Don’t Tear Asunder What God Has Joined Together
Ephesian 5:22-33
January 18, 2026 anno Domini
On the second Sunday after Epiphany I’m always faced with a choice for preaching – a sermon on the wedding at Cana or Ephesians 5, the best wine ever served at a wedding reception or husbands die and wives submit. Jesus first miracle signaling He is the Lord over creation, or hard words that rankle our worldly, sinful, common sense and require more explaining than a typical sermon can convey. By the way, that’s a warning, that the sermon this morning might be longer than usual.
We have been using the one-year series of readings since 2018. Since then the Wedding of Cana is winning the sermon battle 5-3 over Ephesians. Personally, I would rather preach on weddings and wine, it’s easier, but I believe the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians are more necessary for your than ever.
Today I’m going to take this text in a little different direction. The month of January often has an emphasis on life – that’s because in 1973, on January 22, the United States Supreme Court ruled that states regulating abortion were in violation of the newly invented constitutional right to privacy. The decision legalized abortion on demand throughout the United States, up until the moment of birth. That decision also awakened Christians, to enter the public square, and defend life, be pro-life. Biblical Christians are pro-life people. We stand up for life from conception to natural death.
I want to give you some basic wisdom about life from God’s Word. “What God has joined together, let men not separate.” You recognize those words. They are in the wedding liturgy. Jesus spoke them in Matthew 19, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” Jesus is speaking directly about divorce, which we’ll get to in a minute, but His Words will help you when it comes to all “life” decisions – whether it be abortion, euthanasia (sometimes called mercy-killing), pro-creation, and marriage. Do not tear asunder what God has joined together.
Life comes from union with God and the unions He creates. When you tear asunder what God has joined together, you mess with life and risk losing it. This flows from the very nature of the Trinity. God is this mysterious union of three persons, yet one God. Separate the Trinity, lose one person or the other, and you lose the life He gives. Deny the Father and Creation – you lose the value of humanity being created in His image. Deny the Son and you lose your forgiveness, peace on earth, and hope of eternity. Neglect the Spirit and you lose faith and the desire for holiness of living. This mystery spills into our lives as believers – as St. Paul writes in Ephesians that the relationship of husband and wife mysteriously reflects the union of Christ and His bride the church.
First and foremost, life comes from our union with God. God is the author and giver of all life. Apart from Him there is no life. Because our sin tore apart what God joined together, God sent His Son in human flesh. God united Himself to man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As the book of Acts tells us – forgiveness, life, salvation are united to the God-Man Jesus and Him alone, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.” If you say Jesus isn’t God or God didn’t really become a man you have no life. If you don’t believe God put all your sins on Jesus and He died and rose again three days later you have no life. If you don’t go to church – if you separate faith in Jesus from the life-sustaining work of the Spirit in baptism, hearing His Word, receiving His supper – you have no life.
I believe this is why Jesus did His first miracle at a wedding. The first sin happened in marriage and tore it apart. Eve ate the forbidden fruit as Adam stood by silently, and then Adam ate, and then they tried to divorce each other – Adam blaming Eve. Eve blaming God. Sin tore everything apart and death ruled. Now Jesus comes on the scene and His first miracle is at a wedding, because His task is to unite what we by our sin have torn asunder. He is going to unite God and man through the forgiveness He would win at the cross and unite us to each other by asking us to forgive each other as He has forgiven us.
United with God you live, so do not tear asunder what God has joined together. Let me run that Biblical wisdom through a few life issues for you.
Let’s talk about abortion. Abortions usually, but not always result because sex has been separated from marriage. Inside of marriage God has created a place to welcome a child, to care for a child, to provide for the needs that only can be provided by a mother and father. Inside of marriage pregnancy is a delight – it’s one of the chief reasons God created marriage – be fruitful and multiply. Outside of marriage, when a young woman gets pregnant, she is all alone. Her boyfriend, if he is even that, did not want to be father. He doesn’t want to die to himself for her. He wants to live all for himself and certainly not for that child. So, what does this lead to? The woman, alone, afraid, facing a task intended for two as one, choses to separate what God has joined together – a living human being from the womb of its mother.
Another life issue is In Vitro Fertilization. In this fallen world, sadly, not every couple can conceive a child – sin isn’t just a spiritual malady. It affects our bodies – if you don’t believe me look at the size of Centracare. IVF is a commonly prescribed fertility treatment – removing eggs and sperm from the couple and uniting them in glass (that’s what in vitro means) in other words – in a laboratory. There are two problems with IVF for Christians – it separates conception from the marriage act, but worse it creates multiple children, embryos. Up to 98 percent of the embryos created in IVF are either discarded, frozen, or used for research. IVF is also problematic when it is used for surrogacy or by homosexual couples who do not have the genetic make-up to create children. Separating what God has joined together causes loss and destruction of life.
Euthanasia or mercy-killing is another pressing life issue for the Christian. The guiding phrase among advocates for assisted suicide is quality of life. Right there, with that phrase, you have separated what God has joined together. Life is no longer judged as a gift from God, but by human subjectivity – what is quality? As Christians we believe in the sanctity of life, that every human is made in the image of God, and that the taking of human life (unless God has made you a soldier or a policeman or you’re defending your own life) is murder. We also believe that the worst thing is not suffering or being out of control at the hour of death, but being without Christ at the hour of death. How many times has God not used suffering to turn our hearts and faith back to Him?
Finally, today I want to speak about marriage as it relates to life. Some of the hardest words in Scripture are spoken about marriage. It is a hard word for wives to hear “submit” and for husbands to hear “love her to death.” Yet, to what does St. Paul unite those words – the mysterious love Jesus Christ has for His bride the Church. He loves her to death and she submits to Him, hanging on His every Word because He saved her. So, through His Apostle Paul, God asks men and women who enter into marriage as Christians, to confess this with their actions, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Wives submit to your husbands as the church submits to Christ.
The other hard word in Scripture regarding marriage is divorce. God’s will is that marriage be once, one man and one woman for one lifetime. God never commands divorce. He allows it in cases of adultery and to that the Church has added abandonment. Why does God say one marriage and only one marriage for a lifetime? Because it reflects and confesses Him and what He has done for us. God chose one and only one people to bring life into the world. He chose Abraham and His descendants – the Hebrew people. They were unfaithful, but He never divorced them. They divorced Him. He stay married to them for the sake of the children – first for the sake of His Son, that He might be born of Mary, and second for your sake, that you would be born of God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. God, who is perfect love, wasn’t thinking of Himself, when He chose Abraham and Israel. He was thinking of His Son, and of His fallen, rebellious children, whom He wanted back. He stay married to Israel because He loved them and you. In one marriage for one lifetime He’s asking you to confess Him.
There is one last Word you must hear from God today. What does this mean if you’ve had an abortion? If you’ve used IVF? If you’re measuring your life by its quality? If you’re divorced? Believe God’s Word that you have sinned. Confess your sins. If the Devil has pestered you with them you might need private confession and absolution. Believe that Christ died for you – these sins are not the unforgiveable sin – that sin is divorcing yourself from God by unbelief and unholy living. And then live and work and fight to hold together what God has put together for life, in your life. In the name of Jesus. Amen.