Divorced from God’s Design

Roughly 45% of marriages end in divorce, but what if divorce isn’t the solution to our problems we think it is? Divorce tears apart what God has joined together and takes a jackhammer to the family foundation. The Way of Jesus doesn’t look for a way out; it points us back to God’s purpose for marriage, a picture of grace, forgiveness, and redemption.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are in the middle of a series we've called solid ground. And this is, not by coincidence, a marriage and family series. We are looking specifically at the great Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters five through seven. And we're examining the teachings of Jesus, this great sermon about how to live as a part of the kingdom of God, right? The kingdom of heaven and different than the rest of this world, and how to walk the way of Jesus. But we're examining it in light of our family relationships. How do we live out the teachings of Christ in our marriage and family relationships? And it's been challenging already. We've talked about anger and how destructive that is toward uh family relationships when we're not forgiving. We've talked last week about lust, right? The root that is so destructive to trust and that's so foundational to our marriage and relationships. And today, on my birthday, I get to teach about divorce. I don't know who scheduled this thing here, but it's the next thing Jesus teaches us about. And so we're going to be in Matthew chapter five today, talking about something that I know is is not a concept for many of us. It's something already, even just saying the word. Some of you guys are probably here today going, really? Because you have first hand experience, either personally, as a part of your past, your story, or as children, knowing your parents were divorced and having to navigate that season and those difficulties. And so today I know there may be a little bit of trepidation as we dive into God's word, but can I just remind us, first of all, of the gospel that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? And that we can revel in the grace of God and his goodness even when we look back at our failure, our sin, our mistakes. And so we can revel in that. And also, can we also rejoice in God's ability to redeem that which is broken? And so there's a word for us today, but I want to pray for us. And I want to pray for every heart in here before we dive in. Can I do that? Lord Jesus. That he wants to take the truth of your word. And Lord, he wants to cut people down with it. He doesn't want to, as you do, cut through our callousness and the hardness of our heart and our fear and our our doubt. He doesn't want to cut through those things. He wants to stab, to wound, to kill. And so, Lord, I pray that as your word is brought forth today, that your Holy Spirit will speak clearly to each and every one of us. Lord, you know where we are. And so what we do is we bring all of those filters today. We bring all of the hurts, all of the fears, all of the baggage and wounding that we've brought with us, Lord, into all of our family relationships, even today. We bring it all and we lay it at your feet, and we ask that the truth that sets free will bring freedom today. Thank you, Jesus. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen. Matthew chapter 5, verse 31, Jesus continues his teaching. He says, This it was also said, Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Two verses, quite a lot to talk about already, isn't it? It was also said, right? This is the pattern, this juxtaposition that Jesus is introducing in this teaching style, where the last two weeks he said, You've heard it said, and he quotes back to the Ten Commandments about you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery. But then he brings the listeners back to the heart of these sins and these issues that are so damaging and destructive to our relationships. Today it's a similar thing, but he's not referencing one of the Ten Commandments. He's going back to Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 1, to the law of Moses that God gave through Moses to govern his people, to basically restrain the evil and sinful desires with the people at large. And this is found in Deuteronomy 24, 1. Let's read this together. When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and then the writer begins to explain what is to happen and how that's supposed to look and the steps to be taken from there. But you see this whole idea of writing a certificate of divorce. This is what Jesus was referencing back to. Now, it's no surprise that during this time, there was a great deal of debate as they looked at this law that if someone, uh someone's wife no longer finds favor in his eyes because of some indecency in her, there was a great deal of debate about what constitutes some indecency. You can imagine, right? What does that mean? Some indecency. And the Jewish rabbis, the teachers of God's law at this time, they were all across the board on this. There were some that that taught very specifically the only indecency that warrants divorce is sexual unfaithfulness, infidelity, adultery. