Matthew 5:31-32 | My Way or the Highway

Sunday Morning | September 27, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In “My Way or the Highway,” Pastor John continues through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:31–32, showing how Jesus calls us to move from doing things our way to faithfully following His way. Jesus challenges us to seek the whole counsel of God, expose our tendency to self-justify, and honor the heart of the matter rather than simply looking for loopholes or technicalities. By pointing back to God’s original design in Genesis, Jesus teaches that divorce is ultimately rooted in hard hearts and calls us to pursue faithfulness in our relationships. Pastor John encouraged us to strengthen our marriages by never threatening divorce, staying in shape emotionally and spiritually, becoming the kind of person we would want to marry, becoming experts at forgiveness, and regularly affirming our commitment to one another. Ultimately, faithfulness begins with a heart transformed by God, as Ezekiel 36:26 reminds us that He can give us a new heart and a new spirit.

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All right. Good morning, Valley View. It's great to be with you. While we're continuing our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we're going to be in Matthew chapter five today. So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. If you don't. We've got them out in the lobby. We'd love to put one in your hands, because it's important to have a copy of God's Word to be in God's Word. This is what we stand on. This is why we teach it. It's what we come back to. It's the basis of our faith. It's our authority for life. And so we want to do our best to be in God's Word. The more we're in God's Word, the more he's in us. The more we know him, the more we love him. As I prepared for today, I thought about what it was like parenting young children. There are times when you try to teach in the Bible, and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't. I remember one time one of our children who will go unnamed. We could pick any one of them in this situation. We could pick yours as well. They hit another child and I asked, why did you do that? And they said, because the Bible said to. I thought, okay, tell me more. I'd love to know about this obscure portion of the Bible that is clearly told a child to hit another child. Well, no, the Bible said do to others what they do to you. That's not what is said. It says do to others. And of course, you try to explain that to a small child and they're going, what do to others what you want them to do to you? But I don't want anybody to hit me. I know that's the point, but here's the takeaway. I think that happens with a small child, and I think plenty of adults do it as well. We hear what we want to hear. I heard the part all I needed to hear so that I could behave the way I want to behave. I heard just enough for me to act the way I want to act. Yeah, it's in the Bible somewhere. Jesus is going to press into that today. He's going to expose that tendency that's in the heart of all of us to self justify, to make sure I can have my way no matter what else, no matter what truth there is, I'm going to get my way. So turn to Matthew five and we're going to read verse 31 and 32, just two short verses. Today we're working through the sermon on the Mount. We're taking it section by section. And here we are in Matthew five, verse 31 and 32. It's very short, but let's go ahead and stand together while I read this, just out of a sign of reverence for God's Word. Matthew 531, 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 grounds of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. All right. You can be seated as we dive into this nice light topic. This morning, we thought we would follow up a week on lust and adultery by talking about divorce. You know, all about our church appeal strategy here. But listen, let me make a point about that. This is why we work through sections of Scripture at a time, large portions of Scripture at a time, because we want to make sure we're teaching what God said, not just only the things we want to look at, only the things that I think are easy to teach, only the things that are comfortable to teach. We want to make sure we're looking at all of Scripture. That's what's important to this church. We want we don't want to just avoid some things because they're maybe uncomfortable or difficult to deal with. And I also want to say on the front end of this, I know that this topic in particular is going to be a very emotionally charged topic for many. Many in this room have experienced divorce, been through divorce, and if you haven't personally been through it, your life has been touched by it because of the people you know. This is not a hate on divorce people sermon today. That's not the point. I don't even think divorce is the main point of the message here today. Of course he's talking about it. It's right there. But as we've seen in the sermon on the Mount, Jesus is always trying to press a little deeper. He's trying to get into the heart of the listener. I think this passage in particular is building on what he talked about last week. So if you remember, he talked to them. He talked in particular. He's talking to the disciples, but he's also talking about the things you have heard. You've heard this teaching, you've heard this teaching from the religious elite. You've heard this teaching from the super spiritual people who have it all together. And