April 21, 2002 - Lesson: Matthew 5.31-32

Sermon Title: The Devastation of Divorce

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INTRODUCTION:

Conversation between Hagar and Helga, Comics, Wisconsin State Journal, February 17, 2002.

Hagar (Sitting at the breakfast table): "Are you going to join me for a cup of coffee this morning, Helga."

Helga: "Yes, I'm getting it now."

Helga (Walking to the breakfast table): "Last night I had a strange dream!"

Hagar: "What was it?"

Helga: "I dreamt you stopped going on business trips and stayed home full time. For the first time in our married life, we wre together 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Hagar: "Then what happened?"

Helga: "I got a divorce."

One of Karen Bailey's Irish Proverbs is:

"Marriages are all happy. It's having breakfast together that causes all the trouble." (1)

MAIN BODY:

  1. Here are two statements to think and talk about.

I, N., take you, N., to be my wedded husband/wife, to have an to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and accordingly I pledge you my faith.

We are banded together as a Congregational Christian Church to maintain the worship of God, to proclaim the gospel of Christ, to develop in men and women a consciousness of our relations and duties to God and our fellow men and women; and to inspire each other with love for redeeming truth, a passion for righteousness, and an enthusiasm for service. To this end we publicly pledge our personal loyalty to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, and we covenant with God and with one another that we will strive to express his spirit in our lives, both as individual believers and as a church; to live together as Christian friends and to submit ourselves to the government of this church; always working for its progress, giving liberally of our means for its support, and praying for its increase in efficiency, its purity in life and purpose, its peace and fellowship in service, and seeking in every way to make it an influence for the building up of the kingdom of God.

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  1. What is the difference between those two statements.
    1. You recognize what they are.
      1. The first is a wedding vow.
      2. The second is the proposed Church Covenant.
    2. What is the difference between them?
      1. One is the covenant vows of two persons to each other.
      2. The second is a covenant vow of a person with God and family of God.
    3. They are equally valid and equally important.
    4. Have you ever thought of your relationship with God as a marriage:
    5. There are significant Scriptural allusions to God as husband.

Isaiah 54:5-6 NRSV, For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. {6} For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man's youth when she is cast off, says your God.

Jeremiah 31:32 NRSV, It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.

Hosea 2:19-20 NRSV, And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. {20} I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

2 Corinthians 11:1-2 NRSV, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! {2} I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

Ephesians 5:25-27 NRSV, ...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, {26} in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, {27} so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind--yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.

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  1. I wrote a Pre-Marital Inventory to use with individual who had not been previously married (Although they are also important for anyone considering marriage.). (One of the factual points that you learn as a divorced person is that you have a tendency to marry the same kind or type of person.)
    1. Why are you being married?
    2. What is the purpose of marriage?

Fred Buechner, in his book WHISTLING IN THE DARK, says,

"Marriage is where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together, than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone."

    1. What do you hope to accomplish be getting married?
    2. What will you need to do to accomplish your purpose?
    3. Need to do?, Why marriage is work.
      1. Constant work.

M. Scott peck in "The Road Lass Traveled," writes:

Love is the willingness to extend one's self for the nurture of one's own or another's spiritual growth.

      1. Consistent work.

John Graham, has noted:

Even if marriages are made in heaven, we have to be responsible for the maintenance.

Bill Keene, The Family Circus

Grandmother says to her grandchildren, "God created the face, you create the expression.

    1. If we consider our relationship with God as with a spouse there are some questions that need to be explored.
      1. Do the same questions, slightly reworded, apply to a relationship with God.
        1. Why are you a Christian?
        2. What is the purpose of Christianity?
        3. What do you hope to accomplish by being a Christian?

Ephesians 4:13-15

{13} until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. {14} We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. {15} But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

      1. What will you need to do to accomplish your purpose?

Ephesians 4:11-12 NRSV)\

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, {12} to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

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  1. Marriage is an excellent illustration of a relationship with God, and relationship with God is fundamental to a growing marriage.
    1. What would constitute a good marriage.
      1. Communication
      2. Mutual interests
      3. Time to be alone
      4. Being good friends
      5. Growing in love.