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there were Jewish rabbis who had a litany, this entire list of legitimate reasons, according to them, why a husband could divorce his wife, down to she burned your dinner. And you can write a certificate of divorce and give it to her. That there was a process where he was able to maybe cool down a bit. He was able to have to go through this process of developing and litigiously putting together the certificate, giving it to her, that there was more involved. So it was supposed to be protective. And yet, not surprising, it became very common where men felt justified in divorcing their wives for any and every kind of reason. So Jesus says, You've heard it said this, but but I tell you a different way. Not this way of just writing a certificate. Imagine how easy that that is. If you want to divorce your wife, just write up a certificate, especially in today's day and age, Chat GPT, right? To create some certificate and just give it to her and be like, Yeah, you're you're out. You're no longer welcome here. We are no longer married. Divorce as a result, of course, was widely accepted and commonly practiced back then. Guys, it's no exception even today, is it? Divorce is still commonly practiced today. 45% of marriages end in divorce. 45%. Maybe you've heard 50. We've gotten a little bit better, apparently. Only 45 now end in divorce. When you look at statistics, even within the church, the body of Christ, numbers aren't much different at all. According to Barna and some other groups that do these and conduct these studies. Those who are Christians, who attend church regularly, divorce rates are not much different than those in the world that neither fear nor follow Christ. And we do have a problem when it comes to divorce in the church. And the problem is that apparently, as the church, we don't see much of a problem with it. I once heard someone say, I'm sure you've heard this as well, that today we live in a world where if something is broken, we don't fix it, we just replace it and get a new one. And I don't know about you guys, but but this is very common. And with my life, I understand this. Definitely understand this. Anybody here like a real handy person? Yeah, anybody a handyman? You guys know how to fix things? So you guys are humble too. A lot of you guys are humble. You know how to fix so much, but you're like, oh no, no, not me. How about this? Wives, are any of you married to a handyman? Wow, see, a lot more hands go up. You just know how to fix things. I told my wife a long time ago, I know people who know how to fix things. We're not all built like that. I heard a story. There's a guy uh that that's a part of our staff here, Taylor Ellis. Uh he's our production director, handles so much of just the worship time that we have together. It's amazing, amazing guy. One of the most brilliant dudes I know. And this guy can fix anything. It doesn't matter what it is. It's crazy. He just knows how to do stuff. He was one of those kids just pulling things apart and putting it all back together. And I remember his wife telling me that that he actually fixed uh uh like a not a curling, but a flattening iron, like one of those hair things, hair straighteners. He fixed her flattening iron when it broke. He pulled the whole thing apart, diagnosed it, found that there was some little chip that needed to be burned out and needed to be replaced. And so he ordered the chip just for a few bucks and replaced it, put it in there, put it all back together, and it works perfectly. And I'm like, dude, how do you do that? And more importantly, why would you do that? Why didn't you just buy another one? His response, dude, it was really expensive. I think it was pricey. I wasn't just gonna order a new one. If I could fix it for a few bucks, I'm gonna fix it. Like, God bless you, man, not me. But you know why he chose to make that repair? Because of the cost. Because of the value of the item that needed to be fixed, the item that was broken. As part of the reason our culture today, when something breaks, we just replace it, is because most things built today break very easily. There's not a whole lot of value. Things are cheap. We're ordering everything off. Timu and Sheen, I've got daughters, I know what Sheen is. Right? So we're ordering all of these cheaper products that are built to break so that we do buy new ones and replace them. So there's no value. There's no need to go, okay, I need to invest what's needed to repair this, to fix it, to make it right. And the same mindset, unfortunately, tragically, is really transferred over even to our relationships, to marriage itself. Part of the reason we see marriages not repaired and fixed and healed, restored. We see them just replaced and starting over and over and over and over again. Getting out of it and getting into another one. Part of the reason is because we have lost value of what marriage is supposed to be. We don't understand this covenant that God has given to us. We have a bunch of Timu version marriages where we're just replacing them when things get difficult or broken. And it goes back even to our dating and our approach to dating. We look at dating, we even look at marriage, guys. It's a lot like froyo experience. You know, you guys go get frozen yogurt. You might have your favorite flavor, but even if you know your favorite flavor, I mean, come on, right? You're still, what are the flavors they have available today? And so you go in, and when you walk into the froyo shop, what is the first thing you ask the person for? Sample cups. That's right. You guys are with me. And you get a bunch of sample cups and you go and you try everything, even the stuff you've had a hundred times. Let me make sure it's still really good. And then you find another flavor, like, ooh, that looks interesting. And so you try a little bit of a little taste of that. And then another one, you're like, ooh, that looks weird. Still got to try that. And we're sampling all these different flavors until we decide which one we want to commit to for that night.

