Sermon Transcript
Mark 10, verses 1 through 12. Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again, crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them. Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? What did Moses command you?
he replied. They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law, Jesus replied, but at the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the 2 will become one flesh. So they are no longer 2, but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery. Thank you, Isaac.
Did you ever have a time when you were a kid and at the dinner table and you bring up some topic and somebody, probably a parent or grandparent, scolds you and says, excuse me, we don’t talk about that kind of thing in polite conversation? Anybody ever have an experience like that? All the time, right? Like, that was part of my childhood. Kind of feel that that’s sort of what this passage of Scripture makes me feel a little bit like today.
Steve, don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk about divorce? You know, like a polite conversation, certainly not at church. I’m not gonna take a poll here today by show of hands. I’m just gonna bet that we probably mirror the national number And that anywhere from half, probably much more, the people in this room today have some experience with divorce, either directly or with one degree of separation, meaning somebody that you know, care about, you’re invested in, you walk alongside them. I bet that that’s true.
And so the point is that despite the fact that that we’re not all that comfortable talking about this kind of a topic, especially not at church, it’s very likely that the majority of people have some experience here in this room with this, either personally or with one degree of separation. It’s just part of our story. It’s part of our culture. It’s part of our lives. But I will say this, anytime I teach on this subject, and I’ve done it now a couple times in my ministry, I always feel this really deep need to just sort of acknowledge the awkwardness around this topic and to acknowledge that there are likely some, probably here in the room here today, who feel that anytime that Jesus or someone like myself teaches on the subject of divorce, that they’re not just throwing stones at you, but they are heaving them with great force as if to make a point.
Realize this topic is so painful. It’s not abstract. It’s not theoretical. This is personal. This is acute.
And so, it’s certainly not my intent today as a teacher to bring any condemnation.
To bring any shame, to bring any embarrassment, to poke my finger in your face. I don’t think that that’s Jesus’ intent either. I really don’t. I hope you’ll see that here. The fact is that a lot of people have had experience with divorce, but not a lot of people have experienced church or the Christian culture by and large to be a redemptive or a healing place when they go through a divorce.
Let’s just acknowledge that. You’ll often hear people quote— and I heard people just this last week that I was interviewing to listen to their experiences, I’ll talk about that in a moment— people who’ve heard Malachi 2:16 quoted: God hates divorce. Okay, but God doesn’t hate divorced people. And I don’t know that people always hear that second part, right? That’s not usually what people hear.
So as a result, some people understandably have a bit of church trauma around this topic and around this issue. And if that has been your experience here today, I just want to say I see you and I’m glad that you’re here. And I’m sorry that there are times when we as the body of Christ don’t always walk alongside faithfully with people who are hurting.
Here’s my personal conviction, and I think I’m probably not alone in this. In fact, I’m confident of it because you all know me and I know you. I don’t mean this in some cheesy way. I just feel like the church is a family. It is.
It’s a family. And so, if we can’t talk about these kinds of things among us, is that healthy? Is that— should that be the norm? We just agree on that together? Here.
Now, it seems like Jesus is just, you know, we’ve been tracking along in the Gospel of Mark several months now. We’re doing this series here, and this particular section of Scripture just seems like Jesus just took an abrupt left turn. He’s been talking about following him and the cost of following him and what it means to deny ourselves and to take up our cross daily and to follow him. So this conversation about divorce seems to just come out of left field, out of nowhere, and it doesn’t seem to fit in with the surroundings. So what exactly is Jesus doing in this passage in dealing with this deeply personal subject that we usually don’t talk about in polite conversation, and certainly not at church?
I think he’s doing 4 things. First thing he’s doing, I feel like, is he is acknowledging that there is a lot of brokenness in our world. Around this topic.
There is certainly a difference between the cultural context that Jesus is in when he says these words and our cultural context today in terms of what divorce looks like in our own world. However, the pain was just as real back then as it is today. Jesus was saying these words back then in a cultural context that was dominated by men, in which men tended to get rid of women at will, will, where marriage was viewed as more of a business transaction, something legal, as if you’re haggling over a piece of property, more so than it was about love or affection. And back then, you could literally send away— that was the language— you could send away a wife for any number of reasons. And when that happened, the women in that day essentially had only 3 options.
