Till Death Do Us Part

Please open your Bibles to .

Follow along as I read Genesis 23.

A long marriage is a great blessing.

You ever want to ruin your day?

Go home and watch the Disney cartoon Up!

Actually, only watch the first 15 minutes of it.

It’ll break your heart, ruin your day.

During this first 15 minutes of the movie, there’s no words, just images.

It tells the story of this young couple who fall in love.

They have dreams.

Dreams of having children.

Dreams of traveling the world.

It’s done very well.

You watch it, and you can see a glimpse of your own marriage in it.

You see a young couple in love with a growing marriage.

During this first 15 minutes of the movie, there’s no words, just images.

At one point, the wife, becomes pregnant.

They nest.

They decorate room for the child.

Then the next scene is the wife, in the hospital and in tears.

No child.

There’s dreams of traveling.

Visiting an exotic location.

They save for this vacation.

They have a jar that fills up with change.

Then life happens.

Tires need changed.

Homes need repaired.

Medical bills are due.

Each time, that jar gets broken and they have to start over.

Meanwhile the couple gets older.

The wife falls.

Her health declines.

Then the wife dies.

It’s hard to not watch it and not cry.

I mean it’s a cartoon for crying out loud.

But it’s so real.

Those first 15 minutes of Up! are hard to watch because it captures so much of life.

I don’t know who came up with these ideas.

Tradition says that on the:

1st year - you give paper.

Paper?

I’m pretty sure, that after the first year of marriage the last thing your wife wants is letterhead.

Especially considering that the first year is often the hardest year of a marriage.

There are certain milestones that we celebrate in marriage.

There’s the first year anniversary.

It’s a big deal.

That first year many times is the hardest year of marriage.

You appreciate marriage so much.

The husband and wife are learning to live with each other, learning to build a home, a family and develop traditions together.

The 2nd year is cotton.

Nothing says two years of happiness like a white undershirt.

3rd year - leather.

4th year - fruits and flowers

Maybe some of you wives would be happy if your husband volunteered to do the grocery shopping.

But more often then not it’s a bad idea.

Anytime Amanda sends me to the store to get her something, she better have her phone handy.

Because I’m texting her pictures of stuff because I don’t want to mess it up.

5th year.

Now we are getting somewhere.

It’s a big deal.

It’s half a decade.

The gift? - Wood.

Ed Burke, Tom Bostwick, you guys are handy.

But for the rest of us, my wife doesn’t want a 2 x 4 as a present.

10th year: Tin or Aluminum.

Unless it’s a new car, I can’t think of a whole lot of aluminum.

The 11th year: steel

That’s just fun to think about.

Honey, I got you rebar.

The gifts get fancier and more rare as the years progress.

14th year - Ivory.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much illegal.

15th year - silver

35th year - coral

We could do better

40th year - Ruby

50th year - Gold

60th year - Diamond.

I’m sure my wife would be pleased with just doing year 50 and 60 over and over again.

As we look at these traditional gifts we go a long way from year 1 which is paper, to year 60 which is diamond.

That’s because there’s something special about a long marriage.

You’ve got two people, who’ve put up with each other for so long, and loved each other so deeply.

When I get the opportunity to marry a couple, when it comes to planning the ceremony, sometimes, the couple asks if they can write their own vows.

And I always say no.

The reason is because when people think of writing their own vows, they confuse it with professing their love for each other.

They tell a story about how they met, and she knew he was the one, or he knew she was the one.

But the vows aren’t where you simply say, “You’re the one.”

I think about the vows that a couple say during the marriage ceremony.

The vows are an oath.

They are a promise.

They aren’t pretty.

· I, Bradley Phillip Bogers, take you, Amanda, to be my wife, to have and 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 we are parted by death; as God is my witness, I give you my promise.

They reflect the life of a marriage.

I, so and so, take you, to be my wife, to have and 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 we are parted by death; as God is my witness, I give you my promise.

You see these things in that cartoon Up!

