Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Good morning church.
[00:00:04] What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:07] It has been, it's been a hot minute between the holidays and having our snow day last week. It's, it's good to be together. Today we are jumping back into the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to be in Matthew 19. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you, we have house Bibles around the room. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word word here at Emmanuel. And so if you're here today and you don't own a physical copy of the Bible, I would strongly encourage you to take one of those home, snag it, or talk to one of the pastors. Let us get you one that's maybe a little nicer. But today we're starting another little series within the Gospel of Matthew that, that I'm calling the Pursuit of Happy. And I think it's actually really timely for us.
[00:00:58] We breathe the air of pursuing happiness as Americans. It is baked into our culture. It is literally in the Declaration of Independence. Right? Like that's part of our culture. We put such a high priority on individual happiness and fulfillment and yet if you look at our society, we live in an era of unprecedented depression, loneliness, sorrow, anxiety and a litany of other self destructive companions of the soul.
[00:01:36] How can that be right? Like how does that happen? As we work through the next few chapters of Matthew, what we're going to see in Matthew 19:20 are some of the messages that were common in Jesus Day of how one attained happiness, how one lived a good life. And we'll see Jesus response. And I think we will be shocked by how familiar these false gospels will ring to us, these false invitations to find happiness. In spite of 2000 years of cultural progression, the sinful human heart is still what it is.
[00:02:17] And Satan still drips the same temptations into our ears generation after generation. And I think we'll see in that why our culture struggles so much with sorrow and loneliness and anxiety in spite of such a passion for personal happiness. What we're going to see over the course of the series, guys, is just this. It doesn't work.
[00:02:42] It doesn't work. Pursuing happy by the ways of this world and by the ways of this age, it does not work. In fact, it has the opposite effect.
[00:02:55] To obsessively build one's life around pursuing personal fulfillment and happiness is actually at the root of so much of our sorrow and loneliness that many of us and our friends and our families suffer. Yes, today we're going to be confronted with a pretty wild text in this text.
[00:03:15] We're going to be confronted with the reality that divorce doesn't make you happy. That's kind of the big throw of what's in this text. But of all the things Jesus could talk about in this text, Jesus is going to make some pretty big statements about divorce, about the sanctity of marriage, about the importance of singleness and oh, he'll also throw in human sexuality in there. And so, you know, as I think about like hot buttons in our culture, Jesus is just like ticking them off. I it's always a struggle when you're preaching through scripture to figure out what to edit out, right? Because there is no. We couldn't get down to a small enough chunk of scripture that there's not just depth upon depth for us to dig into together as brothers and sisters. But I'm telling you guys, I struggled to edit this one down this week. So I say all that to say if I go a little over on time, you know why? So if it hits 1:30 and you have somewhere to be, you just quietly get up and get out. Don't make a big deal out of it. The rest of us will judge you and then we'll move on.
[00:04:14] That's not true. I'm not going to go that long. But this is, there's a ton in this text and I think we do it a disservice if we don't give at least a little bit of time to some of these really intense things Jesus is digging into. What we're going to see is divorce won't make you happy. It's the big point Jesus makes here. But in the same breath he says marriage doesn't make you happy.
[00:04:38] Neither of these things have the capacity to fix what is broken in the human heart. And that's because this is our main point today. The human heart is designed for connection with God.
[00:04:49] That's what we're made for. And so the human heart will not be satisfied apart from from connection to our Creator. Marriage is good. Marriage paints a picture of this. But it's not enough.
[00:05:04] I want to pre warn you before we get into this. I know that most of us in this room are affected by divorce. Either family members or you yourself are divorced. I know that the church has a history of being really non gracious with the issue of divorce. It's messy, it's complex. Many well meaning Christians have treated it like a very black and white issue. And as a result it is often, especially in American church culture, been elevated to this kind of scarlet letter status in many church communities. If that's you in this space, if you carry shame in your history with marriage and divorce, I hope, I pray, I have been praying that today would be a healing balm of the gospel on your soul, on that part of your story. But in the same breath, breath. I do want to be clear here.
[00:05:58] The Bible has a hard and difficult teaching for us on divorce, and all of us need to sit in it. If you're someone in this space who is married and is contemplating divorce, if you are dancing with that false gospel, I hope today challenges you to consider God's call on your life afresh. So let's pray together and then let's jump into a really hairy text. Jesus, we need you today.