The first option, you could be taken in by a generous relative. Experience a divorce, you could be taken in by a generous relative. But when that happened, it appears as if that divorced person who was taken in by this generous relative is not necessarily functioning as, like, an equal kin, but more as, like, a servant. You’re basically a glorified maid. Second option, you could remarry.
Although there weren’t exactly a lot of Jewish men in that day volunteering and lining to marry somebody who’d been divorced. And if the woman did happen to remarry, she’s often viewed in that culture as damaged goods. Some of you may know what that feels like because of something that was said to you or something— some way that somebody treated you in some way. But nonetheless, there’s this sense in which you’ve got this backpack of shame you’re just strapping on and carrying around for the rest of your life. Third option, you could sell yourself to earn a living.
You can imagine how that would end for her in that day. Now, men and women have very different rights today. We know that, especially in Western culture, than they did back then. But again, the pain is still very real, isn’t it? It hurts.
One reason I think is because that phrase, verses 7 and 8, where Jesus says, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. If that phrase represents an integrating, an integration of what God has ordained and put together, then divorce represents a disintegration of what God has decreed and put together. A marriage where God is central and the Holy Spirit is working, it’s designed by God to be a place of health and of life and even of healing. So divorce is the disintegration of that. You get that?
And so the pain is very real. It’s tangible. This is something that was rooted in creation. So God says, look, it’s not good to just pull these things apart.
As I mentioned, I spent some time over the last several days— I’ve had the great honor of just talking to different people on the phone and in person who’ve had problems. Personal experience with divorce. And I just wanted to listen, and I just wanted to just process along with them, to hear their stories. And I’ve literally asked each person, what would you want to say to me as a pastor? What would you want me to know about your experience?
And usually, the answer is something along the lines of, the pain is more than I can adequately put into words. One person said, it feels like a death. And I think that makes sense because in a death, you have grief and loss and all the feelings around that. With divorce, there’s often not only the grief and the loss, but there’s often a feeling of rejection.
And then all the other stuff mixed in, and you don’t just bounce back from that. So there’s a very real sense of disintegration, of a rending, a ripping, a tearing. At every level, relationally with the spouse, this person that you were connected to, trying to navigate a relationship with this person. And what is that going to look like if there are kids involved? Parentally, I talked to one person whose kids were older whenever this person got divorced, and it was just as hard for them.
There are financial implications, things that often go unforeseen for a while, and then you— they just sort of rear their head. And women very often get the brunt of any negative implications financially. Not always, but often. There are practical implications. I had one person tell me that they’d never thought about car maintenance before, and now they’re having to think about these kinds of things and car repair.
There’s all sorts of social implications. Who are my friends now?
I can’t go to the marriage seminar because that would be weird. Where do I go on the holidays?
Whose friends are going to side with whom, basically? There is pain for every person at every level, and it’s pain that often lasts for a long time. And even if or when that pain does subside, it often leaves wounds. So some people ask the question, okay, is it ever allowable? Is there ever an appropriate or allowable avenue to pursue a divorce, biblically speaking.
We know of 2. I’m gonna point out a 3rd possibility here because I think it needs to be separated and brought to our attention. But the reason I bring these up is I’m not doing so because I, I don’t want to push anybody towards these things. I’m not encouraging that. The Bible never commends divorce as being the solution.
But these are paths down which people have traveled, and because the Bible is realistic and addresses reality and addresses these avenues in light of the brokenness in our world, it’s worth bringing up. One is in the case of adultery. Jesus says in Matthew 5:32 in the Sermon on the Mount, but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So Jesus identifies that here. He repeats the same thing in Matthew 19, verse 9.
