SPEAKER_00: This morning's sermon scripture reading comes from Mark chapter 10 this morning, 1 through 12.
SPEAKER_00: You can follow along with me in your bulletin or page 794 in your uh cheer Bible there.
SPEAKER_00: Reading now God's holy word.
SPEAKER_00: And he that is Jesus left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again.
SPEAKER_00: And again, as was his custom, he taught them.
SPEAKER_00: And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
SPEAKER_00: He answered them, What did Moses command you?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart he wrote to you this commandment.
SPEAKER_00: But from the beginning of creation God made man, them them male and female.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
SPEAKER_00: And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
SPEAKER_00: And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray for the spirits enabling.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask and we pray, Holy Spirit, that you would uh take these words that we've just heard, read, and that Lord, you would uh teach us, show us, Lord, your your good purposes and designs in the gift of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask and we pray that you would show us your goodness and your and your wisdom in all that you have designed.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So we do continue in our series in the Gospel of Mark this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and as we just read, we see that Jesus uh comes to to address the subject of marriage and divorce.
SPEAKER_00: And from the outset, let me just say this that I know this teaching can naturally have uh or lead to a wide range of responses.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it did in Jesus' day, and it still does today.
SPEAKER_00: And the the reason being that it can strike us as deeply personal.
SPEAKER_00: It was uh deeply personal to Herod when John the Baptist called him out and howled Scripture's line on this teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Herod's response caused John his life.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's gospel account that was just read records the disciples' response.
SPEAKER_00: They said to Jesus' teaching on this, they said, if this is the case, then it's better not to even marry.
SPEAKER_00: The standard to them seemed just so high that it provoked a deep sense of inadequacy in them.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees, on the other hand, we see their response, they're much more confident because they've thought they've found a loophole.
SPEAKER_00: The debated issue for them was just how big is that loophole.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because depending on your experience, this teaching may also have led to varying responses.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, it's important that we begin not with experience, but that we begin with what God says, what he has purposed, what he has designed.
SPEAKER_00: And I trust that we'll be led to see that he, knowing us better than we even know ourselves, and knowing his designs and his creation are always, always good and wise.
SPEAKER_00: I trust we'll see that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Pharisees, we read, come to Jesus with a question.
SPEAKER_00: And what was the reason for the question?
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps, better said, what was the motivation behind the question that they asked?
SPEAKER_00: We're told that they came up to Jesus in order to test him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important because the use of this word test is actually used four times in the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: Three of which are used of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: The first of which is used when the devil came to Jesus in order to test him in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: And why that's significant is because the writer here is wanting us to connect the dots here of what the Pharisees were trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: That they were trying to twist Scripture with an impure motive that lay behind that question.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't there to ask Jesus an honest question.
SPEAKER_00: And we know the difference between that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where the student is in the class and is asking an honest question, seeking an honest answer, versus the student that that has a premeditated question and is out to mask a certain agenda.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is quite happy to use the scriptures in such a way to suit his own ends if he can.
SPEAKER_00: I think the lesson for us there is that we shouldn't be surprised if we we come across people who have some familiarity with the scriptures, but who want to use them in a way that serves an ulterior or impure motive.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be naive just to think that just because someone can use or quote scripture to us that they're handling them rightly.
SPEAKER_00: If I have a dirty cup and drink clean water from it and it tastes gross to drink, the problem isn't with the water or the quality of the water, the problem is the dirty vessel that holds the water.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the same way, the scriptures are pure, but they can be used in such a way that is twisted and distorted by an underlying agenda or impure motive.
SPEAKER_00: That looks to use the scriptures in a way that wants it to say what we want it to say rather than what God intends to convey.
SPEAKER_00: Those are always symptoms of a hard heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to the scriptures, we always need to be asking this question.
SPEAKER_00: This is a good hermeneutical principle.
SPEAKER_00: What is God through the original author intending to convey to us?
SPEAKER_00: And to ask for the Holy Spirit to help us, give us a sincere and a humble heart, a soft heart, as we do so, no matter what his response might be.
SPEAKER_00: So what is the question?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the question posed to Jesus is, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus, knowing their debates, referred the question back to them.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, what did Moses say to you?
SPEAKER_00: And they reply, Well, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.
SPEAKER_00: And he is referring here to Deuteronomy 24, 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: Now the context is important here because there were two schools of thought on this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees, knowing this, are trying to stir things up.