[00:06:29] You are our discipler. You're our teacher. It is your word. Lord, we pray that you would meet every single one of our hearts exactly where we need to be met. For those of us who need comfort and healing and encouragement, spirit be that for us today. For those who need to be challenged and pushed to see our sin. In light of your gospel, God, I pray that you would convict today. For those of us that need to be encouraged and challenged to present your gospel and to show your grace accurately and your love accurately to those around us, I pray that you would challenge us today. And Lord, for each of us, let us leave here today having met with you, having heard from you in the way our heart needs. We love you, Lord. We need you to accomplish these things. So we pray these in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:07:21] Matthew 19. We're going to start. In the first verse we read this.
[00:07:25] When Jesus had finished saying these things, he departed from Galilee and went to the region of Judea. Across the Jordan, large crowds followed him and he healed them there. Now, some Pharisees approached him to test him. They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? Okay, so this is a great point to kind of set up our story and remind us what's going on in the larger narrative of Matthew. We've been out of Matthew for a little bit of time, so let me remind us what's going on here. Jesus's ministry is growing dramatically, but so is his conflict with both the religious and political leaders of his day. It's gotten so bad that Jesus has actually made several trips outside of Palestine to kind of avoid the religious and political leaders who are actively plotting his murder. Right. But back in chapter 17, Jesus has finally fully revealed Himself as Messiah. He has taken on this mantle to his followers and has even shown his closest followers his full divinity. And now he is making his way toward Jerusalem not just as a rabbi and not just as a Jew, but as Messiah. And it's a really big deal. The crowds are growing, but so is their expectation that Jesus will raise up an army, unite the priests and teachers, and overthrow Rome, like that's what these people are looking for. And Jesus keeps plainly telling them that's not the case. Instead of overthrowing Rome, he's actually going to be crucified by Rome. But his followers don't have a category for this kind of suffering Messiah. And that's kind of the setup for our text. In our text, Jesus leaves Galilee and enters into Judea. Now, it's been a while. I've shown this map a couple times. Let me show this again. This is a map that kind of shows us Palestine in this time and shows us Jesus's ministry. What you'll notice if you can read it from where you're sitting is that Galilee is in the northern part of Palestine. It's pretty far, far away from Judea and Jerusalem. And the majority of practicing Jews in this region in the first century lived in those two places. The vast majority of Jesus's ministry takes place in the north, in Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee. That little blue jelly bean up there. But as a good practicing Jew, Jesus would have made his way down to Jerusalem, south to Jerusalem, multiple times over the course of his life in his ministry. But this time it's different.
[00:10:01] This is a very different trip. Luke sums it up by saying that Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem. He's not just traveling there. He's going there with messianic authority and messianic purpose. He has now left Galilee. And guys, he won't return again to Galilee until he does so in his perfected resurrected body. In chapter 28. There is a finality to this trip out of Galilee and into Judea. But not everyone knows how serious, how final this change is. And these religious leaders approach Jesus in a similar vein as they have for the last several chapters. Jesus is still a preacher and he's gathering crowds and teaching as he makes his way south down to Jerusalem. And how we get this story about some religious leaders trying to publicly trip Jesus up. They ask him this specific loaded question about divorce. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? That's the question they see. Divorce and remarriage was incredibly common amongst first century Jews. Significantly higher divorce and remarriage rates than we experience in America nowadays. And even though more religiously minded Jews would have avoided divorce themselves, what we learned from the history is they were still pretty passionate about having options, right? Even if it was something they wouldn't personally partake in. If that sounds a little crazy to you, let me take a second to explain. So part of Jewish culture in the first century and by the way still today, was the expectation of rigorous discussion and debate about how to best apply the Old Testament law to everyday life. Remember guys, the actual laws that we read in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, those were written more than a thousand years before the ministry of Jesus. They're very old. Like, imagine us sitting around a lunch table debating how to apply laws from the year 1025 to how we live today, right? Like it's a different world. And beyond this, these laws were written for the ancient nation of Israel, which had a king and had independence. And this was not the case for first century Jews. Applying the law was complex and with all the changes that had happened in Israel, it was hard to figure out how you did some of the stuff these laws talked about. And so the ancient teachers and rabbis wrote, discussed, debated and preserved that teaching. Most practicing Jews in the first century knew the teachings and interpretations of some of the more famous rabbis. And rules about divorce were no exception. There were several well known interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1 through 4's law on divorce. And in Jesus day, these religious