Amen, and please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 19 as we return after a couple of weeks break from our study. It's now our fourth time through verses one through 12, emphasizing different portions of it, of course, along the way today of focus on verses 10 through 12, the teaching of Jesus concerning singleness. Now as you may recall, or as you're about to hear, as we read it, the whole passage begins with a question from the Pharisees about divorce in verse three, followed by the teaching of Jesus quoting Genesis one about God creating male and female, and then quoting Genesis two about marriage, and well, he quotes the Bible, that is he quotes God, that is he says to them in verse four, haven't you read the word of God?
In other words, your argument, you Pharisees, is not with me, it's with God himself. Or as another said, you don't like what I'm saying, don't call me, call heaven. God said these words, and some of you are saying, but isn't Jesus God, yes he is, not the nine men. But you hear the point of his argument, we've already, God has already communicated all of this to you.
And then of course there's a follow up question from them, about the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24 about divorce, and Jesus will go on to explain that passage and teach about divorce, and remarriage, and adultery, and his teaching about those things will prompt his disciples to remark in verse 10. Well, that is better just not to get married at all, it's better to remain single. And Jesus, as we'll see, will respond to that. So we're gonna take a closer look at verses 10 to 12, but because it's the tail end of a larger discussion that prompts the question, we'll first try to quickly review and summarize what we've seen and heard so far.
But let's hear the passage in Matthew chapter 19, verses one through 12, this is the holy and inspired Word of God. Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh, therefore God is joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
The disciples said to him, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better, not to marry, but he said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. Amen.
This is God's word. May he write it on our hearts. Let's look to him in prayer. Father, in heaven, teach us your word.
Give us help by the Holy Spirit. Grant that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be acceptable. In your sight, O Lord, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.
Want you to consider, once again, the love of Jesus, and then the teaching of Jesus about marriage by way of review so that we can get to the teaching of Jesus about singleness. But first, I want us to begin again with the love of Jesus in verses one and two. We don't remember the context of the teaching. We might think that Jesus is simply interested in high and lofty theological ruminations and debates about things like marriage and divorce and remarriage and sexual morality and singleness.
But verses one and two remind us that Jesus loves people, and he knows that the truth then is best for people. It's not the Pharisees who love people, but Jesus who loves people. They're not asking their question in verse three because they really care about all the marriages around them. No, they're there to test Jesus, to get him to somehow trip up, either make a fool of himself, they can get him to say something wrong, drive the people away from Jesus.
They hate Jesus and they don't care about the people, other than they want the people to follow them. But Jesus, notice where he is in verses one and two. He is out among the crowds, and he's healing people. He's ministering.
Why? Because he cares about the well-being of people who are suffering the miseries of this life. The Pharisees aren't there to be a friend or help, but Jesus is. So I just want to remind us all once again, and this is, I believe our last sermon on this passage, which raises lots of questions we don't have time to answer, and also maybe pokes and prods in hard places.
I just want us to begin here again to remind us that Jesus loves us even when we find ourselves in difficult and painful circumstances. It may not be health concerns, but it may be these relational concerns. We may be single and wish that we were married. We may be married and wish that we had a different spouse.
We may be born with some physical defect that makes marital relations impossible for us. Jesus mentions folks in that condition. Or maybe we have been abused in some way that has caused marital physical relations to be either physically impossible or emotionally repulsive to us. Or maybe we find ourselves suddenly alone.
Maybe a spouse has deserted us, or maybe God and his providence has taken a spouse from us. Or maybe we're single and by choice, even for service in God's kingdom, as Jesus mentions these folks. But in doing so, maybe we're doubting the wisdom of our decision and pining for the green grass that, well, that seems greener anyway, on the other side of the fence. I mean, there are a multitude of reasons that your life may not be the life that you had hoped for yourself.
And it may be you're tempted to be angry at God or shake your fist at him or cry out to him, don't you care for me? Then the passage begins, yes, he cares deeply about people. He was with the crowd. He was ministering to their misery and giving them healing.
And for all who trusted in him, the promise that one day we will all be healed in Christ of all our diseases. If that promise and eventuality seems too distant for you, then once you see again that Jesus loved you and gave himself for you upon the cross, that you might be pardoned for your sins, reconciled to God, and have the hope of eternal happiness with Jesus in the glory that is to come. So then, how does our loving Savior respond to the Pharisees? He's questioned in verse three, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?
