Trust the Process

July 1, 2021

OPEN “Hook”

Has anyone ever been to Hawaii? (people raise or don’t raise hands). In March of last year, my family was supposed to go to Hawaii. We’d never been before and the fact that we had a Southwest companion pass and enough points to fly just about anywhere for free plus the hotel, it was a no brainer that Hawaii was our first choice. We had everything ready to go: bags packed (checked), flight (check), hotel (check), and activities (check). But then it happened… COVID spread like wildfire and started shutting everything down. Once the NBA cancelled the season and flight restrictions began to take effect, I told my wife, “Hey boo, I know we really want to go but we’re going to have to pump the brakes on this trip for now and try again later.” She wasn’t hearing it at first but ultimately agreed.

[Diamond Head Picture]

Fast forward a year and some change later and I’m happy to say that we just got back last week after spending a week in Hawaii and it was everything we hoped it would be. But that’s not to say that we didn’t go through some growing pains with respect to COVID along the way. Throughout a year of being held back from doing things we liked and wanted to do, we never lost sight of the end goal which is the Hawaiian experience we heard others talk so highly about. Even though we’d never been to Hawaii and experienced trials along the way, we kept the end goal in mind and had faith that once we got there we’d love it.

TRANSITION

Now, I know y’all like, “Where is this dude going with this Hawaii trip?” but think about this. What’s something that many people look forward to despite never having experienced before? (pause for response). MARRIAGE! Yes, I said it, marriage. When it comes to relationships, marriage is the end goal people have in mind but to get there, there’s typically a time of waiting after dating called the engagement period. This period is great but can be awkward at times because it can feel like you’re married even though you’re not, bringing on temptation like you’ve never seen before. This makes it an extremely pivotal time in your relationship which is why getting premarital counseling is highly encouraged. My wife and I still talk to the pastor that did our premarital counseling to this day because of the lasting impact it had on our lives.

TENSION

Now I don’t know if you know this but 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is frequently known as the “marriage chapter.” Paul covers an array of things from how each man is to have his own wife and that neither person should deprive the other to stipulations for believers marrying unbelievers and the pros and cons of staying single versus getting married. But one must not gloss over the first half of Matthew 19 which focuses more on divorce. I know I just said a curse word but it’s a reality we have to address. When you get engaged to someone, there are typically 2 outcomes: you get married and stay married or you get married and then get divorced. One end goal is positive and one is negative. By taking the engagement period seriously, both of you can save some time and heartache. Today, we’re going to look at 5 ways to make the most of your engagement.

PRAYER

SCRIPTURE READING “Book” / “Look” - [INSERT BOOK:CHAPTER:VERSE]

Share any necessary context for the text.Open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 19 verses 1-12. If you have a physical Bible, it’s the first book of the Gospels in the New Testament just before Mark on the right side. If you’re on your phone, well I’m sure you know what to do. Once again, we’re in Matthew chapter 19 verses 1-12.

[Sermon Title + Passage]

Read Matthew 19:1-12 NASB [Message’s Text]

1 “When Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; 2 and large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” 11 But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

1 “When Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; 2 and large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.

POINT #1: STAY IN YOUR CIRCLE [Slide ]

Matthew starts this chapter off by referring to what's already happened. Jesus just got done teaching the Disciples in chapter 18 about:

Stumbling blocks → cut off hand/foot/pluck out eye if makes stumble → lead to divorce

Leaving the 99 for the 1 → lead to divorce

Discipline → 4 steps (2-3 gathered) → lead to divorce

Forgiveness → Peter + 70x7; forgiven slave that doesn’t forgive → lead to divorce

Now, I’m a keep it all the way real with y’all. When I was engaged to my wife, I encountered many stumbling blocks and wasn’t leaving the 99 for the 1. That led to her leaving one day with her ring on the counter while I was gone at work. I mean just like that she was gone. I was calling and texting non-stop but no answer. I realized I had to look up and not over meaning I needed to connect with God on this before I could reconnect with my wife. That ultimately led me to sit down with the pastor at the church we were attending at the time and while she was disciplining me, he discipled me to have more discipline with what was important to me. He gave some real practical advice by saying fill my time with things that bring me and her joy instead of all this wreckless activity. She came back reluctantly to give me one another shot and could see something had changed in me. She could see my focus and efforts were on godly things, including her, instead of the world. She ultimately forgave me being the godly woman that she is and all of this set the tone for the thriving marriage we have today.

I’m not saying you need to go out there and act a fool in these streets because you’ll be forgiven but I am saying that recognizing your stumbling blocks early, focusing on the one you plan to marry, establishing rules for discipline, and developing Christlike forgiveness DURING your engagement can do wonders for your future marriage.