leaders are purposefully posing this question in a way to get Jesus to take a side in this debate. The hope is that regardless of what Jesus answers by answering, he'll alienate himself from a chunk of his followers because he'll take one view or the other. But also notice, guys, their question is not whether or not someone can get divorced, right? I feel like that's the way most Christians today might frame this question. If they're going to bring it up, that's not their question. Divorce was common and was assumed in Jewish society. Now the question is whether or not a man could get divorced for any grounds. You see, two of the most well known rabbinic schools of thought in this day were from the conservative Rabbi Shammai and the progressive Rabbi Hillel. I'm probably slaughtering how you pronounce their names, but Shamai and Hillel, whatever that is. Generally, Shammai took a really strict and limited line with his understanding of the law. Whereas Hillel was more known for seeking the heart behind the law, he was often surprisingly grace centered in his teachings. If you study these two figures, you'll actually find that a lot of their interpretations were kind of the structures used for debates around Scripture in the first century. And that actually, in multiple times in his own ministry, like the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks specifically into things those two guys debated and argued about. On the issue of divorce, Hillel was actually very cavalier. See, in Deuteronomy 24, Moses says that if a husband finds an indecency in his wife, he could divorce her, providing that he wrote a formal certificate of divorce and had it witnessed. And so the debate arose around what made a wife's conduct indecent. Now, it's important to note here that women in Jewish society had no legal right of divorce. The closest thing was an accepted tradition that if a husband refused to have sex with his wife for long enough, she could petition the local council of elders to force her husband to file for divorce. But this still required the husband to do the divorcing. Right. In the first century, especially in Palestine, it was a completely patriarchal society. Women had no real rights apart from their fathers and husbands. And so divorce was a particularly important issue, especially for women. Right. Like, this is actually a really important social thing. And so the debate was around what did or didn't constitute indecency. Hillel said anything the husband didn't like counted as indecency. And the actual examples used in the rabbinic teachings that are preserved for us, or as if she was bad enough at cooking that she continually burned meals, or if she aged poorly and started to get bushy eyebrows, those are the examples used. I know, these are real great guys, right, that we want to build our life around. According to Rabbi Hillel, these were grounds for biblical divorce.
[00:16:13] Neshamia, on the other side, took a really strict view. He said that indecency only included adultery.
[00:16:22] This view was actually really largely challenged in Jesus's day by lots of rabbis. Theological progressives dismissed it because it dramatically reduced a husband's freedom and power to divorce when he wanted to. But even a lot of theological conservatives rejected this understanding of Deuteronomy because elsewhere in Deuteronomy, Moses says that adultery receives a death sentence. And so it seems unlikely that he would limit divorce, because if a spouse is dead, you're not married anymore anyway, Right? And so there was a little bit of debate. Regardless of that, this is the trap the Pharisees have set for Jesus this day. And again, it's really likely that they could care less how he actually answers. They just want to see him answer. And divide up his followers. Read on with me and let's see what Jesus says in verse four.
[00:17:12] Haven't you read? He replied, he being Jesus, that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female. And he also said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined 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.
[00:17:34] So Jesus's response here pulls zero punches, right? Like he jumps straight into it. In rabbinic debate, one of the key ways of stacking understanding was this assumption that the older a particular passage or command is, the more authority it had. And so you use the older commands to interpret the newer commands. And so Jesus answers by appealing to basically the oldest commands in Scripture. He goes back to Genesis 1 in the creation order. And note, there are two main theological points Jesus makes here. He says, first and foremost, that sex is part of God's good created order. Male and female. He created them. Now, this is immediately interesting to us because this is a pretty controversial theological point to make in our cultural context, right? Interestingly, this actually would have been a controversial point in Jesus's day as well, but for a completely different reason. You see, Jesus isn't referencing this truth to lock in the idea that male and female are the two original and good categories for human design around sexuality, because nobody in this day questioned that concept. No one talked about gender or biological sex. That wasn't really a discussion. Rather, Jesus is appealing to the creation order of male and female because he lives in a patriarchal society where femininity has been reduced in value from God's original good design. Remember, the whole debate is about whether a man can casually divorce his wife because of stuff like burnt breakfast and aging. Jesus is reminding his audience that femininity is a beautiful and equally valuable part of God's good design for humanity. He's reminding them that women matter. And this must be part of the discussion when talking about marriage and divorce. Now, I do have to. I'm just going to stop really quick and just acknowledge. Like, let's just take a rabbit trail really quick.