In adultery, one spouse is choosing to act as if the marriage is no longer valid, it’s over, and so they emotionally wed themselves to another partner. And the power of that has the effect of essentially dissolving the marriage covenant. Second avenue that the Bible addresses is abandonment. Abandonment. This is addressed in 1 Corinthians 7:15 where the Apostle Paul talks about there may come a point in a marriage where an unbelieving spouse who’s married to a believing spouse, that unbelieving spouse says, I’m out of here because of your faith or for whatever reason.
So, recognizing the brokenness in the world, there may come that point. And if that spouse walks, that Scripture talks about how the believing spouse is free from that. The 3rd issue that I wish to pull out separately is the issue of abuse.
Abuse— and maybe I’m alone in this, but I feel like abuse is really an extension of abandonment. But I think it’s significant enough and prevalent enough in our world to mention separately. So much of abuse we’ve come to understand is multilayered. There’s different levels of it. So much of it is something we would never detect and we don’t know about, so we tend to overlook it or to minimize it in some way.
The Bible is actually silent on the issue of spousal abuse, so I want to make that clear.
Although it’s obvious what God expects a marriage to look like. Take, for instance, Ephesians 5:21-33. We’ll look at a portion of that in a moment. But abuse is just flat-out contrary to everything that is godly. So, one way to think biblically about it is to say that abuse is injustice.
It ought not to be this way. The Bible has a lot to say about how God feels and responds to injustice, and he gives very clear instruction and principles and demands about how we, as his people, should work towards justice to protect victims of injustice, right? Here’s what I would say. You should be treated the way that God wants you to be treated.
If you are a victim of abuse, abuse, I hope and I pray that you will confide in somebody that you trust. I hope that you will do that. I hope that you will seek physical safety. I hope that you will see that we bring no condemnation.
I hope that you will never let anybody distort Scripture in such a way that makes you feel like you’re the problem or to make you feel like, I have to stay in this unsafe, abusive situation where you and your children are constantly being in danger. Again, I know that there are layers to this. What I hope you will experience, though, is that we as a church body, the body of Christ, don’t want to leave you alone to deal with that on your own. Amen?
I’m so grateful that we have a ministry here at our church called Divorce Care. Some of you didn’t even know we have a ministry about this. It’s led by Jeanne Bates. I don’t think I don’t know that Jeanie is here today. I saw Alan earlier, but no, I don’t know that Jeanie is here.
I’m so grateful for the people who are part of this ministry. This is a curriculum, a 12 or 13-week curriculum where people during the school year— we offer it a couple times— can walk through a process of support with people who have walked similar paths. And the stories are incredible. It’s gospel-centered. Nobody’s Pollyanna in there making it feel like, hey, this is no big deal.
This is a significant deal. And if you’d like to know more about divorce care, you can find that on our website. You can come talk to me. But I’m so grateful for that. I would just say, as pastors— and I don’t say this cavalierly in any way— we recognize that there are just times when the brokenness of a situation can seem so overwhelming.
And some of you have walked through that. Some of you are walking through that right now. And I’m so glad— I was just thinking this week— I’m so glad we have a safe who is not distant. So glad we have a Savior who is not unable to empathize with us, who looks down on us and says, get over yourself. We have a Savior who knows and he feels the kind of pain and the chaos that you’re in, that I’m in, that we carry around with us.
He knows it firsthand. And I think that’s one reason why Jesus brings up this topic. He’s acknowledging, as painful as it is, there’s a lot of brokenness here in our world around us. So I think that’s why he’s bringing it up here. He’s not minimizing it.
He’s not ignoring it. He’s addressing it. He’s agreeing that it exists. Second thing I think Jesus is doing here in this topic, this conversation about this very uncomfortable subject, is he is pointing out root issues. In all of this, Jesus is pointing out root issues.
Again, some background here. There are 2 general schools of thought back in Jesus’ day about divorce. Both of them center around this scripture in the Old Testament law, Deuteronomy 24:1. And both groups took a look at this Deuteronomy 24:1 passage where it says, if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent Some of your Bible translations may say something unclean about her. And he writes her a certificate of divorce and sends her from his house.