you've heard them say, I'm good because I've never committed adultery. I'm good because I never murdered anyone. I'm good. Colby talked about, I've got this litmus test that says I'm good because I've not done that. But he said, but your heart is wicked. Your heart is far from God. Your heart is full of adultery. I think he's building on that passage today. By continuing on that theme. You think you're good because I've never I've not done divorce. I've gone about it the right way. So I'm good. Well, he's going to expose that today. In fact, I think what Jesus is going to press into here is in three ways. He's going to show us three ways that we move from my way to his way. Oftentimes, it's all about my way. But following him means, first and foremost, I ask, what is his way? Or don't ask first what is my way? I ask what is his way? How do we do that? Jesus is going to show us three ways to move towards that. As we look at today's passage. And I think the first way, if you look at your notes, make sure you're seeking out the whole counsel of God. That's the first point in your outline. Make sure you're seeking out the whole counsel of God. Paul, when he came to the Ephesus and to the Ephesians in Acts chapter 20, he said to them, when I came to you, I sought to teach the whole counsel of God. I sought to teach all of Scripture, not just, and we all love to do this. I didn't just pick out the little parts that I like and ignore the rest. I want to look at what all of Scripture says. And so as we look at this verse today, these two verses, this short section, we want to make sure we're taking it in consideration the whole context of Scripture. What we see here is that Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy because he says in verse 31 it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. He's quoting from Deuteronomy. So we're going to turn there and look at this. This is Deuteronomy chapter 24, verses one through four. If you have a church Bible, it's on page 156. Deuteronomy is in the front of the Bible. It's one of the first. It's the fifth book of the Old Testament. What's considered in fact, the first five books were called the law or the Torah by the by the Jews, it was considered the most authoritative section, most important part of Scripture. For them they held most closely, most dear. And of course, there are many, many, many commands all throughout these sections. Of course, Deuteronomy begins with the most famous ten Commandments, but after that there's many other laws affecting many other areas of life. You know, we have the Constitution that would be the most important law of the land. But every every part of the country has millions of other laws helping to govern other aspects of life. And much of the rest of the Torah and the Old Testament was building out. Here's what the Ten Commandments means. Here's how it applies to your life. Here's how it works today. This is the one section we really have in the Old Testament that directly addresses the mechanics of divorce, how to go about it, what you should do, what's allowed, what's not. And it's very brief. In fact, it's very specific. So we're going to I'm just going to read these out loud. Deuteronomy 241 through four. When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then. And by the way, as you're reading this, look at all the if words here. This is very situational. If this happens, if this happens, if this happens, this is very specific. Very not speculative. That's not the right word, but conditional. If this happens, this happens, this happens, then here's what applies. 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, puts it in her hand, 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, 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 this is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin upon the land that your Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. All right. There's a lot going on here. And part of this is many of the laws we encounter in the Old Testament are specific, situational to Israel, in the land under God's rule, in the land. And many of them, many of them are very confusing, especially some of the dietary laws or clothing laws. And you go, why would he do that? Many of them were centered on. One basic idea is that you are to be set apart from the people around you. You're to be different. Even if the law doesn't make sense to you. This is for you to know that we're different than the other people around us. We are God's chosen people. We're meant to be separate. That was at the we're meant to be holy. That is at the heart of a lot of these laws. So when you read things about defilement and abomination, don't bring sin upon the land. And we go, how would this do that? What does that mean? Some of that isn't fully clear to us why that is, but at the heart of the end of it, it's God saying, follow this so that you can maintain your separateness from the other people around you. Now, this passage I read through the whole thing because there's an important point to make, because the argument that was occurring was around this idea of, is it okay to divorce for any reason? And I can just give a certificate of divorce, because that's in the Old Testament. It says, you can. You saw it here in the first verse. Man finds no favor, gives her a certificate of divorce. But the point of this passage isn't about the certificate. It doesn't tell you when that's okay or not. It just assumes it happened. The whole point of this passage is about what happens after the divorce. The whole point is putting limits on what happens after the divorce. The whole point is to say if you got divorced from someone, you remarry another. You can't go back now. Again, that was situational to that time. He's trying to put limits on something that had probably become chaotic. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on this, talked about that, that God is often putting limits where chaos has occurred. We see this in eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth that was meant to put limits. You can't just if if you take my eye, I get to kill, you know? No, there's eye for an eye. This meant to put limits. It doesn't mean you have to take an eye, but it means you can't take beyond that. The punishment needs to fit the crime. And so here he's putting limits on the situation that had gotten out of hand. People are probably wife swapping like crazy and jumping around in marriages all over the place. And he's saying, look, here's some limits. Now all this comes back to what Jesus is addressing. Because even though this passage is mainly around or putting limits, you can't go back. Here's here's what the people of the time heard. I can give a certificate of divorce. I love that passage about giving a certificate of divorce. If I went out of this, all I got to do is write them a little certificate and I'm good. And they missed the point of the section. They missed the point that was more about the heart and more about trusting all of God's law, not just picking out the little parts that you like and that fit your own desires and your agenda, but making sure to take it all into consideration. So this is the first part of this. Make sure you're considering the whole counsel of God. If not, you'll end up in a place. Where you pick out any part you want. You think you can justify any sin with just writing a certificate? You'll end up like the guy I remember the guy telling me when he read Ephesians 518 do not be drunk with wine. I don't drink wine, so I'm good. No, no, no, you don't understand the heart of the passage. Don't be drunk at all. It's not okay with other things as well. So we don't just pick out little parts of scripture to help us build whatever case we want for life. We got to consider the whole counsel of God. We got to come back and read it in context and understand. Marriage is still a very weighty thing. Just because divorce was allowed doesn't mean it's an inherent good. All right. So now that's the first one. Consider the whole counsel of God's second Jesus in our heart and with his audience. He wants to expose. Number two, this is the second one in your outline. He wants to expose our tendencies to self, justify. We all have that tendency. We want to self justify. You know, part of that is this is a side note. I didn't have this in my notes, but I think it's important to mention part of it is that I don't know how you were brought up. Many of us learn certain patterns of behavior in the way you're brought up, and if you're brought up poorly, it's part of survival. And you've learned to maybe attack always. Maybe that's your initial tendency. It's always attack because you were never right growing up, or you never had a chance, or no one stood up for you. You learned patterns. Okay, I don't I don't know. And maybe for some of it it's I'm always right. And if anyone says I'm wrong, then I've got to cut them out of my life. Some of us have learned that pattern. I don't blame you for that, okay? Some of us maybe like that and continue in that. But it's good to be aware of that. And we all have that tendency to self justify already buried deep within us. And Jesus is exposing this here. So when he talks to them back in Deuteronomy 24, and he's bringing up in particular this one phrase, if you look back at 24, verse one, 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 writes her certificate of divorce. There was a lot of debate at this time around that phrase. Some indecency in her. What does that mean? So apparently there is some legitimate grounds for divorce. And by the way, I'm speaking mainly Old Testament here. Jesus expounds on that. And this is part of the reason why I said at the beginning, this isn't a whole sermon on all the aspects of divorce, because there's two verses here we're talking about. We could look at dozens of verses around it, but the main argument at the time that Jesus was addressing was around this phrase, he's found some indecency in here. What does that mean? Because we need to know what that means, to know what's allowed, what's not. In fact, the literal rendering of those two words, there is nakedness of a matter, nakedness of a thing. Nakedness was often used, most often in reference to sexual sin. Many times it was used in other context as well. But the argument at the time had been become about what does that phrase mean? If we know what that phrase means, then we'll know what's allowed, what's not. Now, there was two major schools of thought at the time of putting your notes. The names of these two groups. One was Shammai, one was Hillel. Those would have been two different rabbis at the time. You know, you all have your favorite Bible teacher. You might someone might say, hey, I really like what Rick Warren says. And another one might say, hey, I really like what John Piper says. I follow him. You've got your guy that you go to and you go or gal, I love their teaching. If they say it, I'm probably going to agree with it. And those camps had developed in among the rabbis in the Jewish