SPEAKER_00: One of my sons was mowing the lawns this past week after we got back from vacation.
SPEAKER_00: And what he didn't know, and what I didn't know, was that uh while we're away, there was a set of bees that had sought to make their home under the ground while we were away.
SPEAKER_00: And and uh unfortunately, uh not knowing this, um he copped several of their stings as the mower blades went over the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we were all quickly reminded that the easiest way to disrupt a good work is by stirring up a bee's nest.
SPEAKER_00: This was a nest that the Pharisees wanted to stir up.
SPEAKER_00: And it surrounded what constituted something indecent, legitimizing divorce.
SPEAKER_00: One party had an overly strict attitude towards divorce, the other had a very loose attitude.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, if you look at the examples that we have in rabbinical writings, it's quite alarming how loose these laws were, interpretations were, I should say.
SPEAKER_00: The school of Halel saith, if the wife cooks her husband's food ill by over-salting it or over-roasting it, she is to be put away.
SPEAKER_00: Or if it comes to pass that she finds no favor in his eyes, she may be put away.
SPEAKER_00: And by favor, they interpreted that to be beauty, physical beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Now the obvious implications being that divorce was permissible on the grounds of basically anything displeasing to the husband.
SPEAKER_00: Now that has a familiar ring to it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: The rise of no fault divorce being one example.
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the challenges that confronts us today is that we live in a throwaway world.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is we can we can get almost anything instantly, certainly in America.
SPEAKER_00: Which also means that things are often easily discarded.
SPEAKER_00: And that can be reinforced in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we feel hungry, and so we go down and get some fast food.
SPEAKER_00: Food is fuel, fuel to fuel, food is expedient, and then we discard the remains, move on with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Easy come, easy go.
SPEAKER_00: Technology is another example.
SPEAKER_00: We perform frequent updates when we get a phone or a computer or a tablet or a car.
SPEAKER_00: But when they get old, well, we need to upgrade, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: And so we upgrade to the newer version and we discard out the old and it's in with the new.
SPEAKER_00: Or if we do feel dissatisfied in our work, it's never been easier just to look elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see the tragedy of this is with this kind of reinforcement, is when it comes to bearing the value of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: People are treated like a commodity to be used and then discarded when they no longer satisfy our cravings.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that people necessarily want to throw away marriage completely, but they do want their own version.
SPEAKER_00: The law in Australia and New Zealand, where I grew up in 1975, established a category of de facto relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the criteria of what constitutes this kind of relationship, you'll see that uh it attempts to hold on to many of the same characteristics of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: The difference being that it has personal autonomy in mind, not commitment.
SPEAKER_00: Although some laws do require uh two years of cohabitation uh in order to be considered de facto.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, in this case, it has arisen from this growing belief that that there's no God who designed the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so it makes logical sense then that marriage would be devalued.
SPEAKER_00: The rationale being that if this life is all that you have, if this life is is all that's given to us, and maximizing pleasure and meaning and whatever meaning you can can take and consume from it is the goal and the time allotted to you, then of course marriage should serve that interest.
SPEAKER_00: So if it brings enjoyment to you, well, well, then yes, you ought to be able to enter into it.
SPEAKER_00: But if it doesn't serve your interests, then it ought to be somewhat easy to be discarded so as not to impede this greater goal.
SPEAKER_00: It's man's attempt, you see, to create his own designs.
SPEAKER_00: None of this is new.
SPEAKER_00: And the question we might ask was, well, why?
SPEAKER_00: And the scriptures are clear on that's because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And sin is selfishness.
SPEAKER_00: Sin says, I want what I want, even if that means discarding you or using you from to meet my needs.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't that that at the heart of what causes so much trouble and strife?
SPEAKER_00: And so here we had strife.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus points the Pharisees back to creation, and he says, in effect, take a look at God's design from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is his design, and it's his purpose for creation as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: So to oppose and discard his design is to run against the very blueprint of what God intended, and it only leads to moral, spiritual, psychological, and social chaos.
SPEAKER_00: That all throughout the beginning of Genesis, the refrain is God made such and such, and it was good.
SPEAKER_00: That's the constant refrain.
SPEAKER_00: But then it comes to the point in which Adam is alone, and he says, It is not good that man be alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so being made in God's image, he has sought for us to have companionship.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage reflects that intention as a creation ordinance.
SPEAKER_00: And so that leads us to ask the questions okay, so what is God's purpose and design for marriage?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus tells us Genesis 2, 24.
