Oaths
Notes
Transcript
One nut say when chasing the other nut - I’m a cashew
Every morning I find that somebody has quietly put a bunch of celery on my door step... I think I am being stalked
He is going to talk about marriage and divorce and this is hard for some people. And then he talks about being truthful and honest and oaths and truth tellers and people who don't compartmentalize their lives into some sections of my life. I believe in God and other sections.
Jesus has been going through these things and he keeps saying, “You have heard it said,” and first he says you should not commit murder, but if you are angry with your brother you are already guilty; next, you shall not commit adultery, but anyone who looks at lust with a woman has already committed adultery in his heart, and it’s interesting because Jesus is basically saying, “Israel made it too easy, and I am telling you it is actually tougher than that”
His whole point in all of this is, I’m not like the scribes and pharisees who only look at the things you are doing, your religiousness, I want to go after something so much different, I want to go after what you want to do; he wants to change who you are in your heart. He has basically said, “Look, its not good enough to not stab someone in the back when they turn around even though you want to. You’re problem is you hate them.” See our problem isn’t only our actions, its about where our heart is, our problem is much deeper than what we thought.
Our problem is we walk through life thinking we have it all figured out religiously without him, and we are some pretty good people, and we have this whole thing in line, but what he is saying is its not good enough and we all have this need for someone to come and die for us. Thats why he told us in Matthew 5:20, that our righteousness needs to exceed the righteousness of the pharisees, because when we realize that, we realize we are broken and we need some serious help; something they didn’t believe about themselves.
So Jesus says, “you have heard it said but I say,” and this is very interesting, and it would have made a difference in the lives of the first century Jews who are hearing this. We have talked a little bit about how Matthew was portraying Jesus as the new Moses, and here Jesus is breaking that mold. He said, “I say,” and Jesus is telling them, “This is not like it was when Moses brought down the law and God spoke to him and he would speak to you and give you some type of advice on what you needed to do. And its not like any of the other prophets for that matter; I am not a new prophet, I am God, speaking directly to you. I am not getting rid of the old laws, I am trumping them up.”
So, here is the first crisis, for those of you in this room who haven’t started a relationship with Jesus; who don’t know him as your savior - you aren’t just dealing with the teachings of Jesus, you are dealing with the personhood of Jesus, you have to decide if he is really God, and if he is, who he claims he was. Then, you need to do one of two things, you have to either accept him for being who he says he is, or you reject him. The problem is people in the world like to do a third thing, they like to say, “Man that Jesus is cool and revolutionary, he has great ideas,” the problem is even Islam says that much, and Jesus says, “no way, I am either a liar and a deceiver,or I am God and you need to give me your life. There is no middle of the road.” You see, people weren’t middle of the road with Jesus, they either wanted to throw him to his death, or give their lives in worship. So you too have to decide what you are going to do with Jesus, the one who brought new ways to handle the law and deal with it, the one who said he was God in the flesh, and there are only two ways to deal with him: you either accept him as who he says he is, or you reject him.
And he leaves that option up to us, because he tells us we couldn’t connect to God on our own even if we wanted to, he had to come down and die and give his life so we could have a connection with him. And our loyalty to Jesus is loyalty to the God of the universe.
So now he is going to shift and he is going to say something a little different than before and first he will settle on divorce.
31 “It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’;
This is exactly what the pharisees were teaching and they believed it to be completely in line with the law, so while they are standing there listening, Jesus is saying again, You have heard it said, and verse 32
32 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.
And we hear that and we think, man, thats a little extreme, I can’t believe he’d only give one option for a divorce. If you haven’t realized it yet, you may not have been listening to the things Jesus has said, because Jesus is extreme. Most of the things he is saying and teaching are almost crazy and backward and upside down according to the rules of the world. But Jesus has some pretty extreme views on this and other things, and Jesus will talk about why. But in the world they were living, they would give a certificate of divorce to protect the woman. Because she wasn’t free to work or do anything. So, you had to give her a certificate of divorce so she could be freed up to marry someone else so she can be taken care of, but you can’t marry her again - that was the rule.
The world will say Jesus is extreme, he has all of these antiquated views on life, we can’t possibly follow what a guy said 2000 years ago, he doesn’t understand anything. But here we find Jesus enters into some of the most relevant topics of our life. Statistics tell us 93% will be married. I read a study that said in the Netherlands the average age of the first child in a family is 31. There are a lot of different reasons for this, but one reason they believe this is happening there is is because so many women feel like they don’t need men (I know, you don’t need a man) and because of this lots of women inn that country many of them go and get one on their own through adoption. But 93% of people will be married and so Jesus sits down on the mountain and says let me talk about something that is going to affect so many of you. So Jesus enters in and says let me talk about marriage and divorce and I don’t want it to have to happen.
