Honoring Marriage - 4/21/2024 Sunday Sermon

The Tabernacle Today

Honoring Marriage

Every time I preach I want people to think and feel love, truth, and hope.

Jesus always extends kindness and grace to repentant sinners desiring to build and rebuild their lives around faith and the Bible’s truth. But He also allows unrepentant sinners to continue in their sin and experience the built-in consequences each sin has.

Matthew 5:27-32 Honoring Marriage

Josh McDowell taught us that behind every precept is a principle based on God’s Person.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. -Genesis 1:27

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24-25

The biblical plan for human flourishing includes the home as the foundational unit for the entire earth. Sex is only supposed to happen between a husband and his wife for bonding and possible procreation.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God. AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. BUT YOU WERE WASHED, you were sanctified, your were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. -1 Cor. 6:9-11

All sexual sin dishonors marriage V. 27-28

The other commands spoke of the external things you can make a law about. But the 10th command and Jesus’ words here focus internally on what only God can see – what’s going on in your heart.

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for Gods holy people. -Eph. 5:3

Get serious about fighting sexual sin at its root V. 29-30

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. -1 Cor. 6:18

“You must always be a killin’ sin, or sin will always be a killin’ you.” -John Owen (1616-1683)

Don’t take a casual attitude about divorce V. 31-32

Sometimes in the Old Testament God regulated what He didn’t endorse so the most vulnerable in Israel would be protected by the hard-hearted actions of others.

The marriage vow is serious enough that you should not divorce your spouse and marry another unless your spouse committed adultery (Matthew 5, 19), has abandoned you (1 Cor. 7:15), or abused you.

I love the wisdom found in Philippians 3:13 & 16. Verse 13 says “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” Verse 16 says “Only let us live up to what we have attained.”

3 Tips to bolster your marriage/ friendships:

“We” before me.

Wag.

Work.