Also, it says that Jesus left Galilee (where his hometown is) for Judea. The text isn’t alluding to this but I believe it’s a great reminder that in marriage, we are to leave our family of origin to embark upon a new and greater relationship that God wants us to experience. But it won’t come without tests and trials along the way as we’ll see in verse 3 that’ll start to pick up during your engagement.

Lastly, you and your soon-to-be spouse are becoming billboards to the world as a representation of Jesus’ relationship with the Church. Once married, people will follow you and seek relational advice and healing whether they too are married, engaged, or dating because of your Christ-centered relationship.

3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”

POINT #2: YOUR RELATIONSHIP WILL BE TESTED! [Slide]

You’re going to have people who are and aren’t married who think they know everything, come to you to test and tempt you during and after your engagement. As a matter of fact, they’ll do it more than once because the Pharisees actually tested Jesus back in Matthew 16 but here they are doing it again in chapter 19.

The Pharisees were smart dudes and studied the law so much that they probably knew it better than their own wives. In this instance, they took it to 2 extremes. They wanted to trip Jesus up by seeing if He knew the Law and stood firm with it as they did or if He was more lax on the Law like many others were and doing whatever they wanted.

[Dodge Challenger]

I remember one night my wife (then fiancée) and I were at a gas station in my brand new Dodge Challenger RT. The car was gorgeous y’all. All black with 2 red racing stripes on each side and 20” rims. As I was pumping gas, a woman started walking towards me as if she was going to holla at me WHILE my wife was sitting in the car! I couldn’t believe it y’all and my wife surely couldn’t either. Needless to say her attempt was unsuccessful but it could’ve easily made me think I was bigger than what I was and directed my attention to other women instead of my future wife. In the end, my wife stuck around but I can’t say the same about the car.

[Point 2]

Here are some ways you might be tested today:

Past boyfriend or girlfriend or even a random person sliding in your DMs

Friends encouraging you to hang out in places that may be a stumbling block for you

Your family not liking your fiancé/fiancée and trying to get you to leave them

Living together (cohabitation) and having sex so you can “try it before you buy it”

Throughout your engagement period, people will test your relationship with things that aren’t Christlike because they feel it’s “law” but remember to look at the big picture and not just any one component. The next few verses show how Jesus dealt with this test.

4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

POINT #3: GOD MADE DIFFERENCES, NOT DESTRUCTION [Slide]

Jesus got smart with them like, “Fellas, in all your reading did you skip over the first part?” He said let's see what God has to say about marriage and goes on to share Genesis 1:27 saying God made humans male and female but threw in “from the beginning” to remind them in case they missed that part. He further goes on to get a little bit of straightenin’ by quoting Genesis 2:24 and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Once again, He’s like, “Did y’all miss this part?” He seals the deal by saying no one has the ability to break up what God has brought together. God implemented marriage but man implemented divorce.

Jesus dealt with this test by making sure God was in his response. He showed them that men and women are joined together once they’re married with a singular purpose but are still naturally different people. There are 4 fundamental ways men and women are different:

Source of creation → Adam from the dirt; Eve from Adam’s rib

Method of creation → Adam from God breathing life into him; Eve was manufactured (molded) from Adam’s rib

Time of creation → Adam first; Eve second

Name at creation → God named Adam “mankind; human”; Adam named Eve “life; living”

Despite these differences, God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone even though everything else God made was already considered good. Eve became Adam’s suitable helper and not just in the bedroom but in all things. My wife and I too are different in so many ways:

She goes to bed early → I stay up late

She packs for trips a week in advance → I pack the night before

She’s arts and crafts → I can’t stack up 2 cards next to each other

I say all this to say, throughout your engagement, take note of each other’s differences and how they can help you instead of hindering. Make a list of each other’s fills and drains so you know what builds the other person up but also what has the potential to tear them down so you don’t.

7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

POINT #4: KNOW COMMANDS AND SET PERMISSIONS [Slide]

The Pharisees continue to test Jesus by further validating their view on the Law by saying Moses commanded divorce as if God told Moses to make it okay. Jesus corrects them by saying, “No, no, no,” and that Moses only allowed (permitted) divorce because people kept getting on his nerves about their marriages. God implemented marriage but man implemented divorce and God only allows it under specific circumstances.