And here we see the teaching of Jesus positively about marriage in verses three through 90 begins and verses, well, he begins in answer from Genesis chapter one verse 26, we mentioned these things before, but by way of review, verse four, he answered, have you not read that he created them from the beginning? Made them male and female. He starts there because marriage is designed by God to be between one man and one woman at one time. And God made males, males and not females.
And God made females, females and not males. And marriage is the union of one male and one female. In a lifelong mutually committed relationship, that's the ideal. And then Jesus quotes Genesis 24 and 25 at verse five of Matthew 19, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.
And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God is doing together, let not man separate. Jesus' initial response to their inquiry about divorce is to begin with a positive presentation of God's design for marriage.
It says, if he said, before I'll talk to you about splitting up, let me talk to you about staying together. For marriage is a covenant relationship. We noted that a few weeks ago. It's intended for life.
It's not a contractual relationship of convenience. It's designed to be a binding mutual commitment until death parts ye, not a temporary contract. You can void at your whim. It's also a public and social relationship, not a private arrangement.
A man will leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. Leaving your parents is not gonna go unnoticed by the family or the community. And it's to be supported by the family and the community. It's a public relationship.
It's also for the mutual help of husband and wife. We remembered in Genesis that it was not good that Adam was alone. Even in the Garden of Paradise. So God made a helper suitable fit.
One like him, human, made in the image of God, but distinct from him as female is distinct from male and Adam needed her. And he needed her as husbands need their wives and wives need their husbands to help one another walk together with the Lord. And we saw that marriage is also a sexual relationship. So the two, the scripture says are no longer two, but one flesh.
And that one flesh union is more than sexual, but it's not less than that. So the marriage bed is honorable. Hebrews 13 will say, and why did God design marriage this way and not some other way? Why is it between one man and one woman for life?
Well, because of Christ, the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5 quotes Genesis 2, again, I won't read it again. He quotes what I just read about leaving father and mother and holding fast to wife and so forth. And then he says this mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
The two become one. That's about Christ, he says, and the church. So that what the Bible is saying is that God from the foundation of the world planned to create a world and to populate it with people who would be a bride for his son in order that God might unite humanity to himself in a marriage that goes on forever in love. Marriage between a man and a woman is modeled after Christ's marriage to the church and is to be a picture of it.
This is the theological justification for Paul's command in Ephesians 5, 33 at the end of that passage. Let each one of you, man, let each one of you love his wife as himself. And let the wife see that she respects her husband. The self-denying love of a husband for his wife.
And there's not a man in this room who has died to self perfectly adequately the way that we ought. Let's confess that. We're not the husbands we ought to be. But we're called to love our wives and Christ loved the church and gave himself work.
And so the self-denying love of a husband for his wife and the loving respect of a wife for her husband. And let's be honest, submitting yourself to your own husband as unto the Lord is hard. And there's not a wife in this room who has always and constantly perfectly respected her husband in the way that she's called to. We're sinners.
But this is about reflecting and being modeled upon the relationship of Christ and the church. And we might say, and the church hasn't done its part perfectly well all the time. But Jesus has perfectly and always done his part. He has loved us and he never lets us go.
So Jesus concludes at the end of verse 6 in Matthew chapter 19, what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Now when all of this teaching prompts, then the Pharisees to ask in verse 7, Moses give a command to give a certificate of divorce and send her away, send the wife away. And Jesus in his response actually corrects them. For Moses did not command divorce.
God, as Malachi tells us, hates divorce. But through Moses, the law given through Moses, God made a concession, not a command. Jesus even changes the term and says, Moses allowed, not commanded. And God did make this concession because sometimes men and women will divorce.
And in giving this concession, God is seeking to make a bad situation better rather than worse. She'll get a certificate. She'll be able to explain what happened and show that she's no longer married. She'll be able to remarry her for her husband, just kicked her out the door and things of that nature and so on.
But it was because of human sin that God allowed this, not because it's what ought to be. So even in cases we could say of Terrible Sin against a spouse, even infidelity, it's not required that the marriage and divorce, repentance and reconciliation are possible. And even preferable if repentance is genuine, and giving a forgiveness is sincere. And so Jesus sums up then what will provoke the disciples and take us to verses 10 through 12.
