From Sampler to Sower

Write Them on My Heart

After a week’s hiatus for Thanksgiving, I’m back to blogging.  We’ll get things restarted with a recap of last Tuesday’s Water’s Edge services.

Weekend Teaching Series: Write them On My Heart (A series on the 10 Commandments)

Message Title: Word Seven: You Will Not Commit Adultery

Sermon in a Sentence: God’s plan for marriage: One man, one woman, becoming one flesh, for one lifetime.

Text(s): Genesis 1:27, 2:23-24; Matthew 19:1-12; 1 Corinthians 7:4; Ephesians 5:25-33

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 of 10 extremely straightforward service, the difficulty was communicating about adultery in a way teens found relevant.  Way too easy to simply skip past that one and say “It doesn’t apply to me because I’m not married yet.”

Message Summary: We started by challenging that viewpoint that this command doesn’t apply to us because we aren’t married yet (or at least my teens aren’t – I am.)  We looked at the fact that the command about murder, far from simply prohibiting premeditated fatal violence actually calls the people of God to a profound respect for life.  In the same way this command calls those who would call themselves God’s children to have and to demonstrate a profound respect for marriage.

Step two was to define marriage.  We looked at Genesis 2:23-24 which contains the scripture’s first reference to marriage, and defines it is a man leaving father and mother and becoming one flesh with his wife.

Step three was to decide why marriage defined in that way is important enough for God to demand that we respect it.  We spoke about sexual difference, a difference that is not just physiological, but permeates every part of who we are.  I stated that I was not prepared to define exactly what that difference is — I doubt it lies in the stereotypical ideas of what male and female is, nor am I sure that I am equipped to discern what differences are the result of personality and what differences are the result of sexual difference.  However, the Bible teaches that there is a difference.  God didn’t just create humanity — he created humans as male and female.

What is more, God also states in Genesis 2 that without the “help” of the female, there is something about male alone that is less than good.  It was to be this perfect helper, the kind of help that nothing else in creation could provide, that God created female alongside male.  We challenged the idea that helper somehow means subordinate, pointing out that of the 21 times the Bible uses ‘ezer – the word translated as “helper” – 15 times it refers to God himself.  (See Psalm 115:11 for an example, “You who fear him, trust in the LORD-he is their help and shield.” NIV)  The fact that woman was created to be man’s helper no more suggests she is meant to be his slave or servant any more than God is to be our slave.  It’s something far more profound than that.  She provides the kind of help that can only come from God.  Female is male’s God-sent help, the only solution in creation to the lack that caused God to note “It is not good for man to be alone.”

And so it is in marriage, in the two, one male, one female, becoming one flesh, joining together in a relationship of equality, complementarity, and mutual submission that we become something that God can call good.

Of course, we then noted that as humanity progressed through history, we fell far from that ideal.  (And fall is the right word for it.)  We noted the stories in the Bible that portray just how far we fell – stories of polygamy which create havoc and hurt (like the story of Jacob’s two wives) and stories of misogyny in which women are treated like property to be bought and sold (like the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19).  In the long run humanity begins to get the idea that women exist for the pleasure and convenience of men, without voice and without rights in the world.

Into this world God seeks to speak a corrective.  It begins in Deuteronomy 24, where God seeks to protect the rights of the powerless wife against the whims of the powerful husband by requiring a certificate of divorce that restores her freedom should he seek to abandon her.

Of course by Jesus day, this too has become degraded and disregarded.  The schools of Hillel and Shammai are locked in a debate about when divorce is allowed “For any and every reason” – as the Pharisee asks Jesus in Matthew 19 – or only in cases of “nakedness” or infidelity.

Jesus, when asked, points out that God never intended divorce.  Just because a husband jumps through the right legal hoops and fills out the proper paperwork for his divorce to be legal, that doesn’t make that divorce right.  Jesus makes it clear that God intends marriage for life.  One man, one woman, becoming one flesh for one lifetime.

And when Jesus is questioned further he points out that the divorce provisions of Deuteronomy were not intended to legitimize divorce, but were a protection of the powerless against the hardheartedness of the powerful.  In fact, according to Jesus, even if a divorce is legal, the commitments of marriage are not necessarily over in the eyes of God.  Only in cases of marital infidelity is the innocent party set free from the commitments they made in marriage.

We noted that was a pretty harsh teaching.  Especially when it is so easy to make youthful mistakes, to require someone to live with those mistakes and not to set them free from the requirements that come with them seems overly strict of a gracious God.  But of course, when Jesus’ own disciples pointed this very thing out to him (“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry”) rather than rescinding his teaching, Jesus reiterates it.  It is a hard teaching, and because it’s so hard they’re absolutly right – if you can’t accept this commitment for life, it is better not to marry.  But the option is not be married and commited for life or be unmarried and free to do whatsoever you wish sexually, it is either be commited to your spouse for life, or take up the life of a eunich for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  The choice isn’t between commitment or promiscuity, it’s a choice between lifelong commitment or lifelong chastity.

So why does God take marriage so seriously?

Here we looked at Ephesians 5 and the story of Hosea, noting that throughout the Bible, marriage is an image that God uses to reveal the truth about his relationship with his people.  Any deviation from God’s plan for marriage, any degradation of his definition (one man, one woman, becoming one flesh for one lifetime) becomes a distortion of the reality of who God is and what he desires for his people.

How does marriage reveal God’s relationship with us to us?

On one hand, it is a reflection of the equality, complementarity and mutual submission that is the Trinity.  In marriage we learn what it means to live life as individual and unique persons who nonetheless find the center of their being in each other and to live out that intimate unity.  On the other hand, it is also a reflection of the self-sacrifice God made on behalf of his people, and the kind of commitment he seeks of us.

It was here that we looked at 1 Corinthians 7:4, where we learn that in marriage we no longer belong to ourselves, but rather we belong to our spouse.  We realize that we were created for each other, and as we become one flesh for one lifetime we enter into a trinitarian way of life, finding the center of our identity in each other and ultimately in the Triune God whose eternal intimacy He invites us to share.

Because of this, a casual disregard for marriage – like a casual disregard for life – is not only a sin against the victims of our disregard.  It is, as David says in Psalm 51, a sin against God.

Finally, with my Senior Highers we looked at some of the ways in which our modern culture is moving away from God’s definition for marriage.  Specifically:

1. We live in a culture where divorce is again considered an acceptable option “for any and every reason.”
2. We live in a culture where marriage is understood as a contract (designed to limit liability and able to be changed at any time by the consent of both parties) rather than a covenant (a mutual promise with lasting commitments and not open to renegotiation at our convenience).
3. And we live in a culture that increasingly seeks to argue that the “one man, one woman” part of the definition is no longer necessary.

I challenged them to by their words and by their example to demonstrate a profound respect for the Biblical definition of marriage in a culture that so often is moving in the opposite direction.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Had two new students play with the praise band, which is an exciting development!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: Obviously from the summary, there wasn’t time for a whole lot more than teaching tonight.  No games, no goofy videos, just the preaching of the Word.  Of course, there was plenty of fun in the youth center before and after both services.

Worship Set: Blessed be Your Name, Beautiful One, Famous One (even the worship set was shortened to make room for the teaching time.)

Favorite Moment: As noted earlier, we had two new guitars join the praise team – including Scott with his homemade talk box!  That was fun!