[00:19:36] Because I don't think this takes away from the ways in which this statement had a real. Has a really big impact in our cultural moment. Like, I think it would actually be foolish for us to go, well, Jesus wasn't really talking about this idea of biology and sex the way we talk about it. So let's skip past it. Like, it's not the main point of our text. But I think we would be remiss to move past this without a quick detour into truth for a moment. Right. We don't really have time to dig super far into this. I'll probably actually put out a blog later this week where I flush this out a little more. But, guys, the biological fact of a gender binary in male and female says Jesus here is a part of God's original pre sin good design for humanity. And it's a controversial statement in our context. It's a major statement in our day and age that debates about gender versus biological sex and talks about the spectrum of gender identity and uses phrases like gender assigned at birth. Now, guys, the plain fact is that many conservative Christians, probably many of you in this room, roll your eyes at this debate. This seems like a simple thing. There's boys and there's girls, and if you don't know the difference, you're part of the problem. And I get why you would feel that way.
[00:20:53] But I want to urge you guys, I want to urge you brothers and sisters to take this cultural discussion seriously.
[00:21:02] This is an important thing in our day and age that weighs on a lot of people. As followers of Jesus, if you affirm the teaching of Scripture regarding God's design for humanity in regards to biology and sexuality, I would urge you to engage this discussion and to do so both with conviction and humility.
[00:21:23] If you look at the research on Millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha, so basically like people under 40, what you'll find is that issues related to sexuality and gender are one of the primary obstacles folk list as barriers between them and the Christian faith. The idea that Christians are homophobic and transphobic and generally bigoted toward the LGBTQ community is so common now as to be assumed in our culture.
[00:21:53] If you're being faithful to share the gospel with your kids, with your grandkids, with your friends, with your co workers, with your neighbors, much less the larger community around us, you will find there are more and more and more of these progressive and secular ideologies toward gender and sexuality. They're the assumed norm more and more and more in our culture. And so you need to be able to navigate these claims with a combination of winsome grace and scriptural conviction. You have to be able to walk that line, toe that line where you. Where you do your best to be kind and humble and winsome and listening and engaging while also standing on the truth of your conviction in scripture. Because that means that you should be educated and understand and be able to have actual smart conversations about the things that come up around this stuff.
[00:22:49] You should be able to talk about truths like the idea that modern gender identity markers, many of them are cultural and totally arbitrary, right? The idea that girls like pink and boys like blue, that girls wear skirts and boys wear pants, that girls have long hair and boys have short hair. Or even more deeply ingrained ideas like girls are sensitive and emotional and boys are athletic and action oriented. While these are generally cultural gender identifiers in our moment, they're not universal. They're not study human history, Study human culture.
[00:23:21] Gender dysphoria is a real thing. It's a real mental struggle that some folk deal with. And it's pretty horrible. It's pretty terrible. Mental illness is real, guys. And sometimes our brains don't sync up with our objective physical reality, and that's a really painful and scary place to be. And I'd be willing to bet that most of us, if not all of us, have seen the effects of a mental health crisis on an individual. Maybe someone who is surrounded by a loving support system and yet depression tells them they are alone, unloved and a burden. Or someone who is swept up into the terrifying highs and lows and back and forth of bipolar, and they behave in ways that are erratic and unpredictable. Guys, if you've seen that before, you know, you know how scary and difficult and painful that can be. In the same way, someone can experience the really scary and dysregulating feeling of being trapped in the wrong kind of body, where they see their physical body and they see how it looks and how it works in the world, and they feel like they don't match it. It's a real struggle. It's a real thing. It'd be terribly hard to walk there if it were you. Be really painful. Beyond this, you should know that there is a real medical category that encompasses a broad spectrum of genetic illnesses called intersexuality, right? That results in babies who either have a difference between their chromosomes and their physically developed sex organs, or it results in babies who don't develop identifiable sex organs. It's a very real medical reality. Represents about 0.02% live births. And you guys, by the way, you need to hear this bit. Even a really small number, like.02% is actually really important to know because there's a whole stinking lot of human beings on planet Earth. And if you have 325 million humans in the United States, then.02% of that represents 6.2 million people or about the population of Missouri, right, who are Living today with some kind of intersexuality that has affected their story. Because that's, that's a lot of people who have some really sensitive stuff connected to sexuality and a gender binary connected to their story, right? And so I say all this to say this, guys, these are not talking points, but real people's experience and real struggles. And often the reason Christians are dismissed as bigoted in these discussions is because we are seen as holding our doctrines more tightly and is more important than real people's real struggles.