In verse 9, Jesus will sum up and say to you, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. We looked at that again a few weeks ago, with an overlapping passage from 1 Corinthians 7 to show that the only two biblical justifications for divorce are sexual immorality on the one hand of one of the spouses and desertion from 1 Corinthians 7, as we saw by one of the spouses. In which case, a believer may remarry, the apostle says, and it not be considered adultery. But without either adultery or abandonment, remarriage would be adultery.
You can't just cast off your spouse on a whim, so to speak. I mean, in the value, you commit to them in sickness and in health, in poverty as well as riches, and sorrow as well as joy. That's why the traditional vow, we try to get people to say the traditional vow, it's just so comprehensive and succinct. If sickness comes to you, you say to this person, and you lose your health, you lose your abilities, you lose your beauty, you lose your mind, and if I need to nurse you.
Or if you're the cause that we go down the tank into poverty. Or if, well, you're the reason, my life isn't full of joy, but sorrow, and marrying you ended up not bringing me happiness, but sadness, well, I'll be here tomorrow. I'll stay. And the response of the disciples to that is what?
Verse 10. Well, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better not to marry. And so here we see the first of four reasons why someone might not marry, as Jesus points it out, in verse 10 to 12. Someone might say to themselves, no way.
I am not binding myself to someone in that kind of lifelong relationship if the escape hatch is so tiny. I'd rather remain single than free. Someone said, I'd rather play the field bounce from person to person, but I'm going to settle down and get myself trapped with some person who might make my life more difficult and not less. You see what they're saying?
If I can't get rid of them, marry somebody else, except in the case of sexual morality here, it's just not worth it. It's not worth the risk. You hear their attitude. It's kind of mind-boggling, really.
They're disciples of a lot to learn. They seem to be making the desirability of marriage contingent upon the possibility of an easy divorce. That's the only circumstances under which I never get married is what they're saying. I mean, doesn't that sound right?
They say to Jesus? But Jesus teaches them that not only that they ought to have a high view of marriage, but he says, look, marriage isn't to be neglected because of its challenges. Sure, I'm calling you to commitment. That's what marriage is, commitment.
And that can be hard. But what he says to them is what you've just said is actually harder, far harder than what I've said. You've just said you don't want to commit, you don't want a lifetime commitment to a woman, you'd rather just stay single, you'd rather just be celibate. And he says, I want to tell you something.
We're not hardwired that way. Most of us can't do it. That way is far harder than my way. Celibacy is more difficult than marriage.
So singleness is a calling, Jesus says. And few have the gift. And so we see here that fear, this is the first reason why some people stay single. Fear.
Some people are fearful of what might happen in the future, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the changes in that life might bring to the person that they well refuse to marry. This is a fear that drives many people to stay unattached. Sometimes that fear is driven by, and we find this very understandable, sometimes that fear is driven by the experience of the painful divorce of parents and children who've seen that and been through it. Judith Wallerstein's landmark study is a 25 year landmark study called the Unexpected Legacy of Divorce.
They track through interpersonal interviews, the children who had been through a parental divorce and noted that oftentimes those children, not always, but oftentimes those children have a lingering fear, when is the other shoe going to drop? And it curbs their enthusiasm to get married themselves. That fracture in their universe is so painful. They live on the edge of their seat, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
Some of you know that experience. Others in our day have other kinds of fears. Many in our day delay marriage much longer than historically typical, many women have typically married soon after reaching maturity to build a life together in terms of work and domestic life and social relationships and raising kids. But in our day, of course, many people are waiting until after they've established them in a career and in social relationships and perhaps a community and been accustomed to the routine of life without responsibility for another.
And much of that, I won't say all, much of that is driven by ungodly ambitions and human pride and fear of missing out of something they think might be more desirable or fear of commitment. And for many, as we know, it's been terribly unhealthy because the urge to make is strong in many people and the right desire to express ourselves in the act of marital relations is so overpowering that few are able to remain chaste, but many fall into patterns of self absorption, self-centered sin, addiction, and well, addiction often leads to increasing deviancy. This is why the Westminster Larger Catechism on the sins forbidden concerning the seventh commandment includes the sin of the undue delay of marriage. Noting, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Now, other people don't marry because they fear their own inability to keep a commitment, especially perhaps they fear this. What if in five or 10 years I fall out of love with that person? And here I would say they have things backwards in their thinking. It is their thinking.
It's love that makes the marriage. It's love that keeps the commitment. That it's somehow the emotional love, the romantic love, the attraction that enables the commitment to endure. But that's backward.