And then it goes on and it kind of establishes what happens in that situation. Both schools of thought look at these, but one is more conservative than the other. The more conservative group back then interpreted that term indecent, something that the wife did that was indecent or unclean. To refer only to sexual immorality of some kind. So basically saying you really shouldn’t divorce, but if, but if you have to, you could in the case of marital infidelity.
The other school of thought, which by the way was much more popular— surprise, surprise— was a little bit more liberal. It held that the men were permitted to divorce or to send a woman away for anything that the husband viewed the wife as doing as being indecent indecent or unclean. That could include seemingly minor offenses, and I’m not joking about this. You can read the literature. You ruin the man’s meal, wear an outfit that he doesn’t like.
It was similar to the idea of no-fault divorce. And again, that was a popular option back then. But in either case, if you gave your wife a certificate of divorce, that was considered righteous because that was the letter of the law. These Pharisees come to Jesus in Mark 10 wanting to know, Jesus, what school of thought do you endorse? Where do you lie?
And of course, they’re trying to trick him and to say something, and it’s like everybody has their phone out and they’re going to record whatever it is that he says and so they can tell others about it. And so Jesus responds in verse 5 by reminding the people that Moses wasn’t making a recommendation for divorce.
But rather, the very need to create this law in the first place was the direct result of what? Jesus said it’s the hardness of our hearts. That’s why God put those regulations in there and those safeguards. They’re in there to help us understand that men were quitting their marriage and treating marriage in a flippant way. And so, it’s designed to help them to take divorce seriously.
But these safeguards are also there to offer protections for women who are being disenfranchised and are being left completely vulnerable and dependent on their husbands. So, Jesus is doing a lot more here than just simply going, I side with this group. One thing that he’s doing, and I don’t know if you picked up on this, but if you know anything about the Pharisees, you know their understanding of righteousness was external. Letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. So, as long as I give my wife a certificate of divorce, I’m good, right, Jesus?
And Jesus is pointing a finger at them going, you don’t understand here. Righteousness is not simply about what you do or don’t do, it’s about the motives of your heart. There’s about some root things here happening. But the biggest thing that Jesus is doing is he’s picking a fight, I think, with the cultural assumption that marriage are just— it’s just bound to fail. And so what Jesus is saying to them, and what Jesus would say, I think, to us, is it doesn’t have to be this way.
This wasn’t the plan from the beginning. Just because divorce is rampant, just because it’s permissible, just because the culture is going that way, just because you know people who have gone that direction, does not mean that it has to be part of our lives. It doesn’t have to be this way. Young people, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, I hope you understand it doesn’t have to be this way when you get married.
If you’re single and hope to get married someday or remarried someday, it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re married, no matter you’re newly married, couple months, couple years, many, many years. It doesn’t have to be this way. So what is the root in all of this? Jesus is saying it is the hardness of our hearts.
It’s our pride. It’s our rebellious, sinful nature that demands to go our own way. Not just prefers to go our own way, demands to go our own way, to do what is right in our own eyes, to justify ourselves, and to look out for ourselves instead of searching what God desires for us and for our best relationships instead of submitting ourselves to God. That’s the problem. It’s not about this presenting a certificate of divorce or not.
And by locating the problem there, what Jesus is doing is he’s keeping his agenda, friends, front and center. What is his agenda? He is after the changing and transformation of our hearts. Amen? He is starting at the very, very core of who we are.
He wants to refine us. Us. He wants to refine our marriages and our relationships. He wants to renovate us from the inside out. So Jesus is saying, you folks who are bringing up this question are living far below the standards of the story that I came to tell.
This isn’t what God had in mind as His ideal. So Jesus is saying, I want you to hear my restored vision for the world that I came to inaugurate. Well, what is that restored That’s the third thing I think he’s doing here. Jesus is bringing up this topic to affirm God’s ideal and intentions for marriage. Jesus is affirming God’s ideal and intention for marriage.