realm, around two guys around this topic and around this argument in particular. Again, one was Shammai, one was Hillel. Shammai was on the more conservative. In the stricter end, we have their writings. Many of them are captured in the Babylonian Talmud. And I'll just write what they said the House of Shammai says, or I'll read what they said. The House of Shammai says a man should divorce his wife only because he has grounds for it in uncharted. So the only reason, according to them, that phrase, when we read it on the strict end, on the conservative end, that phrase only refers to some kind of sexual unfaithfulness. That was the Shammai camp, the Hillel camp. They went to the other extreme. They went to the very liberal end. Here's how they interpret it. The House of Hillel says, even if she has spoiled his dish because it says, if you find any indecency in anything. Another rabbi said, even if he found someone else prettier than her. So those are very different extremes, by the way. One is no listen only for sexual unfaithfulness. The other is really for any reason, okay? Any whim, any any reason. I am unsatisfied or unhappy. I remember a friend of mine going through a divorce and I asked this person, you know what? Why are you leaving them? What happened? And a number of reasons we're given. But the main one, the most pressing one for them as well. He just wouldn't put his shoes away. I always left him out everywhere. Okay, well, he was a jerk, too. He was a real jerk, too. Okay, okay, I get it. Any other reasons? And there was a number of reasons, but at the end of the day, it all came down to. I'm just unhappy. And look, by the way, many people are unhappy in marriage. It certainly happens. But what this person was looking for in that situation, I think I'm unhappy. And I just went out for any reason I can find and justify. Again, I'm not saying there's not legitimate reasons to divorce, but there's plenty of times. And pick any situation in life. By the way, there's plenty of times where we go, I know what I want, and I wanted it all cost, and I don't want to hear any truth and I don't care what the Bible says. And even if it says what seems clear, I'm going to make it say what I wanted to say so I can get my way. And that's what was happening at the time. It was the easy divorce culture. Not not everyone, but especially among the religious elites. This had become the dominant view. If you want a divorce, look, you're good. Just write her a little certificate and you're good. You've still followed the letter of the law. You don't have to worry that maybe you've committed adultery. All you gotta do remember Moses said, just writer a certificate of divorce and you're good. This week, one of our life group leaders, Mike Hampshire, showed me he's got a a Roman coin, which was so cool. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. Ancient artifact somehow connected into Roman history, the Roman Empire, Christian history. You know, let me see it. And he showed it to me. And then he said, now look at the top. We know this is authentic because it has a certificate with it. And of course, this certificate looks like it was printed on my home copier and handwritten by anyone. And I wanted to believe it's true. And he does too. And I think we do. He bought it when he was over in Israel. It must be real. But just writing something on a certificate doesn't make it true. And this one, Mary. Well, may be real, but you see my point? This is what the church was facing or the Jews were facing at the time. We can get around the law however we want. We can make it say whatever we want and we can say we're following it. But you're not. And Jesus is exposing this tendency to self justify, to make sure I can get my way no matter what. All this leads us to number three. This is the third thing, the third way. Jesus is saying we need to move from our way to his way. Number three, strive to honor the heart of the matter. Strive to honor the heart of Scripture. Strive to honor not just what you wanted to mean, but what it really means, what it is really intended, what Jesus fully intended. And by the way, this isn't just so that we become good law keepers. This is so that we experience life to the fullest, so that we experience God's plan to the fullest. That we experience the full joy of walking with him. Flip back with me to Matthew chapter five and you'll see here. Look at verse 32 again. He says to them, I say to you, every one who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Jesus, by the way, makes it clear here if you're not sure what it means, Hillel. Shammai, I'm going to make it really clear grounds of sexual immorality. I am telling you, it's a lot stricter than you think in terms of reasons why divorce should be allowed. And again, I'm not giving all the full case for all the situations and the especially two in particular, that Scripture addresses one sexual immorality, one around abandonment. But Jesus is saying, you think you have the grounds for divorce because you wrote a little certificate and you think it's true, but it's not. Here's the tricky part for his audience you think you're good, you think you're free from sin, he said. But actually you are an adulterer. You think because you wrote a little certificate you can say, we're good, but if you didn't follow what Scripture says, you actually are actually committing the very sin you say you haven't. But the way to get past this, the way to move beyond this, is to press for the heart of the matter. And so I want to look