[00:26:02] And here's the thing, guys, this is our standard of truth. It is.
[00:26:09] We should never back away from what the scripture teaches us. It is true, regardless of how it makes anybody, us included, feel.
[00:26:19] But let's consider the actual doctrines. Our scripture teach us things like the Gospel of grace.
[00:26:26] Truths like the fact that Jesus came for the sick, not the well.
[00:26:31] Guys, the world needs Jesus. The world needs the Gospel of Christ and we must represent him well. Yes, this means standing on truth. But we do so with the extreme burden, the extreme burden to present truth in a winsome and loving way.
[00:26:55] It often doesn't work. You're often still be dismissed and misunderstood.
[00:27:02] But if people are important, they are.
[00:27:06] If people matter, they do.
[00:27:09] Then it is worth your best effort. It is worth your effort to show them the love of Jesus in their very real and present hurts and struggles. And that takes work. That takes knowing the cultural hot buttons, the things that actually block people from faith in our time, in our moment. It means doing actual research and seeing what the world says and the false gospels of this world compared to what scripture promises. It means entering into the mess of real people's stories with humility and love and conviction of truth.
[00:27:44] It's hard to do, but it's worth it. It's worth it, beloved. We can show the world around us that Christ is not bigoted and hateful, but is actually loving. It is actually for them. We get to join in that work. Okay, that's a big rabbit trail, but we had to go there for a minute.
[00:28:04] I think it's a really important one, right? So, okay, the first point Jesus made here to back us up to the text, the first point Jesus made here was that male and female are a part of God's original good design. But his second point from the beginning of Genesis is that marriage is part of God's good original design. Because of this male female design, Jesus says marriage exists. We leave our family of origin. We create new families through marriage. And marriage creates this oneness where two become one. And Jesus Here articulates the biblical theology of marriage. Marriage creates a new family where one didn't exist before. Marriage draws two individuals into an intimacy so radical that it is like they become one flesh, one person. And because of this, Jesus says, we should not cut apart what God has drawn together. God himself is part of creating that new family in the intimacy of marriage. So we should not destroy that.
[00:29:08] Jesus here seems to condemn the entire concept of divorce. That's wild.
[00:29:15] Nobody in Jesus day was advocating for no divorce. That was not a category in that day. It was established as a social institution, even among the faithful religious Jews. And as we'll see in a few verses down, like Jesus's followers have a category for this. This would have been shocking to everybody listening. So look how the Pharisees respond in verse 7. Why then, they asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? And he told them, moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery.
[00:30:00] So the Pharisees respond here by appealing to scripture as well. They reference back to Deuteronomy 24. I've referenced it a couple times. Let me just read it to you. It says this. If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.
[00:30:21] So the Pharisees basically say, what do you do with this, Jesus? We do that. Moses said we could.
[00:30:27] If divorce should never happen, why did Moses give commandments regarding it? Notice their exact wording here.
[00:30:35] They say, why did Moses command us to give divorce papers and send her away? This is subtle, but a common understanding of Deuteronomy 24 was that divorce was in fact a command when a woman became indecent. But this is not what Moses said, and Jesus is quick to point this out. Moses did not command divorce, but rather commanded what must be done if someone chooses to divorce. You see, in ancient patriarchal societies, women had zero legal protections apart from the men in their lives. They could not buy and sell in markets, they could not own property, they could not get jobs apart oftentimes from written permission from their husbands or fathers. So if a woman's father had died and her husband kicks her out, she either becomes homeless or a prostitute. This was shockingly common in ancient Near Eastern societies. And ancient Israel was no Exception. So Moses gives a command. If you're going to divorce your wife, you must write her a certificate of divorce that is legal. And witnessed this gave the woman legal protections that allowed her to remarry and allowed her to get a job. In the meantime. The law was put in place to empower and protect women and rein in sinful and petty men. But by Jesus Day, it was being used to justify sinful men abusing their power and divorcing their wife for bad cooking and bad eyebrows.
[00:32:14] Jesus dismantles this mindset. Moses gave that law not because divorce is good, but because people are sinful and have hard hearts. And he points back again to God's original design. It was not like this in the beginning. And beloved, we cannot get past a very simple biblical truth here. Divorce is not God's good design for. For his creation. Period.
[00:32:39] It is not.
[00:32:41] Beloved, there's no way around this. The scriptural teaching is overwhelmingly clear.