Jesus essentially asks, how do you make a decision about whether or not to file for divorce? Don’t start with your desires for your marriage, and don’t start with the difficulties of marriage. He’s saying start with the design of marriage. So, in verse 6, Jesus takes them back to the beginning, as he often does, walks them through God’s original design for marriage, about the beauty and glory of living in this marriage that is a window into the kingdom of God. Young people, again, I hope you’re not going to miss here what the intention and ideal for marriage is that God is putting before us.
This is the purpose of marriage. When you get married, the two of you are making a covenant commitment, a promise, a solemn promise to each other and before God. It’s not simply a sentimental expression of how you feel today about this person, because that’s going to change. There, there will be some times that that will change. What you’re really doing is you’re making a covenant pledge for your future love.
You aren’t getting married to simply say, I love you today, but to say, I will love you tomorrow.
That’s what you’re saying before witnesses and before God. You’re saying, do I know what will happen tomorrow? Nope, I don’t. One thing I do know, though, is that I’m going to love you now and in the future. And I’m going to show up, and I’m going to honor these vows to you and before God.
That has been God’s ideal and intention for marriage from the beginning, has it not? I mentioned Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is meant to be a divine portrait of love to the world. Ephesians 5:31-32 puts it like this: For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the 2 will become one flesh. Oh gosh, that sounds familiar. Yeah, Jesus just quoted it.
But then it goes on to say, this is a profound mystery. I’m talking, though, about Christ and the church. He’s not just simply talking about human marriage here. What this is saying is that God wants to use your marriage and marriage in general, in your circles, in your spheres of influence, on the soccer fields, or if you’re like the Grimes, they have kids who wrestle, like at the wrestling matches. In your spheres of influence and at your work and in your neighborhood, wherever you are, God wants to use your marriage and 100 other places to reflect his love for other people.
That is the purpose of marriage. It’s meant to mirror Jesus’ love for us, to be a reflection of God’s loving covenant with you and with me through his Son, by his grace. And it is meant to be ultimately a picture of the ultimate marriage, is it not? What am I talking about? The ultimate marriage of Jesus as our bridegroom.
Who willingly lays down his life for his bride, who pursues a love relationship with us. He gave his life to pay the penalty for our sins, to cleanse us from our sins, who invites us into a relationship with him. That’s why marriage is so beautiful. It’s not simply because of the everyday beauty of human love, but rather it’s because of the beauty that it reveals about God and his eternal love for us. That’s the purpose of marriage.
Now, you and I may have a different purpose for our marriage. We may have a different intention, completely different ideal for what our marriage will look like. But our ideal and our intention doesn’t really matter, right, when it comes to comparing to God’s ideal and intention. We need to align ourselves with him.
It’s easy, though, to get distracted from that, is it not? Of course it is. Busyness of life, we forget why we’re married to this person and we end up fighting over what this person has done and how this person is the problem in our marriage. I just think God has you here, right here today, friends, to be reminded of what he wants to be up to and is up to in your marriage. So Jesus, again, using this issue in order to acknowledge a lot of brokenness in our world around this topic, point out the root issues in all of this, and to reaffirm God’s ideal for marriage.
Forth, I think he’s also using this issue to forth remind us that marriage is one of the most amazing crucibles for discipleship. Marriage is a crucible for discipleship. What do I mean? Well, I said at the beginning of this message that Jesus is taking, it seems, an abrupt left turn and just pulling this issue out, going like, what are you doing here, Jesus? What does this have to do with following you?
What does this have to do with denying ourselves and taking up our The 2 topics seem completely unrelated to one another on the surface. If you take a closer look, though, what you’re going to see is that Jesus is really answering a question for us. What is the question? He’s answering the question, what does it look like for God’s people to live under the rule and reign of Jesus as King? What does that look like, to live for the Kingdom of God?
Kingdom of God in every area of our lives? What does it look like to live and think as citizens in the kingdom of God? What does somebody look like in the everydayness of their life, including in their marriages, who lives as a citizen of the kingdom of God? That’s what He’s answering. So, Jesus is never, never, never, friends, simply aiming at our behavior.
