Sermon Media
2Finish by Mark Connelly
October 3rd, 2010
What are all the reasons why we will never divorce? Ignite your commitment to cross the finish line together.
Message: twoignite – 2Finish
Speaker: Mark Connelly
Date: 10.3.10
For those of you unfamiliar with twoignite, it’s our marriage ministry here at Mission. We think preparing single people for biblical marriage, and helping married people find joy in living out their vows, is so important we choose to exercise our marriage ministry here on Sunday mornings. We agree with scripture that marriage is to be honored by all, and that means every one of us, no matter what stage of life you’re in, needs to have a clear grasp on biblical marriage. If you’re single, you need to figure this stuff out before you marry. If you’re married, you need to apply yourself to growing in your marriage. If you’re divorced, you need to understand where things really went wrong so you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Marriage is to be honored by all.
So here’s what we do, once every two months I do a message about marriage, then instead of giving your curriculum we give you and adventure to help you and your spouse begin to live it out together. And the adventure we have for you around this message might just be our best ever.
The igniter for today is called 2finish. And it’s about honoring your marriage commitment for a lifetime. It’s about not giving up, not running away, but fighting for your marriage and crossing the finish line together.
Everyone knows, the majority of people who take marriage vows to love each other till death do them part, end up parting long before any death. That should not be the case for us who know Christ.
I need to do a little longer intro today before we get into the word (you can turn to Mat 19, b there in a few.
First, I need to acknowledge a few things up front. If you’re divorced this is going to be a tough message for you. Please hear me, this is in no way intended to punish you. You can’t go back and change the past. My hope is that you would not hear this as a condemnation of your past, but an encouragement to change your future, to not put yourself and others through another divorce.
To single people, today’s message is intensely important for you. We’d have far less divorce if single people didn’t just act on their emotions, but truly counted the cost of being bound to a person for a lifetime. It would change how and who you date.
To married people, the only way any of this is going to help is if we’re honest and real with each other. The truth is there’s no perfect marriage. Every marriage is the union of two messy people. And when you unite two messy people you have a mess on your hands. Every marriage goes through incredibly difficult times. At some point you’re going to look at your spouse and secretly fantasize about suffocating him in his sleep. I don’t care how great a couple looks on the outside; there comes a point in every marriage when the idea of divorce will sound good. The difference between those that make it to the finish line and those that don’t is commitment.
Some of you may see me up here and my wife in the front row supporting me every Sunday and you might be thinking, well ya it’s easy for them. They probably both grew up in healthy Christian homes, met in bible college, kept themselves pure for each, had a storybook wedding and haven’t gone to bed angry with each other since. Let me tell you, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The truth is nobody would have given Kay and me a shot of making it to the finish line. We both grew up as unbelievers. Her parents divorced while she was in the home. My dad was an alcoholic. We met on an ultimate Frisbee field at the University of Maryland around a keg. She was an alcoholic, I was a long haired pothead. We were both sexually promiscuous for years prior to meeting, and we moved in together after our first month of dating. Neither of us knew the Lord or were people of faith at all. We got married very young, and Kay got pregnant in our first three months of marriage. Statistically speaking, every indicator would say we would be divorced in five years. But two weeks ago we celebrated our 26th anniversary. Not because it was easy, but because we were committed.
There have been times in those 26 years were it would have been easy to give up. Five years in we went to a counselor that asked us to just talk with each other so he could observe. We couldn’t think of a single thing to say. We were a mess. But we didn’t give up. When our kids were struggling through those awful teen years, there were times when Kay wanted to throw me in the wood chipper. But we were committed.
I say all that for one reason, to give you hope. If we made it, so can you. Maybe nobody would give you a shot, but all things are possible with God, and if you’ll follow his design for marriage, you too can finish well.
Matthew 19
v.3…The question they’re asking is are we free to divorce when we want? Can we have a no fault divorce policy? Neither of us did anything wrong, we’re just not compatible, so we want out so we can find someone more compatible. Can we do that Jesus?
v.4…”haven’t you read” I love how Jesus continually grounds his responses in the word of God. If you don’t believe the Bible is true, you have a different understanding than the guy who rose from the dead. “Haven’t you read!” vv.4-5, Jesus takes people back to the beginning, back to God’s original design for marriage. And in the spirit of the passage that’s what I’m going to focus on. I’m not going to try to identify the rare situations where divorce is appropriate. It’s not my aim to talk about the exceptions today. Are there rare situations were divorce is the best option…yes. Do most people who divorce fit into that category…no. My purpose today is not to look for loopholes and exceptions, but to fix our eyes on God’s best and shoot for that.
God created male and female, “and for this reason…” in other words, the cleaving together of husband and wife as one flesh is God’s good intention and it’s rooted in the way he created us. Marriage is not a man-made invention, it’s part of God’s good plan and we’ve actually been wired for it.
I know Paul talks about the value of being single, but it’s my experience that very few people are truly wired for singleness without lusting. Most of us are wired for a marriage relationship, there’s something in us that longs for that one flesh connectedness to a spouse.
Jesus says the husband and wife are united in a mysterious one flesh connection. In Eph 5 this verse is quoted and says, “this is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.” The one flesh connection of husband and wife is as close as, and as profound as, the connection between Christ and the church. There is no other human relationship described in these terms, not mother-daughter, not father-son, not brother-sister. The only human relationship described as one flesh is husband-wife.