[00:32:48] Divorce is not God's good design. Malachi 2 is the perfect example here. Here, the prophet Malachi says that divorce clothes you in treachery and injustice.
[00:33:00] He says that Israel's approach to divorce makes makes God receive their sacrifice and their worship with sorrow rather than joy.
[00:33:08] Beloved, we have to sit in this truth.
[00:33:12] God hates divorce.
[00:33:15] It's not how he made his world. It's not something he wants to be a part of. His world.
[00:33:22] Now I know as I say that that feels like a kick in the stomach for many of you in this room.
[00:33:28] Many of you have been divorced or a part of families affected by divorce. And if that is you today, please don't leave me right now. Like, stick with me through this. I love you. God loves you. The gospel is for you. But we also have to deal with this truth for a few minutes.
[00:33:45] The reality is that we live in a society with no fault, one party divorce. Right?
[00:33:52] You may have experienced divorce even though you didn't want to.
[00:33:56] But we also live in a world with terrible things like adultery and abuse. And you may have experienced divorce because you felt you had to for your own safety.
[00:34:05] Those are very real reasons that people's marriages end up dissolved.
[00:34:09] But guys, it's also true that divorce may have happened because you were just totally in your flesh.
[00:34:16] You may not have been following Jesus yet, or maybe you were and you just didn't want to listen to him in this area of your life.
[00:34:23] You fell out of love, you met someone else, you got married young, and now you regret it. You want a do over regardless of what led you to the place of experiencing divorce. The plain reality is that we live in a world corrupted by the curse of sin. Divorce was not a part of God's original and good design, but it is a definite and present reality in our world.
[00:34:50] So it raises the question, is there ever a space in this sinful world where divorce is justified or even necessary? If marriage is a part of God's good and perfect design, is there something that we can do that so breaks that good design, that dissolving the marriage is the best available, terrible option?
[00:35:09] Well, Jesus seems to think so.
[00:35:11] In our text here, he says that anyone who divorces and remarries for a reason outside of sexual infidelity commits adultery. The implication here is that if a couple divorces because of sexual immorality and remarries, there is no adultery, that remarriage is acceptable.
[00:35:28] Now, guys, I'm going to take us on another little detour.
[00:35:31] We're going to step into some murky theological waters. And to be completely honest, I need to say this part like, clearly. I'm actually not 100% sure all four of our elders are unified in our interpretation of this theological nuance. So this is gonna be Sam talking for a second. And if you guys, if either of you disagree, like, you can just raise your hand, I guess. I don't know, we can start a debate right now. I'm gonna do my best to describe a couple of views here and give you my reasoning as your pastor on my conviction. You see, Jesus gives this exception for divorce here in Matthew, but in Luke and Mark's telling of the same story, the exception is not given. And this has led some evangelical scholars to believe Jesus's teaching really is that there is no acceptable reason to get divorced and remarried ever, for any reason. That Matthew added this line because of some cultural reason in his church. Pastors like Vodi Bakam, if you know that guy, take this absolutist view of marriage. Other evangelical scholars say that the acceptance of divorce in the case of infidelity was so commonly accepted that it was assumed. And so Mark and Luke didn't share it because they didn't feel like they need to. Matthew only shares it because he feels like for some reason his audience needs to understand this thing that would normally be assumed. These conditionalists would say that there are biblical reasons that can so break and destroy the covenant of marriage, that divorce and a subsequent remarriage are acceptable outcomes. This argument is often partnered with Paul's teaching in First Corinthians 7, where Paul talks about allowing for divorce in the case of a non believing spouse abandoning their believing spouse. The idea here is this abandonment so destroys the covenant that a divorce and remarriage is an acceptable outcome. So then this raises the question of what sorts of actions could fall under the category of destroying the covenant. If Jesus has included infidelity and Paul has included abandonment, is that the entirety of the list or is there anything else? Because this is actually, I think, a good faith debate between conservative biblical scholars trying to wrestle through this. I don't think this is for the most part people trying to justify sins they're convicted of. I think it's as people really wrestling with the scripture, the teaching of scripture, and trying to properly put it in the context of our society. Right. So I here in that me, Sam, I would argue that abuse falls under this category alongside infidelity and abandonment. I believe that if a spouse is physically harming their spouse and putting them in danger that they have so desecrated their marriage covenant that divorce and remarriage is an acceptable outcome there. This still leaves us asking about instances of divorce and no remarriage. It's important to note here that even the most absolutist theologians would say that remaining single after a divorce affects this discussion because it leaves room for the potential for God to move in the heart of the offending partner and to bring about real repentance and salvation and potentially even reconciliation.
