Introduction:
Matters of Marriage: A Word for Each of You. (1 Corinthians 7:8-16)
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Singles: Enjoy the GIFT of SINGLENESS or GET MARRIED. (1 Cor 7:8-9)
Single & Want to Get Married? 3 Don'ts:
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Don't SETTLE.
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Don't Look for the RIGHT PERSON.
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Don't Seek MARRIAGE – Seek LOVE.
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Married Christians: STAY MARRIED. (1 Cor 7:10-11)
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Married to a NonChristian (Who Wants to Stay Married): STAY MARRIED. (1 Cor 7:12-14)
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Married to a NonChristian (Who Wants to Leave): LET THEM GO. (1 Cor 7:15-16)
Romans 7:2 – For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
Matthew 19:8 – He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce...”
Matthew 19:9 - “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:36-00:39
Open up those Bibles, 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
00:41-00:42
Chapter 7.
00:44-00:47
We're in the third section of 1 Corinthians.
00:48-00:51
Chapters 1 through 4 is about unity.
00:52-00:54
Like church, get it together.
00:56-00:58
Chapters 5 and 6 are about purity.
01:01-01:08
And then when we get to chapter 7 verse 1, you see that Paul is addressing some questions that they had.
01:10-01:17
And the first subject of this Q&A session is marriage.
01:20-01:22
So that's where we are.
01:22-01:24
We go where the text takes us.
01:24-01:33
I'm going to ask that you would please just quiet your heart before the Lord for a moment and pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's Word.
01:33-01:44
This is a passage that is going to get a reaction, and it's not about really my opinion or your opinion, it's what did God actually say?
01:45-01:46
That's what we're going after, right?
01:48-01:52
So pray for me to be faithful to clearly communicate what God said.
01:52-01:57
I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what it is that God said.
01:57-01:59
All right, let's just take a moment and pray.
02:02-02:16
Our Father in heaven, I know that many times in my life I've had strong opinions about things that have had to change because of what your Word says.
02:22-02:26
Because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what any of us think, Father, It only matters what you think.
02:27-02:42
So I just pray that you would give us wisdom, that you would eliminate any distractions in our hearts and minds so we can just lock into what your Word has to say here.
02:44-02:45
It's for the glory of your name.
02:46-03:00
We pray in Jesus' name, and all of God's people said, "Amen." If you've been with us at all through our series in 1 Corinthians, we've seen that everything was a mess, right?
03:00-03:06
So now Paul's talking about marriage and no surprise, marriage was a mess.
03:07-03:09
We talked about this last week.
03:09-03:16
There were people strong on the single side and there were people strong on the marriage side.
03:16-03:17
Which one is good?
03:17-03:21
And the answer is both of them are good.
03:23-03:28
Marriage was a mess in Corinth, and if we're going to be honest, we're not doing so hot here today either.
03:31-03:38
As I was preparing this, I get an email that has just short news articles in it and updates and things like that.
03:39-03:42
And I just read this on Friday, I wanted to share part of this article with you.
03:43-03:50
This is the newest craze, I haven't heard of this one, maybe you have, but the newest craze is divorce rings.
03:51-03:52
Have you heard of divorce rings?
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Raise your hand if you've heard of divorce rings.
03:55-03:57
Okay, a couple of you have, all right.
03:58-04:04
This is new as far as this article told us, but I just want to read part of it.
04:04-04:18
It says, "The diamond ring Alex Weinstein," that's a female, "wears every day is a reminder that once upon a time she said, "I do," these days she happily says she does not.
04:20-04:45
Weinstein got divorced last March and tossed her engagement ring in a drawer for a few months. Then the Tampa, Florida-based content creator decided to make herself a divorce ring. She reset a radiant three-carat stone from her ex- husband into gold, turning it east to west in a bezel." I should have looked up what that meant.
04:45-04:46
Anybody know what a bezel is?
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Okay, nobody?
04:49-04:50
All right, I shouldn't have said anything, huh?
04:51-04:53
I was safe until I just said that.
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All right, noted.
04:55-04:56
That helps me for the second service.
04:58-05:07
The shame and stigma, the article goes on, "The shame and stigma of divorce has been replaced for some women with empowerment and celebration.
05:10-05:17
While diamond rings have long been a cultural signifier of marriage, some women are also choosing to mark the end of their matrimonies with a little bling.
05:21-05:26
Weinstein says, "I'm not proud of getting divorced, but I am proud of putting myself first.