Now that divorce is a thing with varying views on what constitutes grounds for it, Jesus had to clarify His position and say only sexual immorality is grounds for divorce. Not because your spouse puts the toilet paper roll on differently or because he or she prefers Edison coffee over Starbucks. As you grow during your engagement, be sure to establish ground rules that are inline with God’s Word but also things that are permissible by the both of you.

10 The disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” 11 But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

POINT #5: MARRIAGE AIN’T FOR EVERYBODY [Slide]

Remember back in Point #1 when I said you’ll be tested I mentioned that people who don’t know what they’re talking about will try to give you advice? That’s what the disciples were doing here. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that Peter was the only disciple who was married. You see, the rest hadn’t been to Hawaii yet so they didn’t know how to act and had the wrong end goal in mind. But Peter, he’d been living in Hawaii for a while sipping coconuts for years.

With that being said, Jesus was met with opposition not only by folks who hated him but by ones who loved him too. His closest homies basically said, “Why get married in the first place if it’s just going to bring all this trouble?” He kept it 100 and told them, “Hey guys, this life ain’t for everybody.”

Jesus closes out this passage by describing 3 types of people:

Eunuchs who were born that way → people who plan to never get married

Eunuchs who became eunuch at the hands of other people → people who want to be married but haven’t found the right person or haven’t been shown interest from others

Eunuchs who chose to be eunuchs (Jesus; Paul) → people who choose not to marry because they’re focused on God’s calling in their lives (Paul talks about time being divided in 1 Corinthians 7, the “marriage chapter”)

Not all people can live up to the expectations that come with marriage so it’s important that throughout your engagement you get an understanding of your role, what you bring to the relationship, and if it’s something you really want. Marriage isn’t for everybody but if you’re willing, then go all in. Accepting marriage means you deny divorce so completely remove that word from your relationship’s vocabulary.

TAKEAWAYS “Took”

Earlier I talked about my family’s Hawaii trip and how we kept the end goal in mind in the midst of COVID derailing our original plans. While we were there we had an end goal in mind experience that had its own engagement period.

We used this app call Shaka Guide which had various guided tours that tracked your progress via GPS. You select a tour and as you drive past checkpoints in the app, a voice comes on sharing history about the island specific to that location and what you’re seeing. It also has alternate detours if that’s your thing. It was lowkey kind of creepy but we did it anyway. We chose a tour of the famous Mount Tantalus which has a lookout peak over 2,000 ft. high overlooking downtown Honolulu and the Pacific Ocean.

[Mount Tantalus Lookout Video]

On the drive up the road is constantly winding with sharp turns accompanied by signs telling you to watch out for falling rocks. This causes you to frequently start, slow, and sometimes stop over and over and over. Our Shaka Guide said sometimes you may even smell your brakes burning from overuse. The drive feels never ending which is how the mountain got its name.

Tantalus was a Greek hero that did some bad things and was ultimately tortured for them. He was placed in a pool of water just under a fruit tree. Every time he tried to get a bite to eat, the tree’s limbs would raise the fruit out of his reach. Every time he bent down for a drink of water, the pool would dry up. This happened over and over and over. In the end, he was constantly tempted but never able to be fully satisfied. Imagine that feeling as you’re driving towards the top of a 2,000 ft. extinct volcano. I don’t even remember how long it took us to get to the top but boy was it worth it. Coming back down was no easy task either as we still had to watch out for falling rocks and frequent start, slow, and stop on the steep winding decline over and over and over.

[Points 1-5]

We did all these things with the end goal in mind but as our Shaka Guide said, “The journey is just as important as the destination.”

Falling rocks → remind us to STAY IN YOUR CIRCLE BY setting boundaries with guardrails in case we start moving outside of it

Winding curves → let us know that YOU WILL BE TESTED so be sure to slow down and stop to assess situations

GOD MADE DIFFERENCES, NOT DESTRUCTION

Shaka Guide → reminds us to KNOW GOD’S COMMANDS but that other PERMISSIONS ARE ALLOWED if both parties agree

Deep declines → remind us that MARRIAGE AIN’T FOR EVERYBODY because relational hardships are inevitable but know that you will get through them even if it burns a little

We had an end goal in mind but what it took to get there made it that much better. I encourage all of you that when marriage is your end goal in mind, don’t speed past the engagement period because you might end up taking a wrong turn. It’s better to decide to not get married during your engagement then be married and realize it wasn’t the right decision. Take your time and enjoy the journey even if it takes some work and effort to get through. There will be tests and detractors trying to stop you and your fiancé/fiancée from getting to the end goal but just as Nehemiah said to his haters when he was rebuilding the wall, you’re both doing a great work and you cannot come down. (Nehemiah 6:3)

CLOSING PRAYER