Statistically 35-42% of marriages end in divorce before 30 years, and Jesus wades in and says I am only going to give you one way out. Not because he is trying to be a jerk. It’s not because he wants to lay down some type of burden on people or condemn people who have had to walk through this horrible event in your life; thats not the point of any of this. For everything, there is grace upon grace, the Bible tells us there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus and you may have done things wrong, but these things are not the unforgivable sin. Jesus says get up you are a new creation - There is no condemnation. So when Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce, its not to shame people and make them feel bad. His heart is he wants to have a high premium on marriage; he wants us to shoot for ONE FLESH; he wants us to take it seriously, and you have one flesh and you can’t walk away from it thats the whole point of the biblical picture. You can’t just cut your arm off and It is almost as if he is giving us instructions on the front side, he is saying be careful when you enter into this covenant - know what you are doing.
It’s always fun when you are doing premarital counseling, and you ask the question tell me what you love about them, why do you want to get married?
You say does he love Jesus? No, not exactly. Okay, tell me about his job, how he will provide. Well he is kind of in between jobs right now, the boss didn’t respect his time and didn’t let him sleep in when he needed it.
Or maybe you ask him, So does she love Jesus? Yeah, I think so, she told me she went to church as a child. Well, does she love and respect you? I don’t know man. Okay, so tell me, what do you love about her? Uh, she’s hot dude. And Im always like, there is a good chance that will go away over the years. I know, not always.
But, its One flesh, through hell or high water; through budget crisis; through poopy butts and I can’t even begin to tell you how many of those we’ve been through, and I won’t share any of those embarrassing stories, because everyone knows you save those kind of stories for a wedding day speech. Jesus is saying this is the outlook we have to have when we look at marriage and the reason we normally fall apart in marriages is because of unmet expectations.
We live in a culture one writer calls apocalyptic romances. Which means we invest all of our meaning and joy in relationships with people. Historically what has happened has been people have found their joy and meaning in life from the transcendent; throughout history people have walked and talked to God for meaning and understanding, but what we have done is change it, we look for happiness in other people. Look at the modern world, or even the modern wedding, they are crazy beautiful, over the top events. Our vows are short and not about deeper things that last, and married people put a weight on them that sets us up for utter disappointment.
Dr. Gary Rosenberg says failed expectations is what leads us to divorce.
“A good marriage can be brought down in two years by focusing on what you are not getting out of the relationship and how your partner fails to live up to your expectations…”
and he draws out a marriage map to lead to a divorce. He says the first thing is a dream, thats where you start with our marriage will be a dream. The first step to divorce is disappointment, in what you receive versus what you expect. In our framework of culture it is almost inevitable to be disappointed because of what we think the person is going to give us; they are going to be perfect; but much like ourselves they are not.
So, he says, one of the survival tactics in marriage so you don’t get disappointed is to bring your expectations way down. Just know, he’s an idiot, she’s and idiot, I’m an idiot, and thats okay.
So the roadmap he gives us is this.
Dream > disappointment > discouragement > distance > disconnect > discord > divorce
The reality is we need to bring our expectations down because we are married to someone who is broken, just like us and we are trying to stay together as one flesh and do the best we can with what we can. We have to realize this person is NOT wicked, and let me just stop and say, I understand in some cases, the other person is and you may not have realized that from the beginning, but in most cases they are not wicked individuals. Like, they don’t wake up in the morning just trying to figure out how to ruin your day. Remind yourself, that you both truly want the best out of this thing, that you have both chosen each other and need to do so every day.
That is why Jesus has set the bar so high, he wants the best for all of us. And thats why anyone who has been through divorce would tell you they want better for someone else and to think it through because they know the hurt and the pain it can cause.
Andy Stanley said, “Once every few years, I preach on Jesus’ view of divorce and remarriage. It’s extreme. Nobody agrees with my interpretation of the text. Including most of our staff. I remind all the remarried people that they committed adultery when they remarried. People get upset. Then they purchase the CD to give to their kids when they are old enough to get married.”
His point was, we may not like it, but thats what we want for other people. The point of it all is there is this bar so high we really think about what we are doing. So, if you are dating someone, you need to decide if this is a person you may want to spend the rest of your life with. Not just in the joys of life, but through the misery of life. Maybe the question we should ask ourselves is, what is their personality like because at some point along the line you will be left with personality and no abs.
Ask the people around you if they think you can become one flesh. Trust the people around you that love you, not just some acquaintance who you know is the biggest gossip in the world and doesn’t love you or love Jesus. Ask deeper questions of the person you are dating, ask them how they feel about Jesus and how their relationship with Him is, ask what they want to do with their life. Just two pretty basic questions for those who are Christians and dating.