It's the commitment that enables the love. It's the marriage that enables the continuance of the love. It's the commitment to faithfulness to this person, to remain in the relationship that actually sustains and nurtures the love. Because many a couple have experienced that.
Well, however strong that romantic love was in the dating days, even in the early honeymoon stage. However strong it was in the beginning. It ebbs and it flows, even diminishes, and is replaced by something perhaps less emotional, but more powerful. Deep, rich, rewarding activity of love.
Of loving another person through thick and thin and the highs and lows of life being a mutual help to one another as you enjoy the comforts and undergo the cares and endure the trials and perform the duties of life together, as the marriage ceremony puts it. And they find that their love grows. And it blossoms. It's the context of commitment that enables the growth.
You wake up in the morning with this person beside you and you don't have to ask Lord, who do I love today? Oh, there's probably other people we ought to love in certain ways. But this is the person I'm called to love. I'm committed to love.
I know whom I'm supposed to engage in the activity of love with. There's potential, enormous joy, potential, enormous growth in maturity, growth in grace, growth in sanctification to be found in committing yourself to another person to love them day after day after day. It's also humbling, calls us to lean on the Lord, calls us to grow in grace and be gracious because it shows us our inward bent, our inherent self love. But it's worth it.
The love is we've been loved by the Lord to forgive our spouses. We've been forgiven by the Lord to accept our spouses. We've been accepted by the Lord. It's so worth it.
Don't let your fear keep you from marrying. But because of the required commitment of marriage and as the disciples consider the duties, but clearly they're not thinking of the benefits of that lifelong commitment, they say, it's better not to marry. And Jesus says what? Verse 11, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those who are given.
The disciples are thinking marriage is probably best for just a few and most of us should probably remain single. And Jesus says, no, marriage is best for many and yet some of us can or are able to remain single. And you have to have a calling from God and gifting from God for singleness. Not everybody can receive this, he says.
It takes a gift from God to act on the notion that it is better for me not to marry. Most of us concluded, most of us who aren't yet married will conclude, well, no, it is better for me to marry. Because most of us aren't made for chastity. As our body grows into maturity, it begins speaking to us.
Find us spouse, get married, embrace the union of marriage. Some people though, for the reasons given in verse 12, don't marry, but for most of us, it's better if we do. I know young men who have thoughts to themselves, I'll stay a bachelor forever. In college we said, I'll be a bachelor to the rapture.
All my buddies and I, college students. Bachelors to the rapture. And I'll have first of all, I don't believe in that view of the rapture that we all said we did, but that's a different story. But we were all just chicken.
That's really, we were just afraid to ask and grow out. And we were afraid of commitment. And some of us didn't know where we were going in life. We didn't want to drag a woman into that.
That's fair. But anyway, some guys say themselves, no, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. And they don't actually have the gift of God that enables them to remain sexually pure and chaste and self-restrain. And what these men need to do is to humble themselves and admit they need a why for the righteous expression of sexual desire in a mutual relationship of love and care and pleasure.
Proverbs 5 commends this to you. Don't fear the lifetime commitment. And don't fool yourself into remaining single if you don't have this capacity. Now the second reason people may remain single and more briefly here, the first is if they follow the path of fear.
The second and verse 12, Jesus goes on to say, for there are unix who have been so from birth. He uses the term unix, five times in a very short span. He uses the noun and he uses the verbs. There are unix and there are people who are unixed.
It's a term that refers to those who are unable to engage in sexual union. He's speaking here of some who are from birth this way. Maybe they suffered some congenital defect or bodily injury at birth. And this person may be impotent and unable to unite with the spouse.
Because we live in a fallen world where we're all liable to all the various miseries of this life. There are. We know. A relatively small number, statistically speaking, but it would be greatly significant to you if this is the case of people who are born incapable of sexual expression in the marital relation way.
They may be physically unable or may they may be strongly disinterested or averse to it. And for these reasons, they remain single. In other cases, a third reason here is next to it and verse 12. And there are unixes he says who have been made unix by men.
Here he's thinking probably chiefly of castration. Kings of old famously, who had harems castrated the men who were their servants, who oversaw the women in the harem, precisely said that the men wouldn't get interested. And Rob from the king, his prerogatives. Or so that they wouldn't get interested in marriage and then need their time divided.
