Real Life Selkirk
**August 30** A Kingdom Heart (Matthew 19:1-15)

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Matthew 19:1–15 NIV
    When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

    Introduction

    This is a heavy passage that covers some very touchy topics.
    When I say touchy, I mean this topic discusses some places of hurt and fear in our past.
    Because of this, there are many strong opinions regarding the matters of divorce and marriage.
    In our passage today, Jesus gives a very clear and concise teaching that articulates the truth in a way that we come to a crossroads of trusting His voice, or choosing our own path.
    I don’t want to give my own interpretation of these passages to you today. We are under the authority of Jesus and the Word of God.
    Being a disciple means that we follow Jesus
    Either we follow Him in obedience or we choose our own path in disobedience to Jesus.
    You cannot claim to follow and live in disobedience.
    Jesus describes this in the Great Commission as “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you”
    In order to follow Jesus, we need to know His teachings, but not to the point of simply having the right answers.
    We must know His commands and adjust our lives to His truth.
    Even if we don’t like it. Even if we don’t understand it.
    He is King. We are not. If we are a part of His Kingdom, we obey the King.
    There is no way that I can cover every circumstance that you have seen or experienced in life.
    The best way that I can say that we are going to cover this passage today is to think about a compass.
    On a compass there are 360 points that can navigate you precisely in any direction.
    However, only one of the points on that compass points to north.
    I cannot take the time to navigate all 359 points that are not north
    But I would fail all of you if I try to talk about all of them and neglect the one point that matters.
    Someone said that I need to start this sermon by saying, “Mawwiage”
    Apparently it is from a movie that I haven’t seen, but everyone else has.
    I was told it would be funny. But since no one is laughing, it must not be a very good movie.
    Today, I want to take a moment and talk about alignment
    We are not a family that has historically had nice cars. We get the cars we can afford. And that leaves us sometimes paying more for repairs than the average family.
    One of the cars we got was for my 2nd oldest daughter. It was a Volkswagen Jetta. It was a pretty nice little car, older, but seemed to run pretty well.
    She drove that thing around all over when she got her driver’s license.
    I didn’t mind too much because gas was cheaper then and that car got pretty good gas mileage.
    One day, when she was parking her car in the driveway, I took a look at her tires. Specifically the front drivers side tire.
    On the inside it had decent tread. On the outside that thing was bald. As bald as some of the heads I see in this room.
    I don’t know much about cars, but I do know that that was a problem.
    We brought her car to the shop for new tires and to get an alignment.
    They gave us new tires, but said that the frame of the car had been damaged and that there was nothing they could do to fix the alignment.
    For two years, that car drove my daughter around well. She turned every corner, drove down the road. You might not know that there was an issue with the car.
    But for two years, it chewed through the tires making it a very expensive car to keep on the road.
    Here is the thing when it comes to alignment, It isn’t always a big thing. It is the small things that start to break things down. It is looking at 357 degrees on the compass, and not true north.
    At Real Life, we strive for alignment in everything we do. Alignment is necessary for unity.
    Our hearts are to align with the heart of God as revealed in His Word in everything we do.
    If we are aligned with the heart of God, He is glorified. That is a win.
    If you and I are aligned with the heart of God and aligned to one another, we have unity that glorified God.
    When we talk about marriage, we are dealing with multiple elements of alignment and unity.
    We have alignment with God, alignment with His instruction, and alignment with another person who is also striving for the other elements of alignment.
    In a way, Godly marriage is something like a Rubik’s Cube. If you get one looking good, you’ve made a mess of the other five sides of the cube. I never figured those things out.

    Today’s Question:

    How does a Kingdom Heart respond to the covenant of marriage?
    I want you to know that today’s passage is not going to be a “strategy” sermon. I’m not going to give you tips to get along in your marriage better.
    I’m going to address the core issues that all of us have in every relationship: our heart
    Do you know where the breakdowns in your relationship with God are? They are our heart
    People will say, if you want a better relationship with God, you should have a:
    Regular prayer time
    Regular Bible reading plan
    Regular church attendance
    Here is what Jesus said about the people that lived these things out, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
    Does Jesus want your Bible reading time or your heart?
    He wants our heart.
    Out of our heart come the activities that draw us near to Him like Bible reading, prayer and church.
    Do you know where the breakdowns in your marriage happen?
    You can implement all kinds of strategies like date nights, marriage counselling, and evening prayer.
    But your spouse wants your heart. It is hard to define that, but I think we all have been in a place where the heart was missing, but the action was technically there.
    Alignment can only happen with a changed heart.
    Without a changed heart, you are like my daughter’s car. It can still function, but a part of your life will always be chewing up tires and spitting them out.
    Jesus addresses an issue of the heart in a number of ways in this passage.
    There is a place for marriage retreats, marriage books and marriage counselling. But those will only be effective if Jesus has first transformed our hearts.

