion from hell by ignoring the obvious. I've counseled in the past people who were suffering from anorexia. You don't help a person who is physically barely staying alive as a skeleton of their normal self by agreeing that they are overweight and telling them to go on a diet. And that's essentially what you have in this whole trans world and the whole argument for that. Satan has taken natural, varied tendencies among the sexes to confuse our world, who is not anchored to the word of God, into thinking that nature, in reality God, made a mistake in the creation of their body. God makes no mistake. He made you as a boy or girl, a man or a woman, And the text makes that very clear. Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? The second basic truth we find here in this passage is that God intends, as a general rule, okay, this is not the case for everyone, but God intends as a general rule that the man and woman leave their homes to establish a new home. He says in verse eight, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. God intends man and woman to leave their homes to establish a new home. The fact is that first and foremost, there must be a leaving. For this reason, because God has created, it's obvious, God's created male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave. The word here, man, refers to a male who is an adult. He shall leave, or leave behind, not take along with him, either intentionally or unintentionally, by neglect or forgetfulness. The context really would require this also to be true of the female. But it is the male who is leading this transformation. And I might just add here, this is where sometimes problems in marriage often begin, right from the start, is oftentimes it is, in our society, it's almost encouraged where the female is leading the charge. She is pushing for the marriage. She is making the plans. The male just kind of goes along with it, kind of the necessary appendage that's there in order for this to work. And our society almost promotes this idea, well not almost, it does promote this idea that the male is the reluctant creature who has to be pulled along by the anxious bride. And you know, in much of the unsaid world, secular world, you know, it's common to see the female, and she's talking about marriage, excited. The good news, she's being married. The guy is kind of like, oh, poor guy. He's gonna get married. He's gonna get the hook through his nose. And that's the attitude of the world. But here it is the man, he says, who leaves father and mother. He is leaving this. Now that's not to say a bride can't plan her wedding and be excited about her wedding. But the male is more than just that necessary appendage to the process. There is a leaving behind. not a forsaking but an acknowledgement of a new home being established. Now does this mean a young couple cannot live with their parents? Or question two, the parents should have no control in the lives of the young people. Well, in many societies of the world, it's common for young people to return to live with their parents. That was common in New Testament times. I remember standing on what I guess was basically the porch of the synagogue in Capernaum. And as you're looking away from the synagogue to the left-hand side, there is the outline of a house. And the first time we were there, I remember the guide pointing out to us, he says, notice that house, and you could see the ruins had been uncovered, and you had these different rooms, and he pointed to one room, and there was what was obviously a doorway that led to a room that was on the outside of the house, but in the middle of the doorway was a column. It was sort of cut off, but it was a pillar that was there. And he asked the question, who puts a pillar in the middle of a doorway? And we were all kind of stumped at that. That was odd. And then he pointed out that this was Jewish custom to go and to prepare a place for your wife. The story of the 10 virgins illustrates that. They was going making ready for the wedding. And he said, obviously it was a room that was built onto the house and it was the only direction you could build it. and it had to be built where there was at one point a pillar and they just cut something out and cut around the pillar and put a door there. Because it was common for, in that society, for the new young couple to come and to live there in the home, or at least as a part of that family. Now, that is true in some cultures as well. But I will tell you that it may not be unscriptural, but it's usually not the best. In those cases, even where that is going to happen, there still needs to be a leaving behind. A new family is created. Now I ask the question also, can parents still have control? And the answer to that question lies in that word control. Influence, yes. Control, no. That is where many young marriages struggle due to a parent who wishes to still maintain control. I wish I could tell you about all the different counseling situations I have seen or been a part of that were a problem because there was a parent still trying to control the lives of that young couple. Now an adult child has a responsibility to honor his parent. which is to seek to respect their wishes, to give preference to the parent. But the new relationship, the leaving, is to sever that old tie or obligation and responsibility of obedience. That is why the man is told to leave his father and mother. So there has to be a leaving. There also needs to be a cleaving. Besides this, he says, he is to be joined to his wife. Join to his wife. This is the first time, or at least here in this text, that you find the term wife used. The female, the female half of that marriage. The term is, of joining to, has the idea of holding fast to. It means to come into close contact or to stick to, to resist separation. It's interesting, there are some uses in the Greek language of translations of this word that's translated as cement. It's a union that is not intended to be separated. Now, you can separate something that's been cemented together, but it's gonna leave a lot of scars. It's going to do harm to both objects because they were not intended to be separated. That's why they were cemented together. And so when they are separated, it leaves marks. Now you can cover them up, you can resurface it, you could try to smooth it out, but the hurt will still be there under the surface. And I think that's a great illustration of what happens with divorce. It's why great prayer and godly counsel are important. And I think you probably have testimonies of some of you tonight who maybe have gone through that earlier in your life, and you understand that. Thankfully for God's grace, thankfully for God's mercy, thankful for what God