unknown 11:59

Right?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

When it comes to dating, there's the same approach where we're trying people on for size. We're getting little tastes of different kinds of people, and it's casual, and it's fun, and it's not serious, it's no big deal. And so all we're doing is conditioning our brains to easily replace people like Froyo. And when I'm tired of this or I'm not feeling that anymore, I just move on to a different flavor. What does the shop have for me next? Because even the dating experience, now please understand, by no means am I trying to communicate that if you're in a dating relationship, it's just like marriage, you can never get out of this. No, absolutely not. What I'm trying to challenge anyone here who's in that season of life where dating is a part of your life and you're looking for what God may have, keep the covenant of marriage in mind. Understand what the purpose of dating is, is to be able to find someone, right, to enter into that covenant with. Take it seriously, protect it, guard it. That's why the purity of those dating relationships is of the utmost importance. Right? Keep that covenant of marriage in mind when you're dating and when you're in that process. Jesus says, But I say to you, right, so you've heard it said, write a certificate of divorce, but I say to you, and essentially it's if you divorce your wife, you're committing adultery. Man, he he, as we've been saying the past couple weeks, he does not pull punches here. Anyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery and is committing adultery yourself. Jesus now is speaking, keep this in mind, please, he's speaking to a particular group, he's speaking to men. That's why he's saying things like, if any man divorces his wife, right back to Deuteronomy 24, and even in his but I say to you. Right? So he's speaking to a male-dominant society where men are there listening to him. It's very patriarchal at this time. So women had very limited options for divorce. In fact, if they wanted to divorce their husbands, very few were ever really able to do so. So that's important to keep in mind because he's speaking to men today. I want to speak primarily to men here, the men of God here at church, as we don't live in a patriarchal society anymore. I'm grateful for that. Anyone else grateful for that? We don't live in a male-dominant society like this first century. However, you and I, as men of God, as his sons, still bear the God-given responsibility to ensure that that our marriage and our family is healthy. Right? The health of our family relationships ultimately is on us. The buck stops here, gentlemen. If divorce for any of us is an option, it will become the solution. And so we've got to come back to what God created marriage to be. Now, Jesus does let us know what what the true understanding in Deuteronomy 24 of some indecency, he explains what it actually is. And he gives it to us there. If anyone uh divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality. Right? So he does give us that very specific exception and understanding of what someone finding some indecency in their wife actually is. The Greek word here, as we've discussed before, but it's pornea. It's a general word for sexual sin. Now, I know, and I got to address this because I've known husbands before who have been consistently making sexual sin a part of their life, even things through the form of pornography. And we talked about this a lot last week. I'm not gonna dive back into that. But I do know of husbands who have specifically used this passage and they said, Listen, I haven't actually cheated on you. I haven't committed adultery, I haven't technically done that. Yes, pornography is a regular part of my life, but you don't have biblical grounds to leave. Now I'm not here to debate that one way or another today. Here's what I want to challenge. Any of you men who are thinking that way, it's not a big deal. She's just overreacting. She's so upset, I don't know why. This is so normal. Guys, I want to challenge you what Jesus reminded us of last week, earlier in Matthew, where he said that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman commits adultery with her where? In his heart. And so heart adultery may not be the extreme form of actual adultery, but hear this. If you are using this to demand your wife remain with you in your marriage, continuing to indulge in these pornographic things. You are committing adultery in your heart, which means, rest assured, she will divorce you in her heart. So you may guilt her into legally remaining married, but she will not be married here. She will separate. That's not the marriage God has for us. That's the damaging, destruction, destructive nature of sexual sin. Of course, the other question that comes up is what about abuse and domestic violence, right? Jesus gave us this one instance of sexual immorality, and we've got to ask that. So he he doesn't mention domestic violence or abuse. So that's okay. A woman is being abused, needs to remain in that marriage. Guys, again, who is Jesus speaking to? Men. In a patriarchal society, right, where men were dominant and domineering. Women had very few rights, if any. And so as he's speaking to men, there's there's none of these men that were going to be suffering from domestic violence or abuse. This is what Jesus is dealing with is the heart of men here. Now, after Jesus teaches, a group of religious leaders gets together later on in the Gospel of Matthew. And perhaps because of his teaching during this great Sermon on the Mount on this topic, they come and they press him more. They they lean in, they want to test him and try to trap him in his words and his teaching. And the conversation they have with Jesus gives us even more understanding of his words here. Let's turn to Matthew 19 and read about these religious leaders, these Pharisees who get Jesus to unpack this teaching more. Verse 3 of Matthew 19. Pharisees came up to Jesus and they tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? So is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? This goes back to his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. This is a question that I hear often. Maybe not in this exact form, but we wonder it, don't we? Some of you here today are asking this