05:28-05:34
Why shouldn't I celebrate this chapter of my life?" Why am I sharing this article with you?
05:36-05:49
Because I think if anything sort of personifies how far we have drifted as a culture from God's ideal, I think this kind of nails it.
05:50-05:53
We are celebrating divorce.
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We are celebrating it!
06:00-06:04
You know, we look at Corinth and we're like, "Man, those people were messed up." Us people are messed up.
06:08-06:20
Back to Corinth, though, some would say...some in Corinth had said, "Excuse me." Some said, "You know, being single is actually being more devoted to God." And they actually had married people get a divorce.
06:21-06:36
Like, "Hey, you'll be more devoted to God if you get the divorce." And then there were some that said, "Look, if you want to be devoted to God, you can't have intimate relations with a woman.
06:36-06:48
So if you want to stay married, just don't have any intimacy." Those were some of the thoughts they had in Corinth, and both of those are wrong.
06:50-06:54
In the previous passage, again, Paul said, "Staying single is good.
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Marriage is good.
06:56-06:59
And intimacy in marriage should be a regular thing.
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But what if I'm not in a biblical marriage?
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What I mean is, what if I'm not married to a Christian?
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I mean, you could go through the last couple of messages and say, "Oh, that's well and good for two people who love Jesus Christ, have the Word of God as their authority, and Oh yeah, like easy for them.
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But what about me, Paul?
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My spouse isn't a believer, so what am I supposed to do?
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Should I just get a divorce?
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What should I do?
07:46-09:17
Well, in this section we're looking at today, Paul clarifies matters of marriage addressing everyone in the church. Literally everyone in the church and everyone in this church. So this is kind of a good news/bad news thing. We're not having one sermon today. You're like, "All right, we are having four sermons today. All right, four sermons." Because each of these are very specifically addressed to a different group. So first up, matters of marriage, a word for each of you. You can take notes on the other ones if you like, but pay attention into the category you fall. Number one, singles. Singles, a word for you, here it is. Enjoy the gift of singleness or get married. Enjoy the gift of singleness or get married. All right, so if you're here and you're single, if you're streaming and you're single, if for you. All right? If you're single, enjoy that if it's a gift or get married. Look at verse 8. Paul says, "To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am." Unmarried for any reason, right? Paul, once again, this is a We're going to go through this quickly.
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We talked all about this last week.
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Paul said being single is good.
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Right?
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Being single is good.
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Why is he circling back to that?
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Because there were Jews in Corinth that said, "You couldn't be holy unless you were married." That was a common Jewish mindset in that day.
09:35-09:36
You couldn't be holy unless you were married.
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Paul's like, "That's not true." All right?
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It's a gift for some people.
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And Paul listed himself as one of those people.
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Paul here very clearly says that he was single.
09:51-09:52
Like what happened to Paul?
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Did he get a divorce?
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Did his wife leave him?
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Is he a widower?
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We have no idea.
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We don't know the details, but we know from this verse that he was single.
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Okay, so single people, listen.
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not denying that there are pressures to being single that married couples do not have. Things like loneliness, things like trying to manage a household yourself.
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There are pressures that single people experience that married people don't.
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But Paul is reminding the single people again, it is not wrong.
10:40-10:44
You don't have to feel like you're a second-rate Christian because you're not married.
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It is not wrong.
10:46-10:51
And we're going to see later in this chapter, there are actually some advantages to being single.
10:52-10:54
All right, but look at verse 9.
10:56-11:05
He says, "But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry.
11:06-11:16
For it is better to marry than to burn with passion." So Paul's like, "Okay, you're single, but you have those urges.
11:19-11:20
You can't control yourself.
11:20-11:23
You like want to be with a person so badly.
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Like you found that being single really isn't for you.
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What should I do?
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Paul's like, get married.
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Get married.
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He says it's better to marry than to burn.
11:36-11:37
Again, we talked about this last week.
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If you have the gift of singleness, you aren't burning.
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But if you have those desires, God gave the right context to use them.
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That's why he says get married.
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Get married.
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You have the passion, you have the desire, get married.
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I've got to say a couple of things about that, unless somebody runs out of here today, runs right across the street to Pantera Bread, and is like, "Look, Pastor Jeff said to get married.
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Are you single?" No, okay, "Are you single?" "No, I'm going to find somebody.
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Pastor Jeff said to get married.
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It's right in the Bible.
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I've got to find somebody today." Let's pump the brakes for a second.
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All right?