SPEAKER_00: And you can turn there with me if you like.
SPEAKER_00: But he he he he he he he says, and referring back to Genesis 2, these words.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they she become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he's directing them to.
SPEAKER_00: But it's part of the leaving of those bonds that have been, or the status quo of what's been going on up until that point.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said at one point, he said, leaving requires even the extent of hating your father and your mother.
SPEAKER_00: Now that ought to raise eyebrows.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's using a hyperbole, of course, to get at prioritization.
SPEAKER_00: First things.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, in this context of discipleship, he's saying, I must supersede family and even your own life in terms of priority.
SPEAKER_00: So applying this to marriage, it means being willing to deprioritize other attachments in order to serve and prioritize the establishing of a new bond together.
SPEAKER_00: It means asking, are you willing to prioritize your spouse more than family, more than even your own life for the sake of the other?
SPEAKER_00: You know, some marriages are challenged right at this exact point.
SPEAKER_00: They never really grow due to an unwillingness to truly leave, and it does happen.
SPEAKER_00: So although they might share room and board, other influences intrude on their ability to be attached to the spouse and grow together.
SPEAKER_00: So what Jesus is saying here is that is someone in your life, is there someone in your life who has control over you, over your heart, who has power over it at the expense of prioritizing your spouse?
SPEAKER_00: Who has your ear?
SPEAKER_00: Marriage requires leaving, but it also requires cleaving.
SPEAKER_00: The two of you shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Now to cleave is to embrace.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations use the term to hold fast.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of things that are bound up in that term.
SPEAKER_00: The first is promise, and the second is exclusivity.
SPEAKER_00: Promise, exclusivity.
SPEAKER_00: Exclusivity meaning physically and personally.
SPEAKER_00: That is giving yourself to one another in a way that you don't do so to anyone else, including intimacy of sexual union.
SPEAKER_00: So first let's deal with promise.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is not based upon emotions, but upon covenant keeping.
SPEAKER_00: If you hear some of the vowels that people use or want to use today, they're quite surprising and maybe even alarming.
SPEAKER_00: You and my every dream come true, and I can't wait to build a life with you.
SPEAKER_00: Or I will always make you laugh and laugh with you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those are nice things to say, but that's not what is meant by cleaving.
SPEAKER_00: The vowels keeping in line with biblical principles you see are always volitional as well as pertaining to the future.
SPEAKER_00: I take you to be my wedded wife or husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and sickness and health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live.
SPEAKER_00: That's cleaving by promise and commitment.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't even know what's going to happen in the future when you get married.
SPEAKER_00: You can't see into the future.
SPEAKER_00: And so what you're saying is, I promise to be faithful no matter the circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: I will commit to you if you are to find good employment and I find good employment and resources are great and plentiful.
SPEAKER_00: Or if we were both lose our jobs and are barely scraping by.
SPEAKER_00: If one of us to become bedridden.
SPEAKER_00: Or if we have the health to be able to do whatever needs done.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, if it's about laughter, then what if the laughter dries up?
SPEAKER_00: If it's about your dreams and what happens when hardships come that challenge those dreams.
SPEAKER_00: No marriage is about commitment and promise, enduring in love.
SPEAKER_00: In this regard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say to couples entering into marriage, he said, it is no longer your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he knew that a marriage goes through many seasons, sometimes hard seasons.
SPEAKER_00: But your commitment to these promises and these vows that you make toward one another and before God will set the foundation for love to be kindled and rekindled over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Cleaving by promise.
SPEAKER_00: But also exclusivity.
SPEAKER_00: Exclusivity means being physically naked in terms of a sexual relationship, but also personally naked in a way that you don't give yourself to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: Else.
SPEAKER_00: It involves cheering the deepest, intimate parts of yourself, being able to be vulnerable yet loved.
SPEAKER_00: It's a oneness in body as well as in person.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why God isn't trying to be a killjoy when it comes to Christians marrying other believers.
SPEAKER_00: You might be single this morning, and there's a reason why God wants you to marry in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The reason being that the deepest part of you is unable to be shared without disregard, or perhaps even worse, if done to the contrary.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you came to know Jesus when you were both unbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: And after you came to faith, maybe it was one of you came to faith first.
SPEAKER_00: And what was the thing you most wanted to be able to share?
SPEAKER_00: You wanted oneness and the ability to be transparent and share openly and honestly in what or who was now a central part of your life.