question about your spouse. Can I get out? It is human nature to want out. When we are bound by something and we no longer want to be bound by that something, we look for any loophole, any escape clause, any asterisk or reason to get out of a commitment or covenant we've made. It's human nature. It's our sin broken human nature. And so this question is no surprise. When marriage gets difficult, we want to get out of the vows that we made before the Lord. I can't tell you how many people have come through our office doors here at the church and they're struggling in their marriage. And I wish that many of these came in going, we're struggling. We want to do whatever we need to do to be able to fix things, to let God bring healing and redemption through this. We need help, come alongside us, we want to make this work. But but too often, someone will come in, and I realize very quickly as they're sharing some terrible things that they've had to go through. And I don't want to, I don't want to diminish that. I want to recognize that that we go through incredibly hard things as husband and wife. We're able to hurt each other like nobody else. You guys experience that? Man, the people that you love, the the one that you love and give your heart to, your life to, and share your life with is capable of more harm and more devastation than anybody else on this planet. And I hear things and it just is wrecking and ruining my heart. I can't imagine what it's doing to the Lord. But they come in and ultimately, what I quickly understand is what they're wanting from me is biblical or God's permission to divorce their spouse. They don't want to be in this marriage anymore. And they want to hear from me, it's fine for them to leave. Actually, I tell you more often than not, I know they leave disappointed. Because that's not my job. And that's what we we don't see Jesus doing that here. We'll get there in just a minute. But as I was studying for today, I still found myself wanting to address every possible scenario to answer the question, well, what about this situation? Because that's what we want to do. We're looking for those loopholes. And it just gets us around and around. What about in this case? What about in that case? What if he does this? What if she does that? What if he doesn't do this? What if she doesn't do that? What about this pattern? What about a one-off? Right? And we have all of these conversations just as they did, even at the time of Jesus teaching this. But Jesus didn't give them their list that they were looking for. He didn't sit down and debate with them when it was okay to divorce their spouse. What he did instead was bring them back to what God originally made marriage to be. Fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. So he brings them back to Genesis, back to God's created order. They want to get into a debate over when it's okay to divorce your spouse. And Jesus says, No, I'm not doing that. We're going to go back to what God made marriage to be. And he gives this picture that they were all familiar with when God made Adam Adam, man. And guys, keep this in mind. He was the perfect man. Ladies, a lot of you guys thought you had met the perfect man when you started dating him. And oh, how rudely your awakening was, right? Right? But he legitimately was the perfect man. God's perfect image bearer. God forms him out of the dust of the earth. He breathes life into him. And he and he began to reflect the image of God perfectly. Everything humanity is supposed to be embodied in this one human being. But there is one thing that was not good. One thing that God recognized that was lacking, and that was companionship. That was a helper. That was somebody of like kind to share his life with. And so we read the story, right? That God caused a deep sleep to come over the man. And during that time, he takes a rib from the side of the man. Why a rib? A lot of reasons to that, right? Not just the side-by-side imagery, but even the function of what a rib does. Guys, think about that. Ribs are so protective, are they not? They protect the heart, they protect the lungs, these vital organs. Gentlemen, how many of you are so grateful for what your wife does for you? I look at my wife, I look at Tracy, how she protects my heart. She shares things about what I'm feeling. I don't even know. I am so good at self-reflection. She does it for me. Right? I'm so grateful for a wife who protects what God's spirit is doing in me, who reminds me of who he's created me to be. So that's the imagery there. He takes this rib and he fashions Eve. I love the difference here, by the way. When you look at the Hebrew, God forms man from the dust of the earth. I mean, guys, imagine a bunch of dirt and God just like smacking it together and breathing life into him. But when he takes the rib from Adam, he fashions Eve. It's the word used for an artist, making, creating this beauty, his masterpiece, bringing that together. And when Adam wakes up, he looks and sees woman, and he says, Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken from man. My dad always said that he was named her woman because he looked and went, whoa, man. I said he was married for a long time. I didn't say he was funny, right? But we have this beautiful picture. What's the picture? The imagery is God made one perfection. And then he took one and made him into two. And that through marriage, he works this incredible miracle of taking the two and making them one again. And so Jesus' point is bringing them back to God's created purpose and order. This is why the vows that we make, that we take before God and friends and family on our wedding day, this is why they matter. And when I'm meeting with couples and doing a wedding with them, I love doing weddings, it's such a blessing, such a joy. But when I'm talking with them in advance and they come and say, hey, we want to do our own vows. We want to write our own vows. So sweet, so romantic, I love it. But I always let them know that's great, but I'm also going to include the traditional, really the biblical covenant language vows. And there's a reason for that. Because when we write our own vows, really what we're writing is how much we love you, how much you mean to me, and all the things that I'm wanting to experience in our life and relationship together. And