So, Jesus gives an exception
32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality…
The word here we translate as sexual immorality is the greek word pornia. This is where we get the word for all of our sexual perversions; he doesn’t use the word for adultery, which is the word moi kia. There is no doubt Jesus knows this word, because it says it in the next verse commit adultery. Instead, he uses pornia which means in the context of marriage this might extend out to something that has nothing to do with another person; it could be online perversion; on the phone with someone - once you broke the covenant it frees the person to go marry someone else. Listen, this is a HIGH bar and he says as we date and move toward marriage we have to ask tough questions. You know why, because marriage is a reflection of the gospel. And that is the point of marriage, to be a reflection of Jesus in the church. God says no matter how many sins you have against me, we’re not done. This is what marriage is, a reflection of the unity between god and his covenant.
And he goes on
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’
Listen, he is telling us we shouldn’t lie, and we live in a culture of a lot of liars and spin doctors. It has become apporpriate to tell white lies to make us look better even if it isn’t exactly true; in a job interview, they may ask your biggest weakness and you would say, “I work too hard.” We live in a culture of lying because people are trying to sway people from one side to the other.
Jesus zones in on our relationship to the Lord and not other people. The problem is we have built our relationships on other people and not the Lord. When it comes to our vertical relationship, the question is, “do we actually treasure and love him?” Because at the end of the day we will be judged on that, what we do with Jesus, and not other people primarily.
So if you have gone and sworn to the Lord that you will persevere to the end, then you need to keep that commitment. Thats just basic entry level stuff, and then he makes it go to another level.
34 “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
35 or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
36 “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
37 “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.
So, let me just break this down for you. In that culture they were legalist. So they decided they could swear by different things, but if they were to swear to God, they had to keep their word, but if they swore to something else, they didn’t hold it as strict, they could do whatever they wanted. Truth is, we are that way too, we just want lists, we want to kind of separate things out and play with God.
The easiest example of this I can always relate to is when you are eating dinner with your kids, and toward the end of the meal they say, “I’m done, I want some dessert now.” And when you look at their plate it is still half full, so you tell them they can’t have dessert until they finish their dinner, and the question then becomes, “How much?” Like, one bean, two beans, how much to get what I want. And we have become legalists. They want to know the rules to know how to get what they want and we do the same thing with God which is so interesting to me, because it was exactly what the pharisees were doing, and Jesus put it all to death, but we still do it.
Jesus’ point is not that you don’t go to court and swear by oaths. His point is his people are so honest and pure that when people say they will be there there is NO DOUBT. When they say they won’t do something they mean it. Whatever we say, people will know we mean it.
He says you can’t be the business man that sucks the truth out of people, or takes a little off the top, because thats the way of the world.
Our problem is we want people to like us; we don’t want to disappoint people. So, sometimes we just keep the truth to ourselves. Jesus points is just be who you are, don’t pretend to be someone that you’re not; there has to be consistency in your life. And this happens in ministry all the time all the time. People expect so much out of your family and the temptation is to not be who you really are, but to be something fake and live differently and I think its the reason so many people fail.
There is this thing we call the credibility gap and what it tells us is we like many of those pastors, can’t compartmentalize our lives.
He’s saying character trumps everything. He doesn’t care how charismatic you are; truth is everything! The more important thing than having a huge platform is having truth and character. Otherwise we start to compartmentalize and we start swearing by random things.
Heres how Craig Groschel puts it. He said when you start to compartmentalize and separate it all out, thats Christian Atheism. What he means when he says that is we believe in God, but we live like he doesn’t exist.
How do we live like Christian Atheist?
When we believe in God, but we don’t really know him… thats when
When we believe in God but are ashamed of our past, because we don’t believe he has really set us free. So our past creeps up on us and here is the beauty of the gospel, he not only wipes away our sin, but the sin done to us. When we don’t really believe our past has been wiped clean we believe in God but aren’t living like it
When we believe in God, but aren’t sure he loves us. We assume that, but people outside the church, some of them have never heard that..
When we believe in god, but not in prayer…
When we believe in God, but think he’s not fair
When we believe in God, but trust more in money
When we believe in God, but not his church
And here is what Jesus says about all those things we mentioned, they’re not innocent - its comes from evil.
Team
At the end of the day there are always two voices you can listen to, the voice of the good good father, who says there is no condemnation in christ you are a new creation. Even earlier in the sermon when were talking about divorce, there may be some shame you still carry, but Jesus says there is no condemnation in me. And you either listen to his voice or
You listen to the voice of the evil one who will bring up all your mistakes.
Any other voice that doesnt tell you he took that condemnation for you of evil and not good.
