The Sermon on the Mount: Living Faithfully

Introduction

Read Matthew 5:31-37

Matthew 5:31–37 (ESV)

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

We have been looking at what it means to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees and the scribes. We have examined that the righteousness Christ is calling us to does not seek retaliation but rather to love our enemies. It is a righteousness that not only displays external obedience but rather has an internal change of heart, where we do not simply refrain from killing and committing adultery, but rather we have hearts that fight agains anger and lust because those sins start in our hearts.

The next area Jesus addresses is our faithfulness in our commitments, beginning with our spouses and then with those around us. Again our hearts want to know what is the minimum I must do to keep the law, how close to the line can I get before crossing over. But Jesus wants us to take our eyes off the line and place them upon His holiness and righteousness.

Now today’s topic can and will be very sensitive for many people, and I need to place this reminder of God’s grace before us. In all of these things we all stand guilty, whether it is anger and hatred, lust, the desire for vengeance and hating our enemies. And yet Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross has saved us and redeemed us from the penalty of our sins. So as we talk about the issues of marriage, divorce and the breaking of oaths, I want us to be reminded that these are not unforgivable sin, and yet Jesus wants to change our hearts once again to see these things in a new light and to fight for holiness moving forward regardless of our past mistakes and sins in these areas.

Stop Minimizing Your Commitments

Marriage and Divorce

First, Jesus addresses the issue of divorce.

Matthew 5:31 (ESV)

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’

He is quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 24:1-4

Deuteronomy 24:1–4 (ESV)

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

In Matthew 19, the Pharisees came to Jesus asking Him about this command. They wondered why Moses would command the people to divorce their wives.

Jesus told them it was only out of the hardness of the people’s hearts that Moses gave this permission. Divorce was never part of the plan of God when it came to marriage. It is because of sin that divorce is a reality today.

So Moses told the men that if they found some “indecency” in his wife and wanted to divorce her, they must write a certificate of divorce.

Two Schools of Thought

Shammai -

Interpreted “indecency” as marital impropriety just short of adultery, mainly because anyone caught in adultery would have been executed. So the adultery would have caused the end of the marriage because of the death of the offender.

But the divorce would be allowed for things such as indecent exposure of oneself or perhaps having an unhealthy emotional relationship with someone other than their spouse, which as we saw in Jesus’ teaching last week, lust is the same as adultery.

Hillel -

This other school of thought, which was much more liberal, was the school that many of the scribes and pharisees subscribed to, taught that if your wife did anything unpleasant you had the right to divorce her.

If she burned your supper or spoke to you in a tone that displeased you, that would be “indecent” and grounds for divorce.

This second school is the school of thought that has been most prominent for most of human history.

We are always trying to justify ways to get out of our commitments when things do not go the way we want.

Ronald Reagan, in 1969, introduced the nation’s first no-fault divorce law. This law allows the dissolution of the marriage union simply based upon irreconcilable differences between the husband and wife. Prior to this law, there had to be evidence that one of the parties broke the marriage agreement through adultery, abuse, or abandonment. But now, divorce is accessible to anyone who is simply not happy in their current context.

We are always trying to find the line of what is allowable for us to end and break our commitments. Even today, if we simply say we have irreconcilable differences, we seek to justify ourselves in breaking our promises to love our spouse for better or for worse, to death til us part.

We say the words, but we allow our emotions to override our commitments.

Why Did God Permit Divorce?

If divorce was never part of God’s plan, then why did Moses make a provision for a divorce certificate?

Like it has already been mentioned, it was because of the men’s hardness of hearts. But the divorce certificate served as a protection for the women.

On the one hand, you would have a man who became displeased for whatever reason with his wife and would divorce her. As a woman in that society, she would need to be married to someone as women were not able to provide for themselves. So she would need to marry someone else. If that man became displeased with her, there was a chance that her former husband would take her back and she would be treated as simple property being traded and sold back and forth. The divorce certificate would serve as a protection for her to make it more difficult for the man to divorce her and to treat her as property.

It was God’s way of ensuring that women would be treated as people made in His image and not simply as property to go back and forth. And thus, when one marriage came to an end as another began, it would be an abomination for the former marriage to take place again.

Divorce for only one reason

So while the Pharisees and men were focused on what might be legally permissible for divorce, Jesus comes through and says that the term “indecent” is really meant to apply only to adultery. Only if she has been with another man would a divorce be permissible.

But notice that divorce is permissible, but it is not commanded even in this sense. Jesus wants to turn our hearts away from focusing on what would allow divorce and start focusing on the marriage itself.

A Word About Abuse

If you are in a relationship with physical abuse, do not seek to stay in that relationship. Seek help. We can help you find that help and get the legal help and counseling that is needed. If you are being abused, do not allow the guilt of divorce to keep you from safety.