Because life isn’t always pretty.

There’s lots of great moments.

Birthdays, first homes, children, graduation days, more weddings.

There will also be fights, debt, sickness, heartache.

And so we need those vows.

We need to make an oath that we will be one, through better and worse, sickness and health, until death do us part.

Because marriage is not easy.

And when you see a really old marriage.

A marriage that is 40, 50, or 60 years, you celebrate.

Not because here are two wonderful people.

But here are two wonderful people who have stood by those vows.

I guarantee you through worse, poorer, and sickness along the way.

And you say well done.

Today, we come to the end of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage.

It’s always a sad text for me.

Maybe it’s because I cry when I watch Up!

By the time we get to chapter 23, we’ve spent 12 chapters with Abraham and Sarah.

We’ve seen their better and worse.

We’ve seen huge sins.

We’ve seen awful sins.

Yet we have this marriage that remains.

Verse 1 says, “Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.”

We are supposed to be intrigued with Sarah.

She’s the only woman so far in Genesis who’s age we have learned.

We never learned Eve’s age when she died.

We never even learned Lot’s wife’s name.

But we know Sarah’s age.

She was 127 years old when she died.

And each time we meet her, her beauty is described.

In her old age, men desire her.

She was 90, and men still desired her.

There’s something fascinating about this woman.

And now she’s dead.

You watch Up! and you see the difficulties they faced, but seeing the marriage run to the end puts a smile on your face.

And the same here with Abraham and Sarah.

They’ve faced difficulties, but ran to the end.

She was probably around 15 when she was married, so this marriage has lasted about 112 years.

What does Abraham do when Sarah dies? He mourns.

I want to tell you that it’s okay to mourn.

Sometimes we have this idea that we aren’t allowed to mourn.

Even in the church.

We are afraid to get real with each other.

We are afraid to say how we really feel.

Sometimes we think that when someone comes to us and says, “How you doing?” we have to say, “good”.

But that’s not true.

That’s how I know how to pray for you, when you tell me what’s going on.

Sometimes the hesitation is that if we mourn that it means we are calling God a liar, or somehow not trusting in His sovereignty.

I remember one time reviewing wedding vows with a couple before their marriage, and they didn’t want to say, “for better or worse”.

They didn’t want to say worse, because if God’s sovereign, then saying worse, means we don’t agree with God.

I explained that that’s not what is meant by saying worse.

Worse is that there will come times when things are worse, not great, hard, rough.

And in these times we need these vows to God and to our spouse, because it’s very difficult, it’s worse than it was yesterday.

Just because there are times that are difficult, and times of mourning, does not mean that God is not sovereign, in control, or loving.

Abraham spent 112 years in marriage to his wife.

When she died, it hurt.

It tore him up.

He mourned.

You who have lost a spouse, our widows, you are loved very much.

And when your husband died, it was like having your heart ripped out of your chest.

Paul gave Timothy very special instructions on how the church was to care for widows.

Because becoming a widow … messes you up.

And those of us who haven’t gone through it don’t understand.

Everything changes.

When a spouse dies, a widow … doesn’t always act normal.

She may become bitter.

She may become angry.

And she may not feel like herself.

She may not act like herself.

Why is that?

Because when two people are married, they become one.

Not just sexually, but emotionally as well.

When you become married, you aren’t the same person that you were before.

A husband and a wife complement each other well.

And when one of these people die or leave, what was one … is now a half and it hurts.

Church, may we take gentle care of the widows that the Lord has entrusted us with..

Be patient with them.

Allow them to mourn.

None of them have come to me and prompted me to say these words.

But may we go above and beyond, and care for them, especially as we enter the Christmas season.

John Piper once wrote a little pamphlet that was written to those who have been diagnosed with cancer, it was called Don’t Waste Your Cancer.

The purpose behind the book was to encourage Christians who have been diagnosed with cancer to use it as an opportunity to proclaim their faith.