at another passage that Jesus unpacks. Matthew chapter 19 is where he expands on this. What we're trying to do is look at the whole council of Scripture. I can't look at every verse on divorce, but we're going to look at just a little more that is addressed in Matthew chapter 19. All of this is trying to press back to all of our tendencies to self justify, whether it's divorce or relationships, or whether it's any other sin. We're trying to press to that hard issue of self-justifying Matthew chapter 19. There's this section in verses one through or three through ten. I want to point out a couple of things here that help us understand the heart of the issue. The Pharisees came up to him and tested him. That's the key word to note here. They don't. They don't really want his sincere answer. They don't really care what he has to say. They don't really aren't looking to learn from him. They're looking to test him, to trip him up, to show that they're the ones who really know what they're talking about, that he's the one that's crazy. It's this isn't sincere. Pharisees came to and test him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? There's that phrase for any reason, for some indecency, he answered. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore he shall leave. 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. What therefore God has joined together? Let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed. I love how he corrects their command. Is it a command or an allowance? Jesus corrects Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. The disciples said to him, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry. I want to point out three things about this section. So this is a little more an expansion on those two verses we saw in chapter five. Later on, its addressed again when the Pharisees come to him trying to trip him up. Three things here in this passage that are important. First, Jesus appeals to creation. He appeals to Genesis. He appeals to the beginning of how things were intended. He appeals to God's design. And he says, look, in the beginning, the design was one man, one woman faithful to one another for a lifetime. And that's, by the way, if you look at our church doctrine statement, that's how we define marriage, because that's how the Bible defines marriage. One man, one woman for a lifetime. And again, I know many in this room have gone through divorce. We don't hold that definition up to beat up anyone. We're not here to heap shame or guilt on anyone. I don't know the path you've been down. I don't know reason. The reasons why you've ended up where you've ended up. All we want to do is to build into you where you are today. But even though there's pain, there's challenge, there's troubles, there's heartache. We still want to hold up God's intent, God's design, God's plan. We feel like that is still the best for for everyone. We don't hide that. We don't step away from that because it's hard and painful for some. And it is. We still want to hold it up. This is still God's plan. This is still his best. Jesus appeals to the beginning. Don't forget this is how things were intended to be. Second, he points out the reason why things are the way they are is divorce. As a result, one of the results at the end of the day is he says here, the hardness of your heart. In verse eight he said to them, because of the hardness of your heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. The word behind that even sounds like our word for sclerosis, for the hardening of the arteries. That's probably where they get that idea. The the hard heart is one that says, I'm going to do what I want to do no matter what, and I don't care about the fallout. I don't care about anyone else. And that's what sin does. And sin is devastating. And divorce, by the way, is devastating. No one goes into marriage hoping that one day will end up in divorce. No one goes in with that mindset. It's always the result of something going wrong. It's always the result of sin entering into the relationship, and it's devastating. This is why governments try to keep people together. Maybe not as much so as they used to. It used to be a lot of boundaries that tried to make it hard for people to get divorced, because we need to stay in there for a little while and not just give up right away. But it's devastating. It's it's hard. On the economy. Productivity plummets when people go through divorce. If you've been there, you know, it's hard to focus on work when you're going through some kind of trauma at home. It's hard on kids. We love to tell ourselves the kids will be fine. They'll be fine. Kids are resilient. They'll get through it. They're not fine. We make decisions and there's ramifications of that. And there's fallout. And many people still, as adults, are struggling with the fallout of the divorce of their parents. And maybe we get through it and we get through it. But I don't know that we can say that we're just fine. It is hard. It is devastating, even if it's the right thing to do. By the way, it's still really hard on everyone involved and it comes from sin. The third thing he highlights here is the response of the disciples of the disciples respond in amazement. The disciples say, if this is the way marriage is meant to be, it's better to not even get married at all. It's better to not even take a chance that you might end up in divorce. And maybe they're going, oh, we all know that none of us are good enough to keep a marriage together. It's better to just stay