[00:38:45] So again, there's a lot going on there. It's messy. I know it's messy. But guys, there's also a third category here that I feel like is probably the hardest one and we need to talk about it. What if you've been divorced and you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was zero biblical justification for it? Right? What if you're the person looking at your story and you just said, I just didn't want to be married anymore, fell out of love, I met someone else. If this is you, I'm sure this has been a painful few minutes. Sorry for that while we discuss this. I think it's actually going to be painful for like a couple more minutes. But we'll get back to the gospel, so stick with me.
[00:39:24] The plain reality is if that is you, if that's your story, that's sin. That's sin. Jesus says here in very plain terms that divorce for an unbiblical reason and remarriage is the same as committing adultery.
[00:39:38] That's sin. And I don't want to diminish that reality. The reason I think it's so Important to say that is because our culture preaches divorce as its own gospel. We talk about divorce like good news. People have divorce parties, single again parties.
[00:39:57] We talk about divorce as a gospel. But guys, it's a false gospel.
[00:40:02] It's a false gospel. The idea of running away from commitment to bring real freedom in your life, that's a false gospel. The idea that I just fell out of love, that I need to seek my own happiness and fulfillment, and I have no control over what actually happened there. Beloved, that is a false gospel. It is not real freedom. It is not real happiness. We must call it what it is. If you were in this room today and you were dissatisfied in your marriage, if you are living with that small voice telling you how good it would be to just rip the band aid off and seek out your own happiness for once, please hear me. Beloved, it is a lie from the pit of hell.
[00:40:51] It is not true.
[00:40:54] God is not calling you to this.
[00:40:56] It's not his best for you. Your church, your family, your Jesus. We will come around you, we will resource you, we will help you.
[00:41:08] In the vast majority, the vast majority, your marriage can heal. It can. You can heal. You can find safety, you can find intimacy, you can find love, you can find joy. And that can mean some radical stuff. If your personal safety is on the line, that that means getting out of that context. It means telling someone so you can be somewhere where you're physically safe. It might mean involving the police, it might mean legal consequences.
[00:41:37] But you have a support system in Christ and in us, and we will walk you through that.
[00:41:44] If you're just in a place where you're like, I don't know, I just have fallen out of love, I don't know, it's just hard. I don't know. We just fight all the time. Beloved, don't believe a false truth. There's hope for you. There's hope for healing in your marriage. There is.
[00:41:58] God does this work. He delights to resurrect the dead.
[00:42:02] It is part of his ministry.
[00:42:06] Marriage is good.
[00:42:09] God designed it. And it's about more than you and your spouse, by the way. Like, I know you know this, but just to say it out loud, in Ephesians 5, Paul beautifully articulates how marriage paints a picture of Jesus Gospel love for sinful us. That marriage is this physical declaration of the true gospel of Jesus and the power of the kingdom, that it's actually incredibly important. Because our marriage talks about how a perfect God loves sinners and has grace and forgiveness for us. It's Incredibly important. It is worth seeking out. And beloved, it's worth protecting.
[00:42:47] It's worth rebuilding. It's worth healing.
[00:42:53] What if you've already done it?
[00:42:56] What if you are the adulterer Jesus is referring to here?
[00:43:00] Well, beloved, I have great news for you.
[00:43:03] If that's you, that means you're a sinner.
[00:43:08] But Jesus saves sinners.
[00:43:10] That's the gospel. Christ is for you. You can repent and you can receive forgiveness, and you can walk forward free of shame, and you can seek to honor God with your life. And whatever your current relational status is, single or married, divorce and adultery are not some special category of sin that is unforgivable. That's not how it works. Remember back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that lust is functionally the same as adultery. So have you ever had a moment where you were watching TV or on the computer or at the gym and you looked at someone who wasn't your spouse with a dwelling lustful desire?
[00:43:48] Maybe some idle fantasy? Anyone, guess what? You also are an adulterer. Welcome to the sinners club.
[00:43:58] Jesus forgives sinners.
[00:44:01] That's what the gospel is. So repent and turn to him and seek to honor God with your life and your sexuality, and what you will find is forgiveness and freedom.
[00:44:10] What I'm saying here, guys, is this divorce is bad.
[00:44:15] God doesn't like it, and we should avoid it.