I think he should write a follow up pamphlet called, Don’t Waste Your Mourning.

Mourning is when the soul is grieving.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

It doesn’t have to be over death.

We mourn over many things.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Mourning gives you the opportunity to direct your soul to God.

You can turn to Him to be comforted.

To waste your mourning is to direct your feelings inward and bottle them up, rather then to direct them upward.

When we mourn, we long for some comfort.

A child may suck his thumb.

Linus

The smoker reaches for a cigarette.

But we turn to the Lord and seek His comfort.

We pursue His will.

We read His Word.

We trust in His sovereignty.

Don’t waste your mourning.

Use it as a tool to take comfort in the Lord.

So how do we do that?

By prayer.

By fellowship.

By time in God’s Word.

By worship.

By looking to the Cross and seeing what you’ve been saved from.

Back to mourning death, one of the ways that we mourn is by having landmark of the person who died.

These landmarks help us to remember the major events, as well as to show honor to those that God has placed in our life who have died.

The pattern set for us in the Bible for these landmarks, or showing honor to a person in death, is burial.

The person is a human, created in the image of God.

And being an image bearer, that body is handled with care.

It’s lovingly prepared.

Then their body is placed in a tomb.

Buried in the ground.

And that location serves as a reminder of the blessing of God placing that person in our life.

Jesus saw the honor in burial when Mary anointed him with oil.

in , Jesus said of this, “In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial.”

One of the first burials that we see in the Bible is when Abraham buried his beloved Sarah.

And in the burial of Sarah we see glimpses of promise fulfilled.

The first point of our sermon is that it’s okay to mourn.

The second point, is that to look for glimpses of promise fulfilled.

This really is a pretty fascinating.

Remember, God had made 3 promises to Abraham.

He would become the father of a great nation.

He would be a blessing to all the nations of the world.

And his descendants would have a great land.

God had promised him a land, but he never owned a land.

All this time that we’ve been reading about him, except for his time in Egypt, he’s been a traveler in the land his descendants would inherit.

That’s the Promised Land.

He lived in the Promised Land as a visitor, a resident, but never actually a citizen.

And now his wife has died, but he has no where to bury his bride.

So he goes to the Hittites, the people of the land, and states his case.

Verse 4 says, ““I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

The Hittites respond nicely.

They say, “You are a prince of God among us.”

They know he’s important.

There’s also plenty of evidence to say that they should even fear him..

After all, God has appeared to Abraham.

There have been times when people have gotten mixed up with him and been on the wrong side.

Pharaoh experienced great plagues.

Abimelech’s life was threatened, and his women became barren.

Abraham went to war against 4 kings, and defeated them.

Additionally, he’s very wealthy.

He’s been blessed by God, becoming a father at the young age of 100.

They don’t want to offend him.

So they tell Abraham to pick the choicest tomb, and no one will withhold it from him.

This next part is kind of funny.

Any place?

He can have any place among them?

They won’t refuse him?

Well there is this one spot.

It’s a special spot.

It’s near where God visited him many times.

It’s where he built an altar after separating from Lot.

It’s where he learned that Lot was kidnapped.

It’s where he learned that his wife would become pregnant and then learned of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It’s a special spot.

He’d like to have a cave right by it.

He offers to pay full price for the location.

Ephron, the owner of the land happens to be right there when he says this.

Ephron, says he’ll not only give him the cave, but he’ll throw in the whole field.

Here’s the catch.

Land is important.

Under normal situations, foreigners weren’t allowed to own land.

So, in essence normally, Ephron could have leased Abraham the land.

But the land would be returned to Ephron’s heirs when Abraham died.

That’s not uncommon to say a foreigner can’t own land.

For example, beginning at some point in 2018, New Zealand will not allow foreigners to buy existing buildings or land that has already been developed.

Within Mexico, foreigners can own land, but not within 100 kilometers of a border with another nation or within 50 kilometers of the ocean.

So it’s not that uncommon or strange to say that Abraham can borrow the land.