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If you're single and you want to get married, I'm going to give you three don'ts here, all right?
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He says to get married, yes, but I want to caution you on a couple of things here.
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Three don'ts.
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Letter A, don't settle.
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Don't settle.
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I know being single can be hard.
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Do you know what's harder than being single?
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Being married to the wrong person.
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Rushing into a marriage, not really knowing somebody, not understanding they don't really love you, they don't really love the Lord as they should.
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It is absolutely heartbreaking how many times I've seen that.
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Somebody wanting marriage so badly that the first single person that comes along that looks eligible and there's some kind of interest, we're rushing right into it, and oh, the regret that comes from that.
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I've made a huge mistake.
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What do I do now?
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settle. Letter B, don't look for the right person. Don't look for the right person.
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Like, wait a minute, you just said it was bad to be married to the wrong person, now you're telling me not to look for the right person? Yeah, don't look for the right person. You need to focus on trying to be the right person, all right? Try to to be the right person. In the early days of this church when we were really teeny tiny we had a single guy that came to me. He came up to me, he goes, "Pastor Jeff, I think I'm going to go to another church." I'm like, "Oh, why? What's the matter?" He goes, "I love this church so much, but I really want to meet somebody and I just really want to get married." Not a lot of single people in that tiny church. And I said, "That's a terrible way to pick a church. You know, who's got the best single scene? I said, "That's a terrible way to pick a church." I said, "You need to find a church where God is feeding you and where God is using you. You find a church where that's happening, you trust God to do the rest." He's like, "You're right." He goes, "You're right." And it wasn't long after that he did find a single lady, even in her teeny tiny church, and they're married. They since moved away and they have like, I I don't know, 20 or 25 kids, I don't know.
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But the point was he was willing to trust God and seeking God first and seeking to be the person worth marrying, not just trying to find the right person for him.
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So try to be the right person for somebody else.
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Letter C, I read this great advice from a pastor this past week.
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He said, "Don't seek marriage, seek love." Don't seek marriage, seek love.
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Because ultimately, you're going to marry the person that you fall in love with.
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All right?
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So when Paul here says, "Look, if you have the desire," he goes, "Don't burn with passion." He goes, "Go get married.
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Go get married." But again, let's temper that with, let's not rush into anything.
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It's going to bring regret.
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God has called you, God has called all of us to be content and thankful in every chapter of life we find ourselves.
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So singles, this sermon's for you.
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Enjoy the gift of singleness or get married.
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All right?
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All right, next sermon.
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This is for married Christians.
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Are you and your spouse both Christians?
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a word for you. Stay married. Very simple. Very simple. Look at verse 10. Paul says, "To the married I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband." Not separate, obviously, he's talking about divorce. So he's talking here specifically to Christian couples.
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We know this because he talks about mixed couples in verse 12.
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And by the way, let's get this out of the way.
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When we talk about mixed couples, or we talk about intermarrying, that has nothing to do with race.
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There's only one race, there's the human race.
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So as long as you're marrying another human of the opposite sex, oh, the things I didn't think I'd have to say.
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Race doesn't matter.
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Okay?
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So when we talk about mixed marriages, biblically there is no such thing except for mixed faith.
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That's what the Bible forbids, mixed faith marriages.
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He talks about them in a second, all right?
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I felt like I had to say that.
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So Christian couples, Paul says, "I get a word for you," he goes, "not I, but the Lord." Meaning Paul's like, "Look, what I'm about to tell you came straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself." This is the Lord's charge, all right?
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The Lord's charge is, Christian couples, no divorce.
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Divorce isn't an option.
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Divorce isn't a word that's said in your home.
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Jesus talked about this so many times, Matthew 5, Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 16.
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Jesus taught over and over that marriage is meant to be lifelong.
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All right?
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So we're going to try you out for a year or two, if it's not going to work, we have our exit strategy. That's not how marriage is designed according to our Lord. Marriage is meant to be lifelong. And remember, there were some Corinthians that thought, "Yeah, but if you really want to be devoted to God, you've got to get a divorce." And Paul here is just saying, "You know, God's not on board with that." I mean, just imagine for a second.
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for a second if that sentiment was legitimate. Let's just pretend for a second that you could be more devoted to God, you could be more devoted to Jesus if you got a divorce. Do you see what would happen? Everyone that's looking for an out would just use that excuse.
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They'd be like, "You know what, sweetheart?
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I think we should get a divorce because I just want to love Jesus more." Right?
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It'd start a new phrase.