away from it. Who knows exactly what all was going on in their mind, but they're acknowledging that God's plan for marriage was much greater than at least the mindset of the day. And we have to acknowledge that we all live in an easy divorce culture. All of us do. This is where we are. And it's a challenge we all face. It's really hard. What we have to do is try to recapture what God designed for humanity. You know, the mystery of marriage is exposed in Ephesians 532. The mystery is this that marriage teaches us about Christ's love for the church. This is a part of why divorce is so hard, because God says to us, Hebrews 13, I will never leave you or forsake you. This is God's commitment to us. The main picture we have of commitment is marriage. And so when you see a marriage fall apart, even if it even if it needed to happen. Part of that picture is marred and it leaves us going, Will God be faithful to me? It leaves a struggling. Now, let me make a sad comment here, by the way, because this passage raises, I think, for many a hard issue to address. So if you look at Matthew chapter five, he said. If any I say to you, every one who divorces his wife to step on the grounds of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery. Whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. I think many people read this passage and they come out of it wondering. Am I in a maybe? You've been through divorce and you remarried someone else, and you wonder, am I in an adulterous relationship? I don't know the specifics of your situation. I'm guessing that many have looked back and said, and I've heard from many people who've been through divorce, they look back and go, yeah, if I could do it over, I'd do some things different. Not everyone, but some would. Yeah, I made some poor choices. Yeah, I've justified what I was doing because that's what I wanted, no matter what. Here's what I want to say. I want to say this cautiously. I want to say this carefully. Even if your divorce was a result of your own adultery, that doesn't mean that your marriage now is in a perpetual adultery relationship. And we know this for a couple of reasons. One is in Deuteronomy 24, when Jesus or Jesus, when Moses was talking to them about their marriages and referring to this other marriage that probably wasn't on legitimate grounds, they still called him a real marriage. He didn't say to them, and she gets remarried. And by the way, that's not a real marriage. It doesn't count. She never got unmarried. No. He acknowledges that now she is legitimately married to another person. And so even if it is a result, the cause being adultery, that doesn't mean now that there's this just perpetual adultery occurring. This is now a new marriage, and even a marriage under wrong circumstances is still a marriage before God. The solution, and especially looking at Deuteronomy 24, isn't to go, well, I guess I need to divorce this person. Go back to them. That's actually the very specific situation that is outlawed in that passage. That's the first reason. Second is, and this is important for everyone to hear divorce, adultery, either one. Both. Neither are the unforgivable sin. And I say that carefully because we're also not saying that it's a good thing. We're not. That doesn't somehow give permission. Oh, no big deal. No, both are still devastating. But they're not unforgivable. You don't come into church and we go, listen, have you been divorced or have you been through adultery? Sorry. No, look, neither are unforgivable. So if you're not sure about where you stand with God and your marriage, come to him, bring it to him and say, God, I'm sorry. Here's what I've done wrong. And own it. By the way, on what you've done wrong. Don't just blame the other person. Yes, they had a part. There's always two people. Always. Yes. Own what you've done. And then confess your sin and walk in his forgiveness. Walk in his forgiveness. Moving forward. There's nothing the enemy would love more than to keep feeding you the live. Well, you know what? Your marriage wasn't started, right? So therefore, it's not legitimate in God's eyes. You'd be best to just ditch it. You'd be better off to just leave it. Start over, start fresh. The enemy loves to get that into people's heads. No, look, this is this is marriage. This isn't a bad stock purchase or real estate or a lemon car. Well, we'd better just move on. It's not getting any better. No, we need to have a high view of marriage. I want to wrap up the message by just giving you some tips for how you can strengthen the relationship you're in now. And if you're not married, if you're single, I want you to think through the lens of how do I become the kind of person I would want to marry? That's what you should be thinking about. If you want a godly, kind, thoughtful, encouraging, giving person, how are you becoming that person? Think through that lens. And so as I give these, I'm going to give for specific things. As I give these things through, how can I be growing in these now? And you might have to think creatively about what that means for you. But here's the first one. Number one, never threaten divorce. Never threaten divorce. Especially not flippantly. Too many couples, they get into this situation where that becomes the default. If things aren't going the way I want a threat and divorce, you better shape up or I'm out of here. That's like going to the nuclear option every time there's a challenge. Imagine if your boss did that every time something went slightly off. Hey, do you have that report