    Satan’s Foothold:

    Why does Satan want us to trip this up?
    A broken marriage is ineffective in the Kingdom
    If you are in a broken marriage, is God being glorified in the world around you?
    Are you reaching the world for Jesus?
    Broken marriages leave a legacy of brokenness
    As we talked about a few weeks ago, your unsurrendered heart leaves a manual for your kids lives. Now they have to battle your battles as they do what you do.
    Broken marriages quickly become me-focused over God-focused.
    We focus on our hurt, what is happening to us and our struggles and we lose sight on God.
    Satan can take us out without ever challenging our relationship with God. If he can break down the marriage, he has won.
    I want to take a moment and say: if you are struggling in your marriage and you hear me say this, I am not saying your spouse is doing the work of Satan. I am not saying that Satan now lives within your spouse.
    What I am saying is that through the issues we have in marriage, it can so distract us from our calling that we are ineffective disciples.
    Satan will use it and distract us to our own destruction.
    As I preach about marriage, I know that a lot of people have a lot of ideas about this. Our culture gives a message about what we say.
    Here is what makes this sermon easy for me. I preach what Jesus says. I don’t want to go beyond, and I also don’t want to fall short.
    If you don’t agree, then you can take it up with Jesus, not me. I’m just saying what He said.
    I want to tell the truth. It is your job to adjust your heart to Jesus.

    Preaching the Text

    “How does a Kingdom Heart respond to the covenant of marriage?”
    — How do I change my heart to have a good marriage?

    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes

    Matthew 19:1–3 NIV
    When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes
    I want to take a moment before fully diving into our text to reveal what Matthew has just shared with us.
    On two occasions, Jesus has said that He is going to go down to Jerusalem where he will be crucified.
    The obvious answer would be, “So don’t go down to Jerusalem.”
    But Jesus, knowing the bigger plan of the Father and knowing His role in the redemption of humanity, knew He had to go to the cross.
    Jesus left northern Israel, where He had been for nearly all of his public ministry to make his way to Jerusalem for the last week or so of His human life on earth.
    If you notice, we still have nine chapters of the book of Matthew.
    Nineteen chapters cover Jesus first 33 years
    Nine chapters cover his last week.
    Matthew slows the narrative so we can see clearly what matters most in Jesus’ ministry.
    However, to Matthew, this is the first event that he records in Jesus ministry as he moved down into the region of southern Israel.
    The religious elites from nearby Jerusalem come to find a reason to condemn him.
    They ask a question with a very interesting root.
    For generations, there had been a divide in the ranks of the Pharisees on this very topic.
    Some felt that divorce could be granted for literally anything. All they needed was a certificate saying, “I divorce you.”
    They built this teaching on Moses’ instructions while the people were wandering in the wilderness.
    We will get into what Moses said and why in a moment.
    One group of the Pharisees had a very high view of marriage. Marriage was a lifelong covenant and divorce was almost not an option.
    The other group of Pharisees taught that almost anything was grounds for divorce. I could wake up one morning and say, “Your morning breath is a bit too much, later.”
    He’d go to the courthouse, get his certificate and give it to her and she’d have to go find a new place to live.
    These were two extremes but the Pharisees largely found themselves on one or the other side of this debate.
    It was strategic to ask this of Jesus, because they had argued their points using Bible verses for years.
    By asking Jesus, he would have to take a side and in doing so He would be going against the Scriptures in some way...at least in their eyes, regardless of how he answered.
    The discussion was around a word that we will call a “loophole”
    Loopholes in our world are ways around what we are supposed to do.
    There are taxes, then there are tax loopholes that people utilize to get out of paying taxes
    I saw this one loophole with a restaurant chain that had a children’s menu. Kids that would sign up for the Kid’s Club would get a free meal on their birthday...except some of the parents found out that they didn’t ask for the children’s year of birth.
    So Adults were signing up for the Kid’s Club just to get the free meal on their birthday.
    Loopholes.
    Marriage was something that God had instituted at creation.
    But because marriage is hard humanity started looking for loopholes in marriage.
    While we live in this world, our sinful nature will always look for loopholes.
    We have seen this in the last few weeks
    Peter wanted the loophole in forgiveness
    I’ve forgiven him 7 times, how many more times do I need to forgive?
    Peter also with taxes
    Are we supposed to pay the temple tax? Jesus sent him fishing so as to not cause offense to the Kingdom.
    Loopholes in life are workarounds that often don’t turn out well.
    Looking for a loophole in marriage is a clear indicator of your heart.
    This is the question the Pharisees brought to Jesus.
    This is the question some of you are bringing to church today.
    Our marriage has been hard. It’s been difficult.
    Now I walk into church and Jared is talking about marriage and divorce. My circumstance is different.
    The minute you start looking at one of the other points on the compass, you are looking for a loophole of some sort.
    When Jesus talked about the culture in the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 5, he said blessed are the Poor in Spirit, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. None of these are easy.
    The reality in our lives, because they are hard, we all look for loopholes to navigate the struggles.
    This is an indicator of our hearts.
    You can either be like the Pharisees today and say, “So Jared, in your sermon, what about this and this and this?” That is loophole mentality.
    Jesus’ mentality is “Help me understand what marriage is and how we can honor God through some really difficult circumstances.”
    If you are married, I want you to turn and look lovingly into your spouses eyes.
    If you are not married, that is ok. I think you understand the need for married people to honor God in their marriage.
    Say to your spouse, “I commit to honoring God in our relationship, above all, even when it gets difficult. No loopholes.”
    No Loopholes