SPEAKER_00: The ability to share deeply and transparently about your faith, about Jesus Christ, is a precious gift in marriage that he intends for us to give to one another in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus also says in verse 9, what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
SPEAKER_00: And so not only is it exclusively, physically and personally exclusive physically and personally, but it's also lifelong, and that only death can break it.
SPEAKER_00: The exception to this being in the case of marital unfaithfulness or a spouse's willful desertion.
SPEAKER_00: In these particular exceptions, we can say that although divorce is always the result of sin, and that it's a breach of God's good design for marriage and creation, to divorce is not always sinful.
SPEAKER_00: And not everyone in a divorce is guilty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And why that's important is because often we, particularly in the church, can see or think of the divorcing person, the one as the one who ends the marriage.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not right.
SPEAKER_00: In that case, the exclusivity has been broken.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's not the innocent party ending a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Divorce is the injured spouse gaining legal recognition of injury within the marriage, of that exclusivity having been entered outside of.
SPEAKER_00: And in that case, God sanctions the dissolving of a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: As painful and as hard as it sometimes is.
SPEAKER_00: And so marriage is a lifelong covenant that is exclusive physically and personally.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in light of God's design, in light of all this, we might ask the question well, how does the gospel relate to marriage so that we receive it and cherish it as a gift?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that the gospel says that you and I need more than just one another in a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: What we need is a heavenly union with a personal God.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, the good news is that a perfect love did come into this world in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Who by promise and by sacrifice came into this world, who lost everything in order to win you and I, from the clutches of sin and death, from our selfishness, who gave himself in the most intimate and vulnerable of ways, so that his death will be counted as our deaths, and his life would be counted as our life.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of love that sought to win you and now befriends you.
SPEAKER_00: Who speaks gracious words and truth to you with a view to seeing even more fruit born and proofs produced within you.
SPEAKER_00: Who forgives us when we fall short and fail, when we forsake sin.
SPEAKER_00: And who lends his ear to us in all of our fears and cares as we give them to him in prayers.
SPEAKER_00: A love that with eternity in mind and in view defeated death itself and has now gone home to prepare a room for us, having promised to cleave to us for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, my heart needs that kind of filling.
SPEAKER_00: How about yours?
SPEAKER_00: My marriage needs me to rest in that kind of love, to soak in that kind of love, to abide in that kind of love.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what any and every marriage needs are hearts that are willing to receive and rest in the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Looking to the cross day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's a heart that's that's that will begin to germinate, you see.
SPEAKER_00: A heart that is looking to the cross day by day is a heart that will begin to germinate and grow.
SPEAKER_00: That's a heart that will begin to bud and blossom.
SPEAKER_00: This kind of divine love that Jesus is giving to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it will begin to bud and blossom into all of those enjoyable qualities that we love about one another.
SPEAKER_00: Gracious speech, a simple joy, servant hearts, humble affections, even deeper bonds of love, all of which arise from him.
SPEAKER_00: That's a love to be treasured, that's a love to be abiding in.
SPEAKER_00: I need it.
SPEAKER_00: You need it.
SPEAKER_00: Are we making his love a priority over and above all else?
SPEAKER_00: Are you availing yourself to the love of Jesus and your need for divine love?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, he has many, many thoughts that has about you.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks about you always.
SPEAKER_00: He has much of his love to give you.
SPEAKER_00: And so I conclude with a few omitted but beautifully captured stanzas of the love of Christ toward his people from the song that we're about to sing.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, she stands before thee, forevermore thine own.
SPEAKER_00: No merit is her glory, her boasting this alone.
SPEAKER_00: That she who did not choose thee came, chosen at thy call, never to leave or lose thee, or from thy favor fall.
SPEAKER_00: Thine, thine, in bliss or sorrow, as well in shade or shine, of old, today, tomorrow, to all the ages, thine.
SPEAKER_00: Thine in her great commission, baptized into thy name, and in her last fruition of all her hope and aim.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray and then continue to sing of his great love.
SPEAKER_00: Our Lord, we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your deep and great love toward us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you that you are a God who is so faithful and steadfast in love toward us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the way in which you have bound yourself to us in love.
SPEAKER_00: Never leaving, never forsaking, always and forever love, unfailing, unchanging, so that we might have life and love to give to one another.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we ask, we pray to this end that you would strengthen us in love, that you would strengthen us in our marriages, you would strengthen us in our ability to see the design and purpose that you've intended in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And that you would be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.