done yet? If not, you're out of here every single time. That's that's not healthy. That's not a healthy way to engage in relationship. So take that off the table. Don't threaten with divorce. Don't be a threat to try to manipulate people to to get what you want. That's not healthy. Number two stay in shape. Maybe get in shape then stay in shape. The point of this being anyone who is already in shape, and I'm appealing to those who go, look, I don't need to listen to this part because I got a great marriage. We've been married 40 years and everything's going great, and I don't know what you can teach me, young guy. You've not been married along as us and we're doing great. Back off. Pick the fittest person you know. And if they stop staying in shape, it is just a matter of time till they are not in shape. All you gotta do is nothing to be, not in shape. Many of us know what that's like, right? We've been there. If you are in shape, stay in shape. That means keep dating one another. Keep getting marriage education. Go to conferences, stay in shape. In fact, on the back of your notes, I'm making this as easy as it can possibly be. Is an ad for the Mindful Marriage workshop we're doing here in March. I expect everyone here who is married to be here at this in March, and if you have a conflict, you've got plenty of time to change it. You should be here. And if you go look, I think my marriage is great. I don't think I need that. You need to be here and you need to bring someone with you. Think of someone who could be could benefit from this, be encouraged by it. We got to keep building into our marriage, our relationships, no matter where we are. And if you're single, you should be learning all you can. Now about how do I grow into the kind of person that could be a great spouse? Number three become expert for givers. Man. Forgiveness is so critical to the health of any relationship. It's true of every relationship between anyone here at church. If you're in a life group, you know there's plenty of people in there. You've had to forgive. You've had to learn how to manage conflict. You've had to know how to move towards one another. You've you have had to know how to receive correction, become expert for givers. And then number four. Regularly affirm your commitment to one another. Regularly affirm your commitment to one another, especially when you're at odds, by the way, especially when there's conflict and you pause and go, look, I just want you to know this is hard. I don't like this argument. I don't like where it's headed, but I'm not going anywhere. Probably ten years ago now, I came home from a day serving at a ministry office, and we had had some difficult situations come up that day at work, and I came home and I was sharing those with Julie, and it was upsetting to her and her voice was elevating. She was raising her voice. The door was closed. We were hidden in the bedroom trying to I was trying to share with her. Here's what went down today. And she was getting more animated and more animated. Finally, we we talked through everything. She wasn't mad at me. She was just upset by the situation. Opened the door. And of course, there's two little kids, their ears pressed to the bottom of the door. Right there. Hop up a first question. Are you guys getting a divorce? Because if so, we voted to keep mom. Smart kids. I said no, listen, mom, she wasn't mad at me. We weren't arguing with each other. And let me show you something. And I picked him up in my arms and I carried to the bottom of the stairs. Because on the wall we have this marriage covenant that we signed that we got at our wedding day, and it's framed on the wall and on it it says, I commit to you. And I said, what does this mean? And they looked at it and said, it means you're staying married. I said, this means we're not going anywhere. We're here. We weren't even arguing, but we're here. Ezekiel 36. This is the key. Do you want to know the key? The key here is that in Ezekiel 36 is a prediction of the new covenant, a day when the old hard heart will be taken out and instead a heart of flesh. And I'll put my spirit in you. And it's the Spirit of Jesus living in you that is the key to faithfulness. That's the key to faithfulness. I couldn't say that to them that I'm not going anywhere because of how great I am, because of how great he is. That's the key to faithfulness. And what we're going to do now is celebrate together communion and those who are helping to distribute communion. If you would go ahead and prepare the elements. We take communion together to remind us of what Jesus did on our behalf. And if you know Jesus, we want you to participate with us. We want you to take communion with us. You don't have to be a member of this church if you know him. If you claim to follow him, the way we do it is we'll pass the trays down the aisle and as they come past, just take that stack of cups. It has juice, bread underneath. Take that stack, hang on to him and I'll lead us through taking them together. And here's what I want you to meditate on while those are being passed. I just want you to think about the beautiful glory of Jesus dying for you. Too many times we don't pause to think about that. He died for you and whatever sin it is, whether we talked about it today or not, he died for that man. If you would go ahead and start passing those down the aisle as they're passing, meditate on how great his death, his burial, his life is for you. And then I'll lead us through taking the elements together here in just a minute.