M. Scott peck in "The Road Lass Traveled," writes:

Love is the willingness to extend one's self for the nurture of one's own or another's spiritual growth.

      1. We need to love, as best we are able, unconditionally.
    1. God is the ideal spouse.
  1. There is a word that rears its ugly head in all relationships, either directly or indirectly.
    1. That word is Divorce.
    2. The end result of deteriorating relationships.

Zig Ziglar tells about an event that occurred several years ago while he was coming in on a plane. He noticed a fellow seated next to him who had his wedding band on the index finger of his right hand. Zig says he couldn't resist the temptation, so he commented, "Friend, you've got your wedding band on the wrong finger." The man responded, "Yeah, I married the wrong woman."

Wife: If you really loved me, you would have married some other woman.

    1. It is the breakdown of relationships
    2. It is the severing of the ties of marriage.
    3. It does have its impact on the participants as well as the observers.
  1. There is no difficulty in understanding the devastation created by divorce.
    1. Devastation may appear to be too harsh or too hard a word.
    2. Perhaps I ought to use, distress or grief, dislocation, brokenness.
      1. They are all somewhat synonymous.
      2. We are all too aware of the impact that divorce has on people and society.
        1. The anger, the blame, the depression.
        2. The broken relationships that are mourned.
        3. The economic and social consequences.
        4. Loss of self-esteem.
        5. Impact of future relationships.
        6. The spiritual and psychological influence on children.
  2. Many times the same impact is felt when one is divorced from the Church or God.
    1. The impact on an individuals can be severe.
      1. Loss of hope.
      2. Unresolved resentment or even anger.
      3. Confusion about identity.
      4. Broken relationships.
    2. The results on culture or society are evident.
      1. Nearly all of the greed, violence, and selfishness that we see is the result of what C. S. Lewis calls "The Great Divorce".
      2. If God were justly and lovingly a part of all human experience This world would be a very different place in which to love, to laugh, to work and to live.
  3. We understand that no matter how a person may attempt to hold on a marriage may end in divorce.

A man came into the Pastor's office, sat down, and said, "I do not love my wife anymore, I want a divorce."

The pastor thought for a moment and then said, "Well, you know, it is said that we ought to love our wives and Christ loved the church and gave himself for it."

"No matter, I still don't love my wife I want a divorce."

The pastor thought for a moment and replied, "Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves."

"No matter, I still don't love my wife I want a divorce."

The pastor, for a moment didn't know how to reply. He thought some more and then said, "Well you know Jesus said that we ought to love our enemies."

The man determined to maintain his position said, "No matter, I still don't love my wife I want a divorce."

And he got up and left the office.

He got his divorce.

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    1. We are reminded that the scripture reading is for the church, for the Christian and not for the world at large.
    2. One person may hold a marriage together, but it is not likely.
    3. It is a divine institution managed by human beings.
    4. We can be rather fickle and arbitrary.
  1. Marriages to God may be very different.
    1. This is a personal decision, not necessarily impacted by another human being.
    2. God is not fickle or arbitrary.
    3. God is unconditional love
    4. God embodies all the wonderful characteristics that we would like to have in a spouse.
    5. In addition, God has power to share that enables the spiritual development towards maturity that enables us to grow up.

CONCLUSION:

I Love You . . .
By: Roy Croft

Not only for what you are
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you
Not only for what you have made of yourself
But what you are making of me.
I love you, for putting your hand into my heaped up heart,
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can't help dimly seeing there,
And drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
that no one else had looked quite far enough to find.
I love you because you are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple;
Out of my works, of my every day
Not a reproach, but a song.

I love you,
Because you have done
More than any creed could have done
To make me feel my goodness.
You have done it,
With your touch, with your words,
With yourself.

1. Karen Bailey's Irish Proverbs (NY: Chronicle, 1992) quoted in Martin E. Marty's Context, (15 January 1993, 4)

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