But what Abraham and Ephron did was different.

Abraham, a foreigner bought and owned land among the Hittites.

With the city present, they made a legal exchange, one that would continue perpetually, and could never be returned to Ephron’s descendants.

This became and continues to be an important place.

Abraham bought the land.

He then buried his wife there.

When Abraham died, he was buried there.

Isaac was buried there.

Rebekah was buried there.

And Jacob though he died in Egypt, was also buried there.

The location of this plot of land, is not hidden.

It exists today.

It’s changed hands many times, and been built upon, but it’s well known.

When the crusades happened, a church was built on it.

The Crusaders blocked all entrances to the cave though.

Then about 700 years ago, the Muslims conquered Hebron and built a mosque on top of it.

They then forbid Jews from entering

They weren’t allowed past the 7th step on the staircase up the building.

The building exists today as a Muslim Mosque.

It’s called the Cave of Machepelah or the Cave of the Patriarchs.

And true to the bargain with the Hittites, it’s remained a grave for Abraham’s family, even to today.

This second point is look for a glimpse of God’s promises fulfilled.

Because in this moment, Abraham gets a foot into the Promised Land.

God has set this land aside for his descendants to receive.

And while, Abraham still lives as a foreigner, or a stranger, he gets a glimpse of the promise of God.

He owns a little bit of the land in the promised land.

And it’s a small glimpse that God has a promise and He will fulfill it.

So here Abraham is in the midst of mourning for his wife, this land is provided reminding him of God’s faithfulness.

This brings us to our final point, grab hold of the promises of God during hard times.

I’m not sure if you knew this or not, but we aren’t in heaven yet.

And there will be times of mourning.

There will be times of sorrow.

And we hold onto the promises of God during these times.

God has given us various reminders to encourage us along the way.

Much like the field with the cave that was a reminder of God’s faithfulness to Abraham, God has given us reminders to encourage us as well.

They are small reminders of the grace of God.

For example:

Communion.

It reminds us of the death of Christ.

Why do we need this reminder?

Because we continue to sin.

We continue to feel guilty.

And we need to continually be reminded that Jesus died for us.

The Gospel is something we frequently need to hear.

We need to be reminded of this promise and communion does that.

Sanctification

Not only are we not in heaven yet, but we aren’t fully sanctified yet.

We are a work in progress.

Basically, you aren’t perfect.

But, we do get a glimpse of the greater work that God is doing in us.

How do you know you are being sanctified?

Look at your life now and look at where you were 1 year ago, 5 years ago or 10 years ago.

Hopefully, you can see signs of maturity in your life.

says, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

If you see your self maturing, you can praise God for this, because it is evidence that He is working in your life.

So, the promise is that He will conform you into the image of Christ, you will become more and more Christlike, and the glimpses of the promise, are seeing your own repentance and sanctification.

The Body of Christ, the church.

We aren’t in heaven yet.

But we are a part of a church.

Being with your brothers and sisters in Christ should be a glimpse of the fellowship we will have in heaven in the presence of God our king.

So regular participation with the body, is a way to hold onto a glimpse of a greater promise.

And of course, reading God’s Word.

It’s given to us so that we can have a record of the works of God.

We see a history of God working and proving His ability to decree, act and fulfill.

So we read it, knowing that it’s accurate, then find our comfort in knowing that we worship an active God who actively works in history.

God has given us these glimpses of His promises:

Communion and the forgiveness of sins.

Sanctification and our own future glorification.

The local church and a future heavenly kingdom.

The Word of God and ultimately, the return of Christ.

Just as Abraham received a small bit of land as a reminder of God’s greater promises, hold onto these promises as a reminder that God will fulfill all that He has promised us.

Especially, as we go through life.

says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ...”

How can we count it as joy?

Remember that they are short lived.

There is a time limit on how long they will continue.

God has given us promises that will outlast these temporary trials.

Where he has given us a glimpse of these promises, hold on to them, and endure the trial joyfully.