again, wonderful, so sweet, so amazing. But there's something different about the vows of covenant language, isn't there? That reminds us of the weight and the magnitude of what it is that we are doing in that moment, that we are standing not just before a bunch of people staring at us, all dressed up, and it's weird because we never seen them look that good. That we are standing before God Almighty, and we are entering into a lifelong covenant relationship. Guys, these are the words that we I have a husband and wife, a bride and groom speak to one another as they're holding hands, looking at each other, repeating after me. I take you as a gift from the hand of God to be my wedded wife, to be my wedded husband. I promise in the presence of God and these friends to be your loving and faithful husband or wife. This is my earnest pledge to be yours in weakness and in strength, in sickness and in health, through hostility and affection, through tears and laughter, whether we're rich or poor, whether we succeed or fail, and all to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ for as long as we both shall live. We cannot speak those words flippantly. This is a lifelong covenant. I know that so many of you are here today and you're you're wrestling through because divorce is a part of your story. And please hear this. I want to meet with you, I want to talk with you, but today it's about something different. Because there are others of us here today that feel miserable in our marriage. And maybe we don't look and go, I don't see any biblical grounds, but I just don't want to be married. And our mindset is, I just don't feel like God wants me to be unhappy. And we've lost sight of how holy marriage is. We've forgotten what this covenant means. I've actually heard people tell me as they're sharing about their divorce, they're like, Yeah, you know, this happened, and then my wife and I, we broke up. No, because your wife isn't your girlfriend. You guys didn't break up. You tore apart. Uh you're not two slices of bread that just get stuck by some peanut butter called marriage. And all this isn't working out, so we'll just go find some jelly. Right? You guys are these two balls of dough that have been kneaded together and placed in this furnace through this covenant of marriage. And before God said, we are now one loaf. And what's happening through divorce is that loaf is being ripped apart. And so is it painful? Is it messy? Is it chaotic? Absolutely. Because of what God designed marriage to be. The negative effects of divorce just go on and on. Guys, I don't even have to go through all these. I mean, the mental health stuff of depression, anxiety, and loneliness and grief over the loss, anger and substance abuse. We see that divorce doesn't fix our problems. We think, okay, if I end this marriage, things are going to be so much better. And shockingly, it doesn't fix our problems because we bring them into the next marriage and relationship. It's why you see statistically, first marriages, 42% of them end in divorce. But that's okay because now we got it all figured out. So the second marriage, 100%, right, guys? Yeah, 60% of second marriages end in divorce. 73% of third marriages end in divorce. It doesn't get better, it gets worse. Maybe it's not our picker that's broken. Maybe there's something else broken here. Divorce also, we know, has a negative effect on the legacy of family, on our kids. Where our home and our family is supposed to be this stable place, this safe haven for our kids as they go face this brutal chaotic world. And divorce takes a jackhammer to the foundation of family and makes what should be a safe haven yet another place of chaos and discord and division. The ripple effects can continue through generations. Can God redeem? Yes, but we have to understand the natural result of what it is that we're wanting to pursue. Verse 7, when Jesus brings them back to what marriage is supposed to be, they of course argue. Here's what we read. They said to him, Well, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? That's a legitimate rebuttal. Why did Moses tell us these things? Jesus responds, he said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. So they counter, well, then why did Moses write this? And Jesus brings him right back again to the heart of the problem, which is the problem of the heart. It is the hardness of your hearts. Guys, most marriages end not because of marriage problems, they end because of heart problems. I have become callous. I have been hurt by this person. Maybe I've even brought baggage in with me because of previous dating experiences, because of my own broken home growing up with divorced parents and all the things that come with that. And so I'm a little jaded, I'm a little cynical. And so I come into this marriage already with hurt, and now it's just compounded and amplified by my spouse, who was also broken and also hurt. And so in our shared brokenness, we just continue to break each other more. And we find ourselves in this place of wanting out and wanting to divorce. So how do we respond with our heart? We harden it. It's a defense mechanism, right? We want to protect and guard against it. So we place those calluses over our heart so we're not going to get hurt like that ever again. And we harden it with bitterness. We harden it with pride. We harden it with self-preservation and self-protection. And that hardness of heart doesn't even allow us to trust the Lord anymore. We believe he's all powerful, but this is not something he can do. And we exclude him from the pain of what we're going through in our marriage. That's what hardness of heart actually is in Scripture. A hardened heart is a heart that resists the will, the way, the word of God, that stubbornly in their pride refuses to do things God's way and says, No, I know what I need better than you do. And so we don't trust Him, we don't follow in obedience, we preserve and protect ourselves. So many feel like I've I've done everything, right? I've done everything I can. And we might even go so far as to say, I've done everything God has asked me to do. Guys, have you? Have you truly lived out what this tells and teaches us about what marriage is supposed to be? Or in your fear, is it still about your self-protection, self-preservation, self-focus, self-care?