[00:44:18] Marriage is good. God made it. It's worth protecting and repairing. But ultimately, it doesn't matter who you are, what you've done, because the Gospel of Jesus is for all of us.
[00:44:30] Jesus, Grace and his kingdom are for all sinners, all of us divorcees, adulterers, and everyone else, which lands us out in a really important place. So let's land today by looking at how this text closes out. Chris, if you want to come back up, as I read, we're Starting in verse 10, it says this. His disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it's better not to marry. Which is hilarious. He responded, not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it's been given. For there are eunuchs who've been born that way from their mother's womb. And there are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. And the one who is able to accept it should and accept it.
[00:45:10] As this text lands out. Jesus gives us this to us, really strange analogy about eunuchs, but it's really Important, because what Jesus is reminding us here is that family is not the answer to your happiness problem. The kingdom of God is Note the disciples shock, right? They live in this society and regardless of their marriages and how much they do or don't love their spouses, they're just so shocked by how Jesus is, how strict he is, that they determined it would be easier to just not get married.
[00:45:44] Can we stop here for a second and just think about how these are the gorillas who, like, went and shared the gospel and, like, started the early church.
[00:45:52] They honestly say to Jesus that if you have to take divorce off the table as an option, I'd rather just not get married. I think that's hilarious and sad, but it also taps into a very real truth, because the reality is they're partly right.
[00:46:07] It is good to not get married in the kingdom of God. That's actually a good thing.
[00:46:15] Remember Ephesians 5? Marriage is good, but it's good because it paints a picture of the gospel relationship between Jesus and the church. The symbol is good, but the reality is better.
[00:46:29] It is wholehearted pursuit of the kingdom of God that actually connects us to God and meets the needs of the human heart. God made you.
[00:46:39] You were made by him and for him. And it is only through connection to him that we will find forgiveness for our sins and eternal life. And yes, more than that, it is only through Jesus that you will find fulfillment, purpose, contentment in life. Marriage is good. God made it. But it is the symbol, not the reality.
[00:46:58] The reality is your heart is made to be one with Christ.
[00:47:02] It's made for eternity. That is what matters. And Jesus uses this common first century idea of eunuchs, that's men who've been castrated, to paint a picture here. Some people are born eunuchs. They're born intersex from birth. They don't have that option. Some folk have to become eunuchs for their job. That was a common thing in Jesus day for people who worked in palaces with royal families. But Jesus says some folk choose to be eunuchs for the kingdom of God. And he's not talking about people castrating themselves. He's talking about them forsaking a traditional family with marriage and kids for the sake of the kingdom. People like Jesus himself who never married, or John the Baptist, or the Apostle Paul, who chose to remain single, devote their entire lives to kingdom work. It's important to note this truth really challenges the idea in Christian culture that you cannot be fulfilled without an awesome marriage. Jesus is explicitly telling us here that not only is singleness good and a wonderful thing, it's actually preferable for those who are able to pursue it. It is a high and beautiful calling. Paul affirms this in First Corinthians, explicitly saying, singleness creates more space for fulfillment in the kingdom, kingdom of God, than a traditional family, because they would distract you from the kingdom. To those of you who are in this room who are single, whether by choice or not, you need to remember you have to reject the false gospel of family, because family will not make you happy.
[00:48:33] You and I, beloved, were made for Jesus.
[00:48:37] We were made for eternity. We were made for kingdom, and that is where your life is found.
[00:48:44] Over the course of these next couple chapters, we're going to come back to this truth. Every single text.
[00:48:52] You will not find happiness in the things of this world.
[00:48:57] Even good things in this world are simply not sufficient because you, beloved, are made for more than this world.
[00:49:07] Family, marriage, marriage are wonderful and beautiful. And if you want to pursue them, you should.
[00:49:13] And if you have them, you should protect them because they're precious.
[00:49:18] Even if it feels like they are flaming apart, you should fight for them. It's beautiful and it proclaims the gospel, but it's not the gospel.
[00:49:30] You're actually made for more than your marriage, more than your family, more than this world. So, beloved, let's take a few minutes, connect with Christ, get in a posture of prayer and connection. However, you can do that. If you can do that sitting in your chair, if you want to get on your knees, if you want to grab one of our pastors, take a moment to connect with Christ. And let us take time to consider what it means to pursue his kingdom here today. What does it look like for you to find satisfaction, satisfaction in Jesus?
[00:50:01] Hear what the Spirit's telling you, and then we'll respond.
[00:50:06] Beloved, take a moment and do work with Christ.
