and there's some real need to know what jesus is saying in this text this morning because it's going to lead us to healing it's going to lead us to growth that's going to lead us to holiness therefore confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed

good morning church it's good to see you guys this morning thank you for braving an arizona rainstorm to come to church if you're watching online thank you for joining us this morning as well would you open your bibles to mark chapter 10. we're going to read verses 1 through 12.

chapter 10 starting in verse 1 this is the word of the lord and he left there and went to the region of judea and beyond the jordan and crowds gathered to him again and again as was his custom he taught them and pharisees came up in order to test him asked is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife he answered them what did moses command you they said moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away and jesus said to them because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment but from the beginning of creation god made them male and female therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they're no longer two but one flesh what therefore god has joined together let no man separate and in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter and he said to them whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries another she commits adultery let's pray church

father god i just want to pray that you would even now through the power of your spirit soften our hearts tenderize us so that we can receive your word lord this passage it's just bringing up memories from my childhood and i'm sure it's stirring emotions around this room because all of us father have been affected by divorce lord you're aware of that and yet you've drawn us to this place and you want us to learn from jesus and so where we ask that you would make us receptive to the teaching of christ this morning lord help us to hear you and help us to be healed by you in my name of jesus we pray these things amen in every preaching class i've been a part of through seminary they always say you're supposed to start your sermon with a really good illustration because that illustration is going to connect me to you i'll be more human to you and we'll all have a good laugh then we can dive into the hard stuff today we just start with the hard stuff because i feel like any attempt for me to like put my own story into this text is just going to diminish your experience with this reality that divorce wreaks havoc on the families and is absolutely rampant in the united states in our communities and even in churches um all over the united states and so when we come to this text something you just should be aware of is that this week i've been praying for you because in my own personal life divorce has hit very close to home my parents are divorced and there's a lot of emotion tied up with that word a lot of emotion tied up with the people and it does not slip past me to understand that you in this room when you see a sermon title that says what does god say about divorce you're not maybe interested in the 30 000 foot theological implications of what god says about divorce you're probably asking the question what does god say about my divorce what does god say about my marriage can can i pursue divorce should i be reconciled my spouse and as many people as in this room there is many different cases for when it comes to divorce and so what i don't want to run past as we even get started is there are some real wounds there's some real hurt and there's some real need to know what jesus is saying in this text this morning because it's going to lead us to healing it's going to lead us to growth that's going to lead us to holiness and so to start i want us to take a look at what the pharisees are out to accomplish when they come and they challenge jesus on divorce the pharisees show up and you guys know this we've been in mark for more than just one week the pharisees are kind of the antagonist of the gospel of mark and so when they show up their job is to discredit jesus make him look bad or get him in trouble with the governing authorities and they're attempting to do all three things here let's take a look at the first couple verses and he left there went to the region of judea beyond the jordan and crowds gathered to him again and again as was his custom he taught them so what is the scene crowds are gathering around jesus the disciples are there with jesus and jesus is teaching he wants them to know the truth about the gospel of the kingdom of heaven this is a continuation of what he's been doing throughout the entirety of the gospel of mark enter our antagonist and pharisees came up and in order to test him asked him is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife little context historically in first century uh judea divorce was an acceptable practice the question that was debated among rabbis was when was it acceptable and for what reasons uh could you engage in a divorce and there was serious debate around that issue there are two big schools of thought we'll dive into those in a little bit but on one end you had guys who basically said man if she burns the toast you got to get rid of her and on the other end it was sexual immorality is the only reason why you get divorced and there was a whole slew a whole spectrum of different positions in between that but the two major views were for anything and for almost nothing except for sexual immorality and so the pharisees know because they've been listening to jesus teach he's probably going to take a harder line on divorce because he seems to be taking a hard line on sin period in fact if you read matthew 5-7 jesus sermon on the mount you're going to get rocked with this idea that you cannot be good enough for god and the conclusion out of that sermon is i better get someone who is good enough for god to do something for me that i can't do for myself the pharisees know that he gives hard teaching and so what are they doing they are trying to pit jesus against the crowd because just like in this room there are a hundred different stories about how we encounter divorce whether we've been divorced or whether our parents were divorced or we know someone who's divorced or we've been affected by the tragedy divorce the pharisees know that if he takes a position on this issue in front of the crowd they're going to be divided over his teaching on divorce so that's her first thought is to discredit the crowd

can i just

suggest that the pharisees are still playing the long con and that today that'll be your temptation as well is to say jesus you don't know my story jesus you don't understand what i'm going through you don't understand and i am tempted jesus just to rip this one page out of my bible because it hurts and there's such personal connection to this sin so such personal connection to this issue that i think we're in the exact same boat the pharisees have shown up they're going to ask jesus a hard question and we get to be the crowd we get to actually listen and if we soften our hearts i think we'll get healing and growth and righteousness from christ so that's the first thing i want to just let you in on that the pharisees are asking a question to divide you from jesus and i want to encourage you press into jesus this morning the second reason the pharisees are doing this is because they've already gotten one zealot killed on the basis of divorce and so you'll remember earlier in mark john the baptist calls out herod and says hey bro you can't marry your brother's sister he gets imprisoned for that and eventually through a whole drama he gets his head cut off all around the issue of divorce and so there's a good chance the pharisees like man we dispossessed of john maybe we can get this guy to say something harsh about divorce and herod will take care of jesus for us herod will be a part of the crucifixion story but that's their play let's get the crowds to reject him and get herod to come and kill him

so here's what we're going to do this morning i can't answer every possible scenario about divorce but what we can do is we can take a look at the biblical text and we can say god can you give us principles absolute solid foundational teaching from the bible that will help us walk into marriage and help us understand the issues of divorce and as we do that lord we want to understand your intent for marriage we want to understand when divorce is not sinful and when it is sinful and what we ought to do in either case and then what we'll do is we'll land the plane with this that jesus is walking towards the cross you have to understand that context jesus is not giving a sermon to condemn he has come to save the world from its sin and so jesus is walking towards the cross in matthew 10. every step gets him one step closer to golgotha i want you just to keep that in your minds this morning that while you may come out guilty or while you may know someone who's come out guilty jesus went to the cross to pay for sinners and that's where we have to start this morning so here we go let's dive in um number one marriage is between a man and a woman and is intended to last look at how the pharisees go after jesus they try and get him into a discussion on the law it says uh and the pharisees came up in order to test him ask is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife and he answered them what did moses command you they said moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away the pharisees are referencing deuteronomy chapter 24 and we'll dive into that chapter in a little bit you have to understand they're not super interested in jesus actual opinion on divorce what they want to do is trap him in a discussion on the law and they know there