has done in your life, but there's still a scar. That's why there has to be great prayer, there has to be godly counsel, all that is important when entering into this union. And then there has to be a weaving together. A leaving, a cleaving, a weaving. That leads to two becoming one. He is joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. Shall become means they, literally the idea of the word there means they now have the quality of being. They have the quality of being. They exist as one. Obviously they're two people. but they exist as one. It's a fascinating concept. They are still two, they exist as one flesh, but their being is as one flesh. They're identical as one. They are in God's eyes, one flesh. But the dynamics and the struggles and challenges of marriage is to live this out in reality. This goes beyond just the physical or sexual aspect of marriage. God intends the husband and the wife to be one. There are different roles, as we're gonna see in other passages, but the foundation of the home is that they are one. They should become one in heart, one in mind, one in soul. And what does that look like exactly? Well, it's probably not gonna look exactly the same for every couple in every marriage. But there are general truths that apply to all. And when you're married, life is not about you, but it's about us. So we hear a lot today about pronouns, right? What's your pronoun? Well, rather than me, I, or we, or me, I, or my, excuse me, it's we, us, and ours. That's a change of pronouns, that's significant, okay? It's no longer about me, it's about us. It's no longer mine, it's ours. It's no longer just us, no, it's me, it's us, it's we. Two are now one. And this is where young couples especially have to learn to make decisions together, to serve each other, to defer to the other when necessary, to learn how to make decisions together, to serve each other, to acknowledge separate gifts and roles within the home. As the husband seeks to minister his wife, the wife seeks to minister to her husband. Sometimes that is done intuitively. Other times it needs to be learned. And I can tell you, after 45 years of marriage, or almost 45 years of marriage, from the very beginning, thankfully, because of wise counsel, Leslie and I were, I know we were counseled to be one. And so we did not live two separate lives. It's not my money versus her money, or my property versus her property, we are one. I remember early on, We were gonna be, I don't know, we'd probably been married for two or three years. And I was invited to preach at junior high camp at the old Lucerne Christian Conference Center or Castle Point Ministries, it became later. And we had not, since we were married, we had been together. We had never been separated up to that point. And so for some reason, I remember, and I don't really remember why, but we were not sure that Leslie could go. Maybe it's because the kids were young at that time, we hadn't been there, so we weren't sure what the facility was like, not sure if it would work for us to bring two small children there. I don't remember exactly, but I just remember we went back and forth, back and forth. on it, you know. And here we are, we've been married, I don't know, maybe we've been married four or five years, I don't remember, somewhere early in our marriage, one or two kids, I don't remember. And we were just deciding, okay, one day we'd say, okay, Alessia's gonna go. And next day, I said, no, you can't go. And we'd go back and forth like this for a couple of weeks, and you thought we were crazy. So we finally decided the day of camp, I was getting ready to leave the house, go down to the church, get the church van, we were bringing some teenagers, or some junior hires with us to camp, and I'm gonna go by myself. So we said goodbye, kissed goodbye, head out the door, get down to the church, phone rings. and let's just, we're going, I'm going. Okay, are you sure? Yeah, we're going. And so even then, the last minute, so I picked the kids up and we headed back, ran by my house, picked up my wife and off we went. It was such a major decision for us, such a hard decision as to whether or not we were going to, whether she was gonna come with, because we were used to doing everything together by that point. We don't go on separate vacations, although sometimes we have to be separated because of ministry now, or maybe because of helping one of our kids or grandkids, but it's not something that is a regular occurrence. We have one bank account for the two of us. I don't make major decisions, major purchases, unless we both agree to it. We function as one. God intends two to become one. And the error that many young couples make is to be married but to continue to live as two individuals. Each has their own life outside of marriage. I read stories about both men and women who are unfaithful to their partner and wonder how that happened. I've seen situations, known situations. where the husband has an entirely different interest than his wife. He's gone all weekend pursuing his interest and lo and behold, he meets someone while he's doing that and has an affair and the marriage is destroyed. Oneness means there's accountability. Oneness means we're not leading separate lives with separate funds outside the home. We can account together for our money. Well, usually. We know where the other is, usually. And we usually know what the other is thinking, and the emphasis there is really on usually. But two are to become one. So God made, from the beginning, male and female. He intends the man and woman to leave their homes, establish a new home, that two becomes one. The third thing is that sin divides this union. Why then, the Pharisees ask, why then did Moses give us a certificate of divorce? And Jesus answers, because of the hardness of your hearts. For from the beginning this was not so. That was not God's intent for marriage. And without going into the details of the divorce or divorce and remarriage, Jesus reminds us of his grace and forgiveness. as he made room for that destruction that sin can cause. The exception in this passage is for immorality, but even there, divorce is not required or demanded, but simply stated as an exception to the norm. You know, this is why it is so important that our homes be built upon the Savior. As we sang that song, God give us Christian homes, Our relationship with Christ is the foundation for the home and the foundation for the marriage. There are so many temptations out there in the world. Satan is so active in the world. There are so many false ideas out there in the world and people who will will encourage you to do that which is wrong and unscriptural, then unless you are grounded in the scripture, I mean, I don't see really