Christ Community Brookside
Honor Marriage
Matthew 19:1-12 ESV
Title: Honor Marriage
Scripture: Matthew 19:1-12
Speaker: Bill Gorman, BillG@ChristCommunityKC.org
>> Know what you’re getting into.
>> Marriage is designed to last
Jesus answered, “Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.” —Matthew 19:4–6 The Message
Sex outside of marriage is “...wrong because every sex act is supposed to reflect an absolute and complete covenant unity. There must be no physical union unless there is also every other kind—a legal, economic, personal, emotional, and spiritual union. There must not be one unity without all the rest.” —Tim Keller, “The Gospel and Sex”
>> Marriage is designed to last
- So know what you’re getting into in marriage
Jesus said, “Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hardheartedness, but it is not part of God’s original plan. I’m holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery.”
—Matthew 19:8–9, The Message
>> Marriage is a mess
“Clearly, he [Jesus] did not adopt more liberal positions on other matters of sexual ethics such as divorce and adultery. Instead, he was more demanding than the Torah, not less. He would have understood the tension between his affirmation of the model of male-female sexual union in Genesis 1–2 and the alternative model presented by same-sex unions…. The portrayal of a Jesus as a first century Palestinian Jew who was open to homosexual practice is simply ahistorical. All the evidence leads the opposite direction.”
—Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice
>> Marriage is a mess
- But know what you’re getting into in divorce
>> Marriage is not your savior
In essence, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You are permitted to divorce.’ But I say to you, ‘I have come to conquer the hardness of your heart…. I have come to give you the power to stay married, or to stay single, so that either way you keep your promises and show what my covenant is like and how sacred is the covenant bond of marriage. —John Piper, This Momentary Marriage
>> Marriage is not your savior
- And know what you’re getting into in singleness
>> Marriage is momentary