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It would be, "It's not you, it's Him." Right?
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But that was the mindset they had.
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And Paul's like, "No, no, no, no.
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The words of our Lord are quite clear.
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Don't get a divorce." But then you have the person that's like, "Oh, Paul, I wish you would have wrote this letter two weeks ago, because I did buy it.
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You know what?
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Yeah, we are both believers, but I bought into the idea that getting a divorce would benefit my walk.
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So what do you do if you are both Christians and you did get a divorce?
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What do you do about that?" Well, look at verse 11.
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He says, "But if she does get a divorce, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.
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And the husband should not divorce his wife." Okay, so if you're like, "You know what?
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I did get the divorce, and now looking back, we are both believers.
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I shouldn't have done that." Paul goes, "Okay, well now you have two choices.
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You're either unmarried the rest of your life, or go back to your husband and get back on track." Like, "I'm not sure that's possible." Well, if you're both Christians, forgiveness and healing and reconciliation should not be foreign concepts to you.
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So if you and your spouse are both Christians, stay married.
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All right?
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And as we saw last week, verse 3, married Christian couples, pay your debt.
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All right?
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I know that's the sermon that always gets applied.
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I know the nursery is going to be restocked in about nine months.
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I know.
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So married Christians.
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All right.
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This is where things get even more difficult.
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This is addressed to those of you who are married to a non-Christian.
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And I know there are some people in this church that are married to a non-Christian.
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But this non-Christian wants to stay married.
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Okay, you're like, "Yeah, my husband's not a believer, or my wife's not a believer, and Like, she's okay with me being a believer, and she's okay with me going to church, and she wants to stay married, so what do I do?
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What do I do here?
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God says, "Stay married." Stay married.
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You know, back in, look at the, back in chapter 6 verse 15, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago.
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Paul says, talking about those who were being sexually immoral with the cult prostitutes, he says, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
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Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
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Never." You see, there would have been some that heard this principle like, "Okay, so me physically being with a prostitute is like defiling for me, so what about me physically being with a non-Christian spouse?
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Well, me being intimate, I mean, isn't it the same principle that I am defiling my body because I'm in this mixed marriage?
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We have different faiths?
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That's the question on the table.
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Regarding mixed marriages, meaning one's a believer and one's not, you're like, "What do you do?" Well, first of all, it's forbidden, single people.
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Second Corinthians 6.14, if you're single, listen, if you're single, you are not to get married to a non-Christian.
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Corinthians 6.14.
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You are not to get married to a non-Christian if you're single.
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If you can prevent this, you should prevent this.
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That people think, "Well, I'm going to get married to the person and I'll save them, and I'm going to be such a good influence on them," and it usually works the other way.
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So if you're single, you are not to marry a non-Christian.
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So all right, now with that out of the way, the question is, "Well, what if we were married as non-Christians and I got saved and he didn't get saved?" Or vice versa, man.
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You're like, "Well, I got saved and my wife didn't get saved.
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What do we do?" Well, look at verse 12.
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He says, "To the rest I say, 'I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her." By the way, when he says here, "I, not the Lord," you know what some people do with that, right?
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They're like, "Oh, well, this is just Paul's opinion." So we can sort of disregard this section because Paul here, I mean, he's saying that this is just his opinion, and that's not what he's saying at all.
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Back in verse 10, he was saying, "I'm quoting Jesus here." Now in verse 12, he's saying, "This is also from the Lord, but this isn't a direct quote from Jesus, do you see?" He's not saying this is uninspired.
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He's just saying, "Before I was directly quoting from the ministry of Jesus, and now this is new revelation from God. That's all he's saying. So what if I'm married to a non-Christian and he wants to stay married? Paul says, "You don't get a divorce, you stay married. That's what you do." Like, really? Verse 13, "If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him." Oh yeah, that question, being with this non-Christian make me unholy?
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Like isn't it the same principle as being with the prostitutes?
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No, not at all.
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Because look at verse 14.
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For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.
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You see, when one of you is saved and your spouse is not, it's not that the Christian is made unholy in the eyes of God, it's the unsaved person is made holy.
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I want to be clear here.
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That does not mean that the unbelieving spouse is saved because they're spouses.
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That is not what that means.
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The Bible is crystal clear on salvation.
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Salvation is an individual transaction.
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You can't get saved because of somebody else.
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Biblically, you have to make the choice to turn from your sin.
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You have to make the choice to repent.
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You have to make the choice that you are going to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
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It doesn't matter how good of a Christian your grandmama was, or your mama, or your spouse.