Change your behavior. Okay. Good luck with that. Jesus is never simply aiming at our outward behavior. What He’s always aiming at is what?
It’s our heart. You know, we have all these surface kind of behaviors that others see us do every day, and Jesus is never simply interested in behavior modification. He’s not simply interested in you becoming more religious. That is not it. He is aiming at all the stuff underneath.
The surface of our behaviors. And so God, the kingdom of God, is about allowing Jesus to work its way through all of these areas in our lives, including our marriages, to begin to work on all these core root issues and to pull them out, these things that result in us filing for divorce or abusing another person or any number of things that end up fracturing our relationship with other people and our relationship This is about allowing Jesus to renovate every area of our hearts as we faithfully— wait for it— deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and seek to follow him. That’s the call to discipleship. It’s the call for our marriage as well. Because when our inner life is transformed, then behavior naturally and easily follows, and you will see a lot less divorces.
You will see a lot healthier marriages. When we are transformed from the inside out, because the behavior will naturally and easily follow. So Jesus’ point here is that the kingdom of God changes everything.
The kingdom of God transforms marriage, and the kingdom of God transforms the people within those marriages.
And to those of you who are in a difficult situation, again, right now, a difficult season of marriage, maybe, maybe, I want you to know that there is hope. There is always hope. I know you may not feel it. I know you may not see it. I know it’s difficult to believe.
There is hope. If you’re a follower of Jesus, there will inevitably be times that you experience the pain of obedience, of suffering that is involved in humbling yourself and denying yourself and preferring the other person and following Jesus, submitting yourself to God’s will and God’s design. And so, what you need to hear is that God never promises that He will remove that difficult situation for you. What He promises is that He will be with you in that difficult situation. He will strengthen you.
His grace will be enough for you. And God will never leave you or forsake you. And for anybody here who has experienced divorce, or thought about it, contemplating it even now, or has been wounded by it, I want you to hear, there is also hope.
Friends, hear me. There is nothing that cannot be redeemed by God.
The causes of the situation in which you find yourself may be complex. The effects of that situation— there is absolutely nothing that dissolves a marriage marriage, that is the unforgivable sin. And there is nothing that the cross of Jesus can’t speak forgiveness to and that the empty tomb of Jesus cannot bring freedom from. Nothing.
Moreover, there is nothing that prevents you from moving forward. Not saying it’s going to be easy. There may be brokenness, and I hope you’ve seen and heard today that Jesus doesn’t minimize that. He acknowledges He watches it. He sees it, but there is also hope.
God still has a plan for you and for your life. So today, friends, this is what we’re doing. The call is to offer everything, everything. We offer our marriages.
We offer our desire for marriage. We offer our struggle. We offer our brokenness and pain. Pain. We offer up all of our miscommunication.
We offer up our temper.
We offer up our selfishness. We offer up our bitterness. We offer up all the junk that we carry around with us and it filters its way into our marriages. We offer all these things and even the ways that we have been sinned against by others. We offer all of this.
Today to Jesus.
Let’s pray. Father, I thank you for your word and that you don’t leave us or forsake us. What a powerful word of encouragement. I thank you for the gift of marriage, but I also thank you for the gift of redemption and how your kingdom transforms us. I pray, God, that you would transform hearts today.
I pray that anyone who has not surrendered their life to you today, that they would do so, that they would call upon you in faith and turn to you, Lord. If there’s anyone here who is in an abusive situation and feels that there’s no way out, I pray, God, for your protection and for your healing. And for anybody here, Lord, who is out of line and is doing— whether it’s adultery or abandoning or abusing, God, I pray in Jesus’ name that those individuals would fall under your conviction and would stop stop and be humbled before you.
God, break the power of all of these things in our lives. We know that that’s what Jesus came to do when he died on the cross for us.
In our lives, Lord, be glorified. In our marriages, Lord, be glorified. Thank you for your mercy. Praying in your Son’s In Jesus’ name, amen. I’m gonna— after this service, we’re gonna continue some ministry here, but if you’d like to pray together, would you pull me aside and let’s just pray?