    A Kingdom Heart Seeks God’s Design

    Matthew 19:4–6 NIV
    “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes
    A Kingdom Heart Seeks God’s Design
    If you want alignment with the Kingdom of God, then you need to look at His definition for the relationships we hold.
    I want you to think about McDonalds for a moment. Some of you are hungry and have already been thinking about McDonalds.
    If I wanted to open a McDonalds franchise in Priest River, the McDonalds corporate office would send me a set of blueprints and options for the building design, the equipment needed and the menu we would serve.
    If I said that I wanted a McDonalds franchise with the golden arches and everything, but I wanted my McDonalds to serve Pizza and Spaghetti, it wouldn’t be a McDonalds. It would be really poorly made food that would leave customers very unhappy if they were hoping for a Big Mac
    When Jesus was asked about divorce, He didn’t respond by talking about the 359 degrees on the compass that are not marriage.
    He pointed them to the true north of what marriage is.
    This is not about how we function within the marriage.
    This is the definition of marriage that He wants. This is the blueprint that enables how we function within our marriages.
    I want you to know that in our current culture, the world works completely opposite to what the Bible says. If God says it, the world will say, “Well we say the opposite is true.”
    Jesus is not trying to shock them or be provocative to the culture in any way.
    He is simply speaking the truth.
    As we navigate the following points, you may agree or disagree. But I want you to know that you are not agreeing or disagreeing with me. You are agreeing or disagreeing with Jesus.
    And Jesus is quoting the OT in this passage. So the OT says it, and Jesus repeats it. This is truth for our time and our culture is going to say that it is not true.
    This is a Kingdom Marriage blueprint
    Matthew 19:4 NIV
    “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
    Kingdom Marriage:
    God created male and female
    Does our world say something different? It sure does
    This is not a political statement. This is not an inflammatory statement. This is simply truth.
    If this is the truth, there are lies that will counter the truth.
    The lies come from Satan.
    I want you to know that there are lies from Satan that our culture has embraced. Lies that people can change their gender or that people were born in the wrong body.
    These are demonic lies.
    Every person was created by a loving God. God knew them before the creation of the world. He knit them together in their mother’s womb and He did not make a mistake.
    He loves them and He calls us to love them, even in their blindness to the lies that Satan speaks.
    God created male and female
    Matthew 19:5 NIV
    and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
    Kingdom Marriage:
    God created male and female
    Marriage is between a man and a woman
    God’s design for marriage is that a man would leave the bedroom at his mom and dad’s house and go be united to his wife and the two become one flesh.
    Our world will embrace the lie that God permits a man and a man or a woman and a woman to be married. That is a lie.
    Again, this is not taking a stand on a political issue. This is God’s blueprint for marriage.
    Our world is so polarized that we see this as an issue of one side against another on an issue.
    This is not an issue and this is not one side against another.
    There is a blueprint. There are people loved by God that God calls us to love that believe a lie
    A lie that results in rebellion against their creator.
    Our hope is not to get them to believe like we believe.
    Our hope is that they meet a Savior to cover their sin, not a political viewpoint to change their sin.
    Kingdom Marriage:
    God created male and female
    Marriage is between a man and a woman
    God’s design for sex is within the marriage covenant
    Within marriage, the man and woman are joined together. There is a physical intimacy that is implied in this text
    As well, later in this passage, we see that sex outside of the marriage covenant is destructive to the marriage covenant.
    Sex within marriage, joins a man and woman together.
    Sex outside of marriage destroys the marriage covenant and God’s design for marriage.
    Our world will say that this is old fashioned and not reasonable in our culture
    Almost every television show you see has sex outside of marriage in some capacity.
    This is something that is completely normalized. So much so that the lie has become truth to many/most of our world.
    As Christians, we must understand that God gave His blueprint for humanity. His design for marriage.
    That is that sex is for a man and a woman in a marriage covenant with one another.
    If you are having sex with someone outside of marriage, it is sin
    If you are living with a boyfriend or girlfriend outside of marriage, it is sin.
    I am not saying this in condemnation, I am saying this in clarity.
    There is a step in your heart that needs to be heard here. If you are a follower of Jesus and you are hearing this for the first time or the Holy Spirit is smacking you with a 2x4 right now, the word is repentance.
    Repentance is looking at that compass and realizing that the true north that God designs that aligns with His heart is not the path that you are going.
    Whether it is 1 degree or 180 degrees that you need to turn, Jesus isn’t yelling at you or beating you down. He is inviting you by His grace to take the step of marriage and align your relationship to Him.
    We do weddings here. I would love to do a wedding in response to repentance. It would be a celebration of what God is doing in your life.
    Matthew 19:6 NIV
    So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
    Kingdom Marriage:
    God created male and female
    Marriage is between a man and a woman
    God’s design for sex is within the marriage covenant
    God is the glue of marriage, not love
    We love to romanticize love in marriage. It is good to love your wife. It is good to say, “I love you”.
    But I want you to know that your vow to one another was not only to you, but it was to God about the person you married.
    Here is the thing about marriage, even if you are not a Christian, your marriage is still bound by God.
    Just because you are not following Him doesn’t mean that you are not created by Him engaging in an act that is also created by Him.
    All of this is His, whether you recognize it or not.
    Malachi 2:13–16 NIV
    Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.
    Does it seem that God takes your marriage covenant personally? It’s because it is personal to Him.
    God is not an element you add to your marriage.
    God is the marriage. He is the source and the bind in marriage.
    If we break that bind, it is Him.
    This is something that we will address further in our passage today.