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It doesn't matter.
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You're not saved.
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It's not like group raid here, all right?
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You're saved by you making the choice.
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You're like, all right, so what's he talking about here?
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Well, it's a big fancy theological term that's known as matrimonial sanctification.
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Impress your friends, drop that in conversation this week.
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Do you have a water cooler at your workplace?
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Drop that.
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Yes, we were talking about matrimonial sanctification at church.
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And they're like, "Oh, what is that?" And you'll tell them.
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Well, in God's eyes, if one spouse is saved, there's blessing for everyone in the house.
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I mean, think about it this way.
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Think about it this way.
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Imagine this married couple, you have this married couple, and the wife's parents die, and they leave her an inheritance.
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They leave her a speedboat.
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Now husbands, are you going to benefit from this inheritance?
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No?
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All right, let me try something else.
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Her parents left her a Harley Davidson.
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Husbands, are you going to benefit from this inheritance?
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Yeah, some of you.
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All right, let me try this again.
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Her parents left her a monster truck.
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Husbands, are you going to benefit from this inheritance?
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Okay, this is really going to help for the second service.
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Do you see the point?
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You got the inheritance.
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You know, you're driving grave digger down the road, but you had nothing to do with that, right?
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You were blessed just because your wife received an inheritance.
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It's the same principle at play here.
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You're blessed by association.
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In the same way, in marriage, two become one, and when God blesses one, the other gets blessed.
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I mean, it's not salvation, but it's better than two pagans being married to each other.
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Right?
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Think of the blessing that comes to the non-Christian spouse when the Christian spouse is exhibiting the fruit of the Holy Spirit, when the Christian spouse is showing humility and love and service and selflessness.
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And how could you not be blessed being in a house like that?
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That's what he's talking about.
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Oh, and regarding the salvation piece, look, nobody can deny the influence the believing spouse has.
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I've heard the story so many times of people getting saved because of the witness that their Christian spouse has had.
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So if you're in this situation, if your spouse is unsaved, God wants to reach them through you.
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So let him see Christ in you.
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And you're like, "Well, that's well and good, but what if we have kids, right?
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I mean, I'm saved, he's not.
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Does that make our kids like half pagan?" No, no, it really doesn't.
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Look at the rest of verse 14.
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Paul says, "Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." See, even if you have kids with a non-Christian, your kids are also made holy through that.
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Same principle.
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Your kids are also blessed through that because God sees your marriage as holy, so He's going to see your kids as holy.
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So if you're married to a non-Christian who wants to stay married, God's going to bless the family.
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Stay married if they want to stay.
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All right, one more.
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One more group we didn't cover, and that's the last one here.
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Let's say someone is married to a non-Christian, and that non-Christian is like, "I want out.
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Like look, I didn't sign up for all this Jesus stuff, all this Bible study stuff.
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I didn't sign up for all this church stuff.
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I'm not interested.
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I'm not a religious person.
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I want out." So what do you do when you're married to a non-Christian who wants to leave?
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The answer is, let them go.
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Let them go.
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Look at verse 15.
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He says, "But if the unbelieving partner separates," that's divorce, look what he says, "let it be so." If the non-Christian spouse initiates a divorce, Paul says they can go.
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And I know the reaction.
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You're like, "Wait, wait.
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Well, that means I'm stuck.
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You know, I wanted to save this marriage, and they divorced me, and now I can never get remarried again because they left me.
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So I'm stuck, right?" Paul doesn't say that.
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Paul doesn't say that.
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Paul was clear on situations where you had to be remaining unmarried.
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We saw that in verse 11.
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He was clear in those situations, and he could have said that here, but he didn't.
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You can remarry.
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If you are married to a non-Christian that abandons you, initiates a divorce, and leaves you, you can remarry.
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Look at the rest of verse 15.
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He says, "In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved." God has called you to peace.
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Not enslaved.
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Like, not enslaved to what?
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He's talking about free from being bound to the marriage.
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That's what he's talking about.
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See Romans 7, 2 says, "For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives." That's what he's talking about here in 1 Corinthians 7.
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That's the bound to the marriage.
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He goes, "You're not enslaved.
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You're not bound anymore.
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You're no longer bound to the marriage." Now look, I know some sermons are easier to preach than others, and divorce is a very touchy subjects.
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It's always painful.
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It always brings regret and hurt.
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I know that.
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So I want to take a moment and I want to be clear on my best understanding on the subject biblically.