Now the king wanted them full time and on duty. One of these folks would meet next chapter eight, the Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure interestingly. And he'd come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was returning.
And he was seated on his chariot. And he was reading the book of Isaiah, the prophecy of Isaiah. And Philip met him there and told him who the servant of Isaiah is the Messiah, Jesus. And they went down to the river.
He having believed and he was baptized. It's wonderful. God included this Ethiopian eunuch in his kingdom. Well, there are some people who may be eunuchs by birth.
And there may be some who are eunuchs by the violent will of others imposing it upon them. We see that practice today in other ways, in the very wicked parts of the world, that practice the wicked female mutilation really is what it is, to make them not capable of enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed, under the thought that this will keep them faithful and they won't go astray. It's a wicked practice. Others have had trauma done to them by others.
And so even the thought of sexual intimacy is repulsive. The wicked abuse that kind might lead to a life of singleness. Others may be injured in war. Others may have suffered an accident that makes marital relations impossible.
And they remain single. And the fourth reason Jesus gives here is in the middle of verse 12. And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Not that they have physically injured themselves.
As early church father origin had done and came to regret. And because so many people follow his own example of self-mutilation, the council of Nicaea in 325 actually had to ban and condemn self-mutilation. And that's not what Jesus is talking about. What he's talking about is those who have counted the cost of giving up the privilege of marriage for the sake of serving the king of heaven.
It's not that they think marriage would bar them from heaven or that they think singleness will fit them for heaven. But that for the sake of serving their savior and king, they choose to be unencumbered by the responsibilities of marriage. The Apostle Paul was one like this. A Pharisee of Pharisees, we know he would at one time have been married, you couldn't be a Pharisee in his day if you hadn't been married.
But by the time we encountered the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts, there's no mention of the wife. Some think she possibly had previously died, others suggest possibly she deserted him after he became a Christian missionary. But in any case, he served as an apostle and a missionary as a single man and remained single by choice. Peter on the other hand was buried.
And Jesus sometimes went to the home of Peter's mother-in-law. And that married tradition was good too. Yet Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 7 that his singleness allowed him greater freedom in his service to the church. He says those who marry will have worldly troubles.
And I would spare you that, he says. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord. How to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things out of police's wife and his interests are divided.
And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord. How to be holy and body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things. How to please her husband.
And he'll add that there isn't a command one way or the other. He doesn't forbid marriage. I mean, that would be wicked. He doesn't command singleness.
And that would be wicked. But he invites us to consider which we prefer and what we are gifted to handle. And so Jesus finishes with this command at the end of verse 12, let the one who is able to receive this receive it. That is, some of you aren't able to choose even singleness for the sake of serving the king.
But it would be better for you to marry and serve together the king. But if you are able to remain single and celibate and chaste and sexually pure it, if you don't want to get married, then don't. Is what Jesus is saying. But remain single not for selfish reasons.
Remain single not out of fear of marriage, but remain single to give yourself more fully in the service of the king. And what a blessing it is to the church. When single adults serve Jesus among us, as many of you do, and serve the body of Christ out of love for Jesus. What a blessing that is.
And as you do, you'll need to die to yourself, like all Christians need to die to themselves. And beware the temptation to be wrapped up in yourself, or the temptation to stay aloof from your brothers and sisters who are married. And the rest of us are the body of Christ who are married will need to resist the temptation to make inappropriate inquiries into why some people remain single, probing into what is none of our business, or unjustly presuming we know why, or what would be better for them. And we've got to resist as well the temptation to stay aloof from our brothers and sisters in Christ who are single, instead of befriending them and including them.
Now isn't it wonderful, as we close, isn't it wonderful, that Jesus himself is a model for each of us, whether married or single? What are you talking about? How is it possible? It's one of the other, right?
Well, at least think of it this way. Jesus lived as a man upon the earth in a state of singleness and resisted temptation, served the Lord wholeheartedly for the sake of the church. And yet he served, even to the point of death on a cross, that he might what? Prepare a bride for himself to present her faultless in glory, where he will celebrate the consummation of his love for us as at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And we will enjoy our place in his body in union with him as members of his bride, the church. This table is a foretaste of that greater feast. Let's delight in our Savior King who stoops down to marry us. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your plan and sending your son and Jesus that you loved us and gave yourself for us. Grow us to be more like you. Forgive us all our sins in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and sing.