    A Kingdom Heart Pursues Faithfulness

    Matthew 19:7–9 NIV
    “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes
    A Kingdom Heart Seeks God’s Design
    A Kingdom Heart Pursues Faithfulness
    So what is happening in the text is that the Pharisees are testing Jesus by asking about divorce. Rather than answering about divorce, Jesus says, “This is what marriage is.” A necessary definition.
    So they follow up on the line of questioning.
    Jesus implies that, “No, divorce for any and every reason is against God’s design for marriage.”
    So they try to lead Jesus down that path that would walk Him into a trap.
    On one hand, you can divorce your wife for anything
    On the other hand, you can do anything to your wife and she has to stay married.
    Both of these extremes are not Godly or biblical, but they are trying to trap Jesus to one extreme or the other.
    They say, “Moses said all we need to do is give a certificate of divorce. Are you speaking contrary to what Moses says?”
    I love this because I find Jesus making a statement of authority and deity throughout the Scriptures.
    He says, “Moses let you do this because your hearts were stubborn and bullheaded and he couldn’t deal with you. But this isn’t what God created or intended.”
    Jesus speaks in authority over Moses.
    Jesus knows the hearts of the rebellious.
    Jesus knows clearly God’s design for marriage.
    He won’t be trapped in a response. He is simply speaking to God’s design. Nothing more, nothing less.
    If they have issue with what Jesus says, then they have issue with God.
    Jesus plays the Uno Reverse Card and pins them to the extremes of their own line of questioning.
    Jesus says, “Anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman is committing adultery.”
    Again, it will be easy to start talking about the 359 other points on the compass, rather than the 1 that points us to Kingdom Marriage.
    Jesus does bring up one here. And because Jesus brings it up, we need to bring it up.
    Sexual immorality
    We have already said that sex outside of marriage is sin
    Sex with someone outside of the marriage covenant is not just sin, it is potentially fatally destructive to the marriage God has brought together.
    Last week we talked about forgiveness and reconciliation
    This is destructive and forgiveness needs to happen in our hearts. God is the just judge and their sin will be paid for by Jesus at the cross and their surrender to His lordship or it will be paid for eternally in hell.
    Forgiveness is necessary.
    Reconciliation may or may not be possible.
    It takes one person to forgive, but it takes two to reconcile.
    The choice to reconcile after sexual immorality within a marriage needs to be done carefully and in alignment with two surrendered hearts to Jesus and to one another.
    We don’t seek divorce, but there may be no other hope of reconciliation.
    When it comes to this topic, I’ve heard so many people say, “We just aren’t compatible.” or “We have differences that just cannot be reconciled” or “We’ve been fighting and it’s become toxic” or some other statement like this.
    I want to point us to Ephesians 5. There is a verse here that I want us to take to heart:
    Ephesians 5:25–26 NIV
    Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
    Let’s imagine the marriage between Christ and His church.
    Jesus is the perfect example of a husband. Perfect and flawless in everything He does.
    How would you define the church in this marriage? A little messed up. Maybe a lot messed up.
