Belonging
to the Lord Changes Everything
Isaiah
40:1-11
Marriage is a
mystery. Despite modern man’s attempts to destroy the sanctity of marriage by
condoning living together without getting married, marriage still remains a
mystery. Of all the creatures that God made, humans are the only ones that
marry. Marriage complicates living. Without marriage, people who don’t want to
live together, don’t. It is very difficult to discover a reason for marriage
without going to the Scriptures.
In the Scriptures,
marriage is held to be sacred [Heb. 13:4]. Jesus said that married people are
no longer two, but one, having been joined together by God [Mt. 19:6]. God
loves marriage. He designed it and endorses it; but He “hates divorce” [Mal.
2:16]. It seems as though the sanctity of marriage is honored less than ever
before, yet the practice still rolls along.
Marriage,
in its original design, happened when two individuals abstained from all sexual
activity until on one given day there was a ceremony. They went to that ceremony
believing that prior sexual activity for them was wrong. At the ceremony, words
were said, promises were made, and from that ceremony, sexual activity was not
only no longer wrong for them, but it was blessed of God. They entered the
wedding chapel two and left one. This is a great mystery.
Man’s relationship
with God is similar in mystery. The Scriptures say, “… if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” [II Cor. 5:17] The
apostle Paul says that far more important than what we do is to Whom we belong
[Gal. 6:15]. Paul says that if we belong to God, we should walk in “newness” of
life with “newness” of spirit [Romans 6:4; 7:6].
Our relationship
with God was never intended to be a mere momentary emotional or religious
experience. It is, according to the Scriptures, a total transformation of who
we are and how we live. It is even more radical than two virgins joining their
lives together in holy matrimony.
Today, we shall look together at four ways belonging to
God makes us different from those who do not belong to Him. These differences
shall be seen in Isaiah’s prophecy to
I have a bachelor
friend who views marriage as captivity. He claims he goes to weddings to weep
and to funerals to rejoice. The funny thing about his claim is that it is built
on a speck of truth. A married man is locked into a relationship with one woman
that excludes once and for all any intimacy with other women. In that, this man
speaks the truth. The fact is, however, that this man is himself locked into a
lonely lifestyle that could never be satisfied by anything other than marriage.
In our
relationship with Jesus Christ (married or not), we are offered satisfaction at
a level that could never be found anywhere else, and that relationship changes
everything.
Belonging to the Lord Changes Everything
Isaiah 40:1-11
Introduction to
the text:
Belonging to God changes everything because we are comforted vs. 1,2
A.
B.
C.
Belonging to God changes everything because we act differently vs. 3,5
A.
B.
Belong to God changes everything because we talk differently vs. 6-8
A.
B.
Belonging to God changes everything because we have
intimacy
with God vs. 9-11
A.
B.
C.