Promises

Matthew 5:33–36 (ESV)

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

Leviticus 19:12 (ESV)

You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

The Danger of Falsely Promising in the Name of the Lord

There was an understanding that when we made an oath or promise in the name of the Lord, then you are not just making a promise to the other person, you are making that promise to the Lord and by breaking that oath, you are offending the holy character of God.

Tried to Make Loopholes to Get Out of Our Promises

But just like marriage, people began to find ways to make promises while not being required to keep them.

The Pharisees said that if you made a promise in the name of the Lord or something holy that belongs to the Lord (such as the gold of the temple, or the gift on the altar) then you are bound to keep your promise, but if you made a promise on something else (such as the temple or altar itself), then you do not have to keep that promise.

Ex. It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown… Lucy is always trying to get Charlie Brown to kick the football and he knows she’s always going to pull it away. So this time she tells him that she signed a contract saying that she would not pull the football away from him this time. She can trust him because she’s got it in writing. But she ends up pulling it away anyway. Why? Because she didn’t have it notarized, so it gave her an out from having to keep her signed contract.

We try to make promises on things to ensure our sincerity. We might say something like, I swear on my mother’s grave, to show how sincere we are. But why do we have to do that? Because we do not have a character of sincerity and honesty in our day to day dealings. We have to go extreme like that to get people to trust and believe us.

Jesus is saying that we take our words and our promises too lightly.

See the Sacredness of Marriage and Promises

If we are to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, we must receive a changed heart that seeks to not simply do the minimum of what is required but to see and value the sacredness of our commitments.

Marriage is God’s Covenantal Creation

First, we need to recognize that marriage is not a human created institution. It is not something that people can just enter into however they want, nor can they break it whenever they want.

In Matthew 19:4-6

Matthew 19:4–6 (ESV)

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. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus takes us back to Genesis to see the sacredness of marriage. Marriage is something that God created, and He created it for the permanent relationship of one man and one woman to be lived out for God’s image and glory. Therefore, because this union is something that God has created, it is not meant to be broken by any individual.

Marriage is not something in which I get to say, because I am unhappy I am going to quit. Marriage is not about feelings, nor is it a contract, it is a covenant of love, which is a choice to seek the best of the other person, even if I do not receive anything in return.

This is why Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 to submit to one another out of love. Love is a choice that I am making regardless of the feelings.

So we must choose to treat marriage as a commitment first and foremost to God, not simply a state of emotions between two people. And when you break the covenant with your spouse, you are actually breaking that covenant with God.

A Word of Encouragement

There are times in which divorce is inevitable. Either one person works hard to save it and the other doesn’t or the other person just ups and leaves, you cannot control what another person does. Or maybe in the past you did not treat marriage the way God intended. There is grace for all situations. The question now is, whether you are single or remarried, will you now commit to this current marriage to treat it with the sanctity and holiness God has created for it? Will you seek to have a high view of marriage now? Will you and your spouse today commit to one another as you commit to the Lord?

Our Words Reflect the Character of God

Along with marriage, we also need to understand that as God’s people our words are sacred because we are pointing others to the glory of God.

Jesus tells us to not swear on anything because anything we could swear on belongs to God and it would be like swearing on the name of God Himself.

Here’s the reality, if we bear the name of Christ as a Christian, then our words either bring glory to Christ or they bring shame and dishonor upon His name.

The third commandment God gives His people is “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

This is not merely saying curse words, as is often interpreted. It means, as we bear the name of the Lord, our lives need to reflect His character. If people cannot trust us because we are not living faithfully according to our word and promises, then we are taking God’s name in vain.

We ought to be a people who let our yes be yes and our no be no, so people can see the trustworthiness of Christ shining in us. As we follow Christ, we must see our words as sacred as they carry with them the name of the Lord as others look on.

Respond to the Faithfulness of Christ

You and I are called to be faithful, not because we are faithful in ourselves, but because we follow a perfectly faithful God and Savior.

Christ came to perfectly fulfill and keep all the promises of God and has shown His utter faithfulness.

The hope we have is because of Christ’s faithfulness to us.

2 Corinthians 1:20 (ESV)

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Throughout history God made promises to His people that He would always be with them, that He would save them and deliver them from their sin, He would love and care for them, and He would even judge their sins and iniquities.

In Christ, God has faithfully kept all His promises. Christ faithfully obeyed His Father in life, fulfilling the demands of the law, and through His death and resurrection, faithfully kept every promise made through the Old Testament.

Christ demonstrated God’s perfect faithfulness to us. And as we are being made in the image of Christ, He is calling us to live lives of faithfulness, both to Him and to others.

Because of Christ, we can live faithfully either in the covenant of marriage now, or as we wait, we wait in faithfulness and celibacy as we honor Christ in our singleness. We can also live faithfully in the words we speak and in the commitments we make to others.

We are called to live faithfully so we can shine our light before men so they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

Conclusion