    I want you to notice what Jesus doesn’t do. He doesn’t say, “We have irreconcilable differences.”, “We just aren’t compatible”, “It’s become toxic, I’m going to dump you and find something else.”
    He continues to love, show grace, forgive, and point to holiness.
    Also, we don’t divorce to marry again.
    Some people say, “Well this didn’t work out, I’m going to try a reset button and try again with someone else.”
    Not good.
    The one caveat that I give here is regarding abuse.
    Abuse can come in a number of ways whether that be physical, emotional, or verbal.
    Abuse is sin. Abuse is wrong. I would point you back to Malachi 2 to see God’s view of abuse.
    Rather than divorce, here is a Biblical response:
    First, if your life is in danger, get to a place of safety.
    Matthew 18, which we covered recently gives a roadmap of how to deal with a person in sin.
    In the context of marriage, I assume that step one is already taken.
    But in this case, use the wisdom and counsel of other believers within the church.
    Then use the counsel of the elders of the church.
    The purpose behind all of the Matthew 18 passage is to bring a person to repentance with the wisdom and accountability that comes with the church.
    Don’t fight the battle alone.
    I wish I could bring further teaching and counsel here, but we have to finish our text.

    A Kingdom Heart is Fulfilled in Christ

    Matthew 19:10–12 NIV
    The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes
    A Kingdom Heart Seeks God’s Design
    A Kingdom Heart Pursues Faithfulness
    A Kingdom Heart is Fulfilled in Christ
    The disciples make an odd statement here: “If this is the way it is, it is better not to marry.”
    Why would they say this? I don’t know.
    My best guess is that it is hard enough to keep myself pointed to Jesus, but trying to keep myself aligned with another person and Jesus and knowing that I am accountable for my relationship with the other person adds a complexity that many may not want.
    He then goes into a dialogue about eunuchs.
    I’m not going to talk about eunuchs too much here. If you want to talk about eunuchs, make an appointment and I’ll have you talk to Jason or Christian this week.
    However, there is a point to this portion of the passage. It is here for a purpose.
    He says there are some who do not get married, whether by their choice or by the choice of others, or by the circumstances they live in.
    What about the single folks?
    Not everyone can accept these teachings about Kingdom Marriage. It is good for them to be single.
    You know, there are single people in our world.
    So often within the church they are seen as someone who is half a person and we pray that they can find the other half.
    There is an unwritten expectation that God wants everyone to be married and everyone should want to be married.
    That isn’t a verse in the Bible.
    In fact the Bible talks more about singleness than most of us would be comfortable with.
    There is a mentality I would like to address.
    Jesus is enough. Jesus is sufficient.
    You don’t need a spouse to be a Christian.
    You don’t need a spouse to draw closer to Jesus
    You need Jesus.
    Single believers have a life that can be completely devoted to Christ without the duty and complexity that a family and relationship brings along with it.
    They are still a part of a family.
    They have a Father
    They have brothers and sisters
    They still grow in relationship.
    May we honor our single brothers and sisters and implore them that Jesus is enough.