And that joining together as one isn’t something the husband does, or the wife does, or the pastor does. Only God can join two people together as one, v.6. God joins together a husband and wife as one flesh. And that’s the basis Jesus gives for not tearing apart a marriage. You didn’t put it together in the first place, and you’re not free to tear it apart. Sure, you said the vows, you ate the cake, and you signed the certificate, but God joined you together, and you’re not free to tear apart what he’s put together.
When we try to rip apart what God has put together we just make a mess (stuffed animal illustration). Those of you that have lived through divorce, or your parents got divorced, you know it’s not clean. You can’t neatly separate something God put together. That tearing apart causes deep pain, and Christ wants to spare us that pain. So he says, don’t tear apart what God put together.
v.7, what they’re referring to is a passage in Dt. 24, where Moses isn’t recommending divorce, he’s simply saying, when it happens make sure you don’t do this…
v.8-9, Jesus responds by saying, listen Moses was just responding to the hard heartedness of the people. The aim isn’t to model the hard heartedness, it’s to realize God’s good design for marriage and pursue that. And God’s design has been clear from the beginning. From the beginning God designed marriage to be a permanent bond between husband and wife. Then Jesus raises the bar a notch. He says listen, if you spouse is faithful to you, but you divorce him or her so you can pursue someone else, you’re committing adultery with that someone else, because in the eyes of God you’re still one with your original spouse.
If that lands hard on you, you probably heard it as Jesus originally intended, because it landed hard on the disciples too. So hard, they said, ‘well if that’s the case, it would be better to just stay single.’ If breaking the marriage bond is that serious in the eyes of God, it would be better to never even have the chance to break the bond at all. And Jesus doesn’t say, no you misunderstood. He says, yes, take it that seriously. vv.11-12, Jesus says ‘ya, if you can handle being single without lusting for someone, then do it, focus on the kingdom.’ There are some that fall in that category, but it’s rare, like dudes who were born without testicles or were castrated. I’m guessing that’s not the case for most guys in our singles group here at Mission. It’s rare. The point is, ya marriage is a serious commitment, not to be taken lightly in any way. It’s permanent, so count the cost before you make your vows.
Single people please listen, we live in a culture that minimizes the commitment of marriage. People have starter marriages, like you can get one under your belt so you get the second one right. People go into marriage thinking, ‘I’ll give it my best shot, but if it doesn’t work, there’s a way out.’ They go into marriage with a plan b in their back pocket. Jesus says, no, don’t do that! You need to seriously count the cost of being bound to this person for a lifetime.
Single people, if you seriously count the cost you will not marry an unbeliever. If you’re married to an unbeliever, stay married, but single people, don’t do evangadating, thinking you’ll convince that person of faith while you’re dating. Don’t take the commitment so lightly by thinking, ‘well he believes in God, so that’s good enough.’ The bible says, even the demons believe in God, so what, you don’t marry them. Single people, you need to count the cost of being bound to that person for life, no plan b. We’d have far fewer divorces if single people truly counted the cost before they jumped into a lifelong commitment.
Married people, if you have a plan b for you marriage, you need to throw it away. If divorce is an option, if you have a plan or even an idea of a plan, it’s only a matter of time before you act on that plan. It’s like flying a plane with a parachute on, when it starts to look bad you’re going to eject. But if you don’t have a parachute, you’re going to do everything possible to correct the plane, or die trying. Some of you need to go home today and recommit to your spouse that you’re in this thing for a lifetime. You need to stop throwing around the ‘d’ word when you get in fights. You need to commit to your one flesh bond till death do you part. And you can’t try to hurry the death process… ‘hey honey I bought you a motorcycle for your birthday. I couldn’t afford the helmet, but you don’t need.’ ‘Here eat some more bacon and chocolate donuts before you go for a ride.’ No, you need to commit to love your spouse and honor your commitment until natural causes takes him.
Let me say this in closing, you’re commitment to each other has to be more about than just sucking it up and trying to make the best of it. That plan will fail. You’ll finish well if your commitment is based on three things.
- Christ’s commitment to you. Christ loves you and gave his all for you when you didn’t deserve it. And he promises to never leave you nor forsake you. That’s what commitment looks like.
- Your commitment to Christ. If you’re committed to following Jesus, you’re going to get rid of plan b.
- Your commitment to love your spouse like Christ loves you. You commitment is to love like you’ve been loved, unconditionally and sacrificially, not just when you’re expectations are being met.
We want to help you solidify your lifelong commitment to each other as husband and wife, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to have a vow renewal service for the couples of Mission on Saturday night November 13th. The room will be decorated like a wedding. As you walk in we’ll take your photo, and you’ll be able to download it for free. We have a very special vow renewal certificate for every participating couple, to memorialize your commitment. CJ will lead us in a couple wedding songs. I’m going to preside over the ceremony. And the best part is, you’re going to come prepared with wedding vows to speak to each other. You received the Firelight, and inside is a wedding vow worksheet and all the details you need to know about the event. To sign up today go to the twoignite tent, or you can sign up online. Listen, don’t miss out on this. It could be a real game changer for you both to put aside any plan b, and commit to love each other for life.