Mark’s narrative of the life of Jesus starts off by saying

 ”The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”

I remember reading a book by John Piper called “God is the Gospel”. Piper has developed a theme called “Christian Hedonism” and under that theme is the slogan “God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him”.

Now that may sound wordy or like some catchy slogan. But read it again. God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. Now I want you to think of all the books out there “Have Your Best Life Now”, “Being An Over comer”, “Slaying Your Giants”, and on and and on. If you go to the preaching it is even worse! Many churches are packed everyday, full of good information on how to be wise business man, how to get your kids in a good college, how to be successful, how to save your marriage by having good sex and on and on and on!

And the most important person, the person we are to gather around, the person whom we come to hear from and through one another, rarely ever comes up! My friend, having a good life is having Christ. Having a good marriage is having Christ, Having a successful “business” is having Christ, for He is the BEST news ever! Nothing else matters my friends, this world and its fleeing pleasures will be destroyed and the eternal Jerusalem will come down from heaven and we will dwell in the city of God!

If you want to satisfy God, be satisfied in His Son. Mark is going to show us who He is and show us why He is the good news! Don’t let this okie doke preachers convince you that having Jesus is some basic truth, He is Truth! Our bodies are going to get old, the economy will fool you, your marriage will end, your children will leave, your sex life will evaporate, success is not guaranteed, but Jesus is the rock from where the water flows and when we are satisfied in Him, all of our hunger, thirst and desires will be fulfilled. My friends Jesus is the good news, everything else is “vanity”.

Gospel

Today’s OT reading has us focusing on of the greatest miracles in scripture, not to mention one of the most popular stories in human history. The parting of the red sea, the Israelites going across on dry land while the Egyptians were swallowed up. Not only did God take the heir to the throne, he also took the throne and showed the world just how great He was. This was catastrophic for Egyptians because now someone else not of the direct offspring of the Pharaoh would assume authority, but God has often showed that He will not share His glory with another. But, we know that story and today I want to focus on our NT reading.

Our reading today starts off kind of odd. It doesn’t seem to appear to be anything in the text that would have caused the Pharisee to ask such a question. He asks “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause” this is shortly after many came to Jesus and He healded them.

So Jesus answers the question, and what a shocking answer it is. He says unless for sexual immorality. Now, this is a very debatable topic. But I think I may have adopted Piper’s view on marriage, though I am not 100% there, my thoughts would most likely fall upon those lines. You can find that here, so I will not focus on what I think Jesus meant, I want to speak to the culture today.

Today we have songs that are chart topping pop and R&B charts. The name of the song is called “Papers” by Usher. It is song in which the hook says “I am ready to sing them papers, papers”. I would not be concerned if Mr. Raymond were not a Christian as he is not bound by the New Covenant; however, he is bound by the New Covenant, thus his song ignores Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and the righteous requirement that is to follow those who say they are in Christ. But not to get sidetracked….

“Singing them papers” is the disposition of most today in our culture. Even among “conservative” evangelicals the divorce rate has hovered aroung 50% or so for the last 15-20 years. This is a disgrace and an outright rebellion against Christ and His teaching found in Matthew 19.

Because Eve was taken out the side of Adam, she was “flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone” and God gave the command even then (penned by Moses himself) that “the two shall become one flesh”. There is a strict permanence in mind here. Paul then goes on to use this in describing our relationship to Christ. Christ is permanently married to His bride and we have become “one flesh” with Him.

You see before sin so clouded our judgement and obscured the face of God, marriage was to be permanent. One man and one woman were to live forever, a sign of that covenant may be sexual intercourse. It is funny that Avatar catches this theology when Jake and Neytiri choose each other as mates. However, we have failed to acknowledge such a theology. The one flesh comes before the fall and thus is the standard of God! Sin interrupted that fellowship, but today we are not slaves to sin but to righteousness and because of this we are to restore and repair and reconcile what has been broken by the fall.

One way to do this is my Christian marriage. Christian marriage is one of the most beautiful witnesses we can portray to the world; however, we find ourselves persistently and even wrecklessly disobeying our Lord, because “God wants us to be happy”. I have even heard such false teaching from pulpits and even from “conservatives.

I don’t want to dig deeper, but I do want challenge you in an area. We have to take this more seriously than we do. This is not just another cultural thing. The marriage union for those who are in Christ is a picture of Christ and His bride. The way we love and submit, serve and give, sacrifice and live for, will show the world how Christ relates to His bride. For those who are “pastors” and constantly remarry those who have been divorced disobediently, maybe should ask who are they trying to please.

In closing we love to fight against gay marriage but will not fight for Christian marriages. I think we are more concerned with the image of marriage versus the purpose of marriage and who marriage actually belongs to. Let the world do what they want, God will judge them. But as Paul said we are to judge those in the church (I guess that “who are you to judge” is a bit overkill).

Divorce, Gospel, Marriage, Matthew, remarriage