today, I mean, it happens, fairly rare when it does, but it's very hard for a marriage to exist and to prevail through time if it's not built upon Christ. Now, rarely you do hear, rarely you hear a story about an unsafe couple and they've been married for a long time and had a fruitful marriage. But it's the exception, it's not the rule. Because our homes need to be built on the foundation of God's word. We need the Lord in our lives. We need the Lord in our homes. We need to have that time where we're spending time together, where we're serving the Lord together. We go to church together. where we pray together, where we read God's word together, where we serve Christ together. That's the foundation of a Christian home. And we need to be careful that sin does not divide that union. But then in verses 10 through 12, the disciple said to him, if such is the case of the man and his wife, it's better not to marry. Now, it's almost a humorous response, but I can probably hear some of you out there who are single may be thinking this way already. That if a relationship with a man of wife is like this, I'm not so sure I wanna get married. You mean we're stuck for life? I lose my independence? I have to submit to him? I have to love her? I have to forgive him or forgive her? Wow. It's better not to marry. And Christ's answer is exactly. Not all can accept this. Only to those to whom it has been given. And then he makes an interesting statement. He says, verse 12, A eunuch was someone who was usually physically unable to bear children or to reproduce. Usually single eunuchs, they often put in the presence of kings or queens so that there would not be any type of threat to the king or queen. But Christ is using this here really more in the term of someone who is celibate, who is not married, than someone who is a eunuch in the strictest sense of the word. He says there are some who are born this way for the mother's womb. Birth defects prevent some people from being able to reproduce. There are some who have been made so by men. Could have been through war or through some type of physical alterations. And he says there are some who have been made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And that introduces Really a very important element here to this whole issue of marriage versus singleness. There are some who choose to remain single for the sake of the kingdom just as there are some who choose marriage for the sake of the kingdom. Whether you remain single or whether you marry the sake of the kingdom should be your primary concern. Now for those who struggle with singleness or choose to remain single, Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 7 to those who are unmarried and he speaks how that they only have to be concerned about the things of the Lord as the married have responsibilities to their spouses. Now sometimes those who are single but wish to be married and they struggle here because they struggle with why God has not simply brought someone into their life and there's no simple stock answer for that question. Point is that we're to faithfully trust God, serve him, praying for God's will, and praying that either God will give us the desire of our heart or God will change our desires if we walk faithfully with the Lord. Many times he does not answer our prayer in the way that we would wish. But I know an amazing number of people who have gone to the mission field as singles and gotten married, found their spouse on the mission field. That doesn't always happen that way. I can tell you a number of stories where it has. I can also tell you stories of people who, I think of a young lady that I know who had many opportunities to marry. Many would-be suitors who would have gladly married her, but she was just so passionate about going to the mission field. She said none of them were going, and so she did not marry, and she still is not married, but she's been, God's blessed her life in many other ways. So there's not a single simple answer to that question, other than the fact that there just needs to be a submission to God's plan for our lives, whether single or married, God's will, God's kingdom is what is of vital importance. But you know, there are many young men and young women who are looking for and considering a mate who also need to consider first and foremost the kingdom of heaven. Will this individual help or hinder me in my service to Christ? If someone chooses to be single for the kingdom of heaven's sake, someone who gets married should get married for the kingdom of heaven's sake as well. That should be a primary concern. I've sadly seen many young men who were seeking to serve the Lord in ministry, maybe as a pastor, maybe as a missionary, But they chose a wife, not for her godliness, but maybe just for her appearance, her beauty, and had their ministry shortened or ended, maybe before it began, by a spouse whose heart was not set for the kingdom's sake. And I always tell young men who are studying for ministry, one of the most important decisions you will ever make is who you marry. and seeking God's will and seeking someone who has a burden and desire to serve alongside you in ministry, to have a partner who is willing to serve. Don't settle for anything or anyone less. So I began with the question, what is God's intent for marriage? So here is the definition that I've come up with based on what we've seen so far. We'll see how this holds up for the next several weeks. The marriage is the union of a man and woman who leave their father and mother's homes to become united together as one flesh for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Does that describe your marriage? That's what God intends it to be. If you're single and planning to marry, is that your desire? A union of man and woman who leave father and mother's homes to become united together as one flesh for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. God wants us to have homes that are built firmly on the Savior as we sung earlier. God wants us to have homes that are honoring to him. God wants us to have homes that are the foundation for lives of service and witness and testimony for Christ. We need to see marriage as God sees it. Not just something that is for our pleasure, something that's just for fun, something to make life easy for me or whatever we might think. But a union for the purpose of serving Christ. And we'll see how that definition holds up as we go through in the coming weeks. But I just ask you tonight, do you see marriage as the way God intends it to be? Is your marriage something that reflects this? Are you seeking to honor the Lord in your home, in your marriage? May God give us homes like this, built firmly on the Master, on the Savior. Let's pray.