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The Significance of One Flesh and the Family of God
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The Significance of One Flesh and the Family of God
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(My message today as given by the Lord was heavily inspired by recent events in my life last night as I addressed both the Leander School District Board of Trustees and the Leander City Council about the importance of the family unit.)
Today we will read about and discuss an exchange that takes place between Jesus and the people near the end of His adult ministry. He had been teaching up north in Galilee and now He began His final journey that would ultimately lead to Jerusalem and the cross. Along the way many
people continued to believe that He was God and to follow Him.
The Pharisees had also been observing all of this and were desperate to stop Jesus. So in front of the people, they asked Jesus if divorce was legal and if so, why had He included in the law? It is important to note
The Pharisees had also been observing all of this and were desperate to stop Jesus. So in front of the people, they asked Jesus if divorce was legal and if so, why had He included in the law? It is important to note
from the beginning of this exchange that their motivation was based on evil intentions and not out of concern for any families. They were desperate to find fault for which they could accuse Jesus.
His response was brilliant and simple because it pointed to the absolute truth as
His response was brilliant and simple because it pointed to the absolute truth as
it had been from the absolute beginning. It pointed to the connection of the family of God and the family of man. It pointed to God’s perfect plan for us and the way that we had rejected it. It was OUR REJECTION of God’s plan that caused the suffering.
In describing that plan, Jesus quoted Genesis 1:26-27 where God designed and described the family unit. But unlike everything else that God had created, Jesus says that He created us in His image… male and female… one flesh… just like He is one God (3 in 1). He goes on to
describe how this male and female, as one flesh, will go on to produce children who will also eventually leave their parents to become one flesh with their own family. This is God’s perfect design and it has brought us through millennia as He has used it to carry out His command
to fill the earth (Genesis 1:28) before He promised to always take care of and provide for us in the very next verse. His plan has always been perfect, yet we rejected it.
This rejection really doesn’t make any logical sense and Jesus said that we do it because of the sinful and
This rejection really doesn’t make any logical sense and Jesus said that we do it because of the sinful and
prideful nature of our hearts (because of what happened in Genesis 3). It is this pride that pushes us to try to tear apart what God through His work has put together. The family unit represents the very image of God and THAT is why it is under such intense attack today by the
spirit of the anti-Christ. Make no mistake about what is really happening all around us as the enemy tries to undo what God has done. Once we are in the family of God (either horizontally as husband and wife or vertically as children of God), we can never be separated. If so, we
have to ask ourselves if we were ever truly in the family.
Now let’s read and reflect on this powerful encounter as found at the beginning of Matthew chapter 19.
Marriage and Divorce
1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and
Now let’s read and reflect on this powerful encounter as found at the beginning of Matthew chapter 19.
Marriage and Divorce
1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and
came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at 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 then, they are no
longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to
divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” - Matthew 19:1-10
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