unknown 33:36

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SPEAKER_00 33:36

Because what we read here, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Is that a terrifying thing? Absolutely. Especially when you marry a knucklehead. And it's difficult to honor and respect him. He doesn't even walk with the Lord, doesn't fear him. What do we do if he's calling us to do something against the word of God? You always obey God rather than men. But for most of us, it's just this guy is a moron. He's so frustrating. He doesn't see me, he doesn't care, and we get irritated and we don't want to follow anything that he says or does. And so we disrespect, we demean, we belittle, we try to cut him down to make him small, so we feel in control again. It is terrifying to obediently submit to your own husband. How? As to the Lord. You're not doing it for him. As you're doing that, even self-sacrificially, you're doing it as an act of love and obedience to the Lord. Now, husbands, I've done all I can. I don't know what else to do. Really? Are you loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her? How did Jesus love us and give himself for us? He died. Are you dying to yourself, your needs, your ambition, your things that you feel like you're entitled to and deserve, your free time and downtime that you desperately need in your own mind? Are you dying to yourself and placing your wife first always? Because I have never met a couple who is doing that well, who's not experiencing the depth of intimacy and relationship God has designed through marriage. Guys, our problems come when we don't trust the Lord, when we refuse to do things his way, and we have every reason not to. I know how many are struggling today in your marriage. Maybe even hoping to find a way out. Guys, please hear this. The way of Jesus for your marriage is not looking for a way out. It's remembering what God made marriage to be. It's going back to Genesis, back to the beginning when God makes two into one flesh. It's remembering the words of the Apostle Paul, who also references this exact thing. Ephesians 5 31. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Now, what does Paul say about this miracle? This mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Your marriage is supposed to give you a picture of the gospel. And so if you're here today, and if divorce is a part of your story and you're feeling that tendency of what the enemy wants to do, let's bring up all the guilt and all the shame and all the baggage and all of these things. First of all, if there's baggage, he wants you free from it. This isn't a message of heaping up more condemnation that Jesus has redeemed and restored and saved you from. We leave here not head-hung in shame, but lifted high to the one who gave us grace, to the one who saves and redeems and restores and takes the worst of us and builds it and grows it into the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine. We leave here celebrating who he is and his goodness. But if you're here today and you're wrestling because you want out, you're wrestling because you're unhappy, you're wrestling because you're dissatisfied. Go back to what God created marriage to be. It is meant to be a picture of his love for us, his relationship with us, the gospel. Are you loving, forgiving, serving, showing grace? Or are you still in self-protection and defensive mode? As Jesus is able to heal, he is able to raise from the dead, to resurrect. I have experienced that healing power. Tracy and I have experienced that redemptive power in our own marriage. And I could be up here for another 10 hours telling you story after story after story of God taking what was dead and gone and bringing it back to restored, redeemed new life. Are you willing to trust Him? That is the only question you need to ask yourself today. If you're here and you are wrestling through your specific situation, I don't want you to leave today going, we don't care, we do. That's not what today is about. We need to go back to God's purpose for marriage. But if you're in that situation, please reach out. We would love to get together, to pray with you, to be with you, and to help you process through that. Does that sound good? Let's stand together, guys. Pray with me, Lord Jesus. I know this was a hard one for a lot of us in here today. But I know how terrifying it is to think about a future that seems to be written in stone. And yet, Jesus, all that's written in stone is you. Your promises to us. Jesus, thank you for what you are able to do and the healing you're able to bring. I know how many here today need that. And so I just ask that your Holy Spirit will be here in full force. God, bring conviction where it's needed. And Lord, not conviction because we've just even just had a bad attitude toward our spouse, but Lord, conviction for not trusting you, not interceding, not praying, not believing what you're able to do, the change you are able to make, Lord Jesus. You and you alone. Forgive our lack of faith. But Lord, for those who are here today and wrestling with that guilt and shame, Jesus, I pray that you wrap your arms around them and that you remind them of what you did on that cross. And that we can leave here blessed knowing our sin has been forgiven. Thank you, Jesus, for being here today. We give all of this to you our marriage, our family, our lives. Amen.