    A Kingdom Heart remains humble

    Matthew 19:13–15 NIV
    Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.
    A Kingdom Heart Rejects Loopholes
    A Kingdom Heart Seeks God’s Design
    A Kingdom Heart Pursues Faithfulness
    A Kingdom Heart is Fulfilled in Christ
    A Kingdom Heart Remains Humble
    This last passage talks about the little kids being brought to Jesus.
    Little kids were brought to Jesus a few sermons ago when Jason preached.
    The point I want to make here is really simple.
    In our relationships, we seem to think that we have a relationship with God and that is God dependent.
    But when it comes to our marriage relationships, that is us dependent.
    We think that because it doesn’t have to do with our Spiritual maturity, God is just one of the resources that we can utilize in our life.
    Our marriage gameplan is to align with God and not with us.
    We are to be children before God and humbly go to Him as Father in every aspect of our lives, including marriage.
    We give Satan a foothold when we operate as if we are the wisdom, direction and strength in marriage

    Conclusion

    When we began today, I told you that a compass has 360 possible directions—but only one points true north. Marriage is the same way. There are hundreds of opinions, hundreds of experiences, hundreds of cultural messages, and hundreds of loopholes we could chase. But Jesus gives us true north.
    And true north is not a technique. It’s not a strategy. It’s not a list of marriage tips. It’s a heart.
    A Kingdom Heart.
    A Kingdom Heart rejects loopholes—because loopholes are the language of a wandering heart. A Kingdom Heart seeks God’s design—because marriage is not our invention; it’s God’s creation. A Kingdom Heart pursues faithfulness—because Jesus never looks for reasons to leave His bride. And a Kingdom Heart is fulfilled in Christ—because marriage does not complete us; Jesus does.
    So here is the question every one of us must answer today:

    “Is my heart aligned with God’s true north, or am I living a few degrees off?”

    Because here’s the truth: You can drive a car that’s out of alignment. You can turn corners. You can go down the road. You can function. But eventually, it will chew through the tires. Eventually, something will break.
    And the same is true in marriage. The same is true in singleness. The same is true in every relationship God has entrusted to you.

    ⭐ A Word to Those Who Carry Past Pain, Divorce, or Sin

    Some of you are hearing this teaching today and your heart is heavy. You’ve walked through divorce. You’ve made choices you regret. You’ve lived outside God’s design. You’ve sinned sexually. You’ve broken covenants. You’ve felt the consequences of misalignment.
    Hear me clearly: God is not condemning you today. He is not shaming you. He is not throwing your past in your face.
    What you are feeling is not condemnation—it is clarity. It is the realization of what happens when we follow 357 degrees instead of true north.
    And here is the good news: Where there is clarity, there can be repentance. Where there is repentance, there can be forgiveness. Where there is forgiveness, there can be healing. Where there is healing, there can be redemption.
    Your story is not over. Your past does not define you. Your failures do not disqualify you. Your brokenness does not remove you from God’s love or God’s future.
    Jesus is inviting you—not to shame, but to alignment. Not to despair, but to hope. Not to punishment, but to restoration.
    You can realign your heart today. You can walk toward true north today. You can begin again today.

    Realign your heart to God’s true north.

    Not your spouse’s north. Not culture’s north. Not your feelings’ north. Not your past’s north. Not your wounds’ north.
    God’s north.
    Because when your heart aligns with His— your marriage changes, your singleness changes, your relationships change, your legacy changes, and your life becomes a compass pointing others to the King.

      • Matthew 19:1–15ESV

      • Matthew 19:1–3ESV

      • Matthew 19:4–6ESV

      • Matthew 19:4ESV

      • Matthew 19:5ESV

      • Matthew 19:6ESV

      • Malachi 2:13–16ESV

      • Matthew 19:7–9ESV

      • Ephesians 5:25–26ESV

      • Matthew 19:10–12ESV

      • Matthew 19:13–15ESV

Real Life Selkirk
11 members • 2 followers