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All right?
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I don't want there to be any ambiguity.
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I want to be clear.
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I believe that there is only one cause for divorce biblically, and that is hardness of heart.
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Like, why do I think that?
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Well, Jesus was asked about divorce in Matthew 19, eight.
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This is what he said.
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He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce." Jesus said divorce was allowed through Moses, through the law, because of hardness of heart.
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Again divorce is allowed, not commanded.
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Right?
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Allowed not commanded.
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But the question is, how do you know when someone is hard hearted?
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Towards their spouse or towards their marriage, right?
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Kind of a hard thing to gauge, isn't it?
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Well Jesus said, "I can divorce you if you're hard-hearted." Well you seem hard-hearted to me, I'm getting divorced.
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How do you know?
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Well biblically there are two ways that hard-heartedness manifests, and both begin with the letter A. It's affair and abandonment.
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Jesus spoke on a fair.
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Matthew 19, 9, Jesus says, "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." Now again, divorce is allowed, but not commanded.
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Understand this, when this happens in a marriage, that doesn't mean you are required to get a divorce.
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I can tell you so many stories of marriages where this did happen.
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And there was much repentance and seeking the Lord, and marriages are on track better than they were on their honeymoon.
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But when someone is committed to having relations with people outside the marriage, Jesus says that's evidence of hard-heartedness.
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Moses allowed for divorce for that.
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Here, Paul is addressing the other manifestation of hard-heartedness, and that's abandonment.
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That if your non-Christian spouse divorces you, abandons you, you are free.
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That's how you know your spouse is hard-hearted.
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When they are willing to engage in relations with someone else, they're hard-hearted towards you.
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Or when they're like, "I'm fine to just walk away from this marriage.
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I'm fine to walk away from our vows.
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I'm fine to walk away from that." Those are evidences of hard-heartedness.
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And Jesus says abandonment is like adultery.
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I'm sorry, Paul says abandonment here is like adultery.
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You are called to peace.
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You are not called to fighting a non-Christian to stay in a marriage that they are committed to getting out of.
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One more verse.
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Paul says, "For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?
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Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?" You know, people are really divided on what this verse means.
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Some people think this verse means, "Well, you don't know if you're going to save your spouse, so let them go.
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I mean, you have no guarantees, just let them go.
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There's no promises are going to come to Christ, if they say let them go." That's what some people think, but other people think this means, "No, no, no, you might be the one that God uses to save them, so you should try to save your marriage at any cost.
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I lean towards the latter.
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There's no guarantees either way.
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You don't know.
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You don't know what God's doing.
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So you better be sure that you did all you could to save the marriage.
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I personally believe that this verse pumps the brakes.
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This verse, as one person I read this past week said, this verse tempers any tendency that just easily give up on the marriage.
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Because some people are just so quick to run to divorce as like option one.
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Again, if things are hard now, how do you know that God isn't using you to reach your spouse?
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Our worship team would make their way back up front.
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Paul continues, and I think he's doubling down on some of these things because some of it's hard to accept and some of it's hard to hear.
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But again, Paul reminds us that singleness is God's gift for some.
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Marriage is God's gift for the rest.
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One of these four sermons applies to you.
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So whichever it is, go after it with the reverence and with the sacredness that God has called you to.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we're asking today, Father, that your Holy Spirit be at work in our hearts.
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When we talk about singleness and divorce and all these things, it's such an emotional subject because there are people here that have been deeply wounded by these things.
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And we by no means, Father, wanna kick someone when they're down or rub salt on the wound.
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We just, we wanna take an honest look at what your word has to say.
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Father, we thank you for your grace.
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We thank you that you are the God of miracles.
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We thank you, God, that no matter how badly things might have gotten in marriage, whether it was able to be saved or not, God, there's always hope with you.
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There's always healing with you.
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That's why we come to you.
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Father, I pray for all of us that we would take a hard look at the place you have us right now, because there's something in here for each one of us.
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And that we would go after it, trusting you to always do what you promised.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Corinthians 7:8-16
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Explain 1 Cor 7:14. How is the nonChristian spouse made holy because of a Christian spouse? What does that mean?
If you are married to a nonChristian who wants out of the marriage (1 Cor 7:15), how do you know when to grant their divorce (when to stop trying to save the marriage, asking for counseling, etc)?
Why should you allow a nonChristian to divorce and leave a Christian (v15)? Is the believing spouse free to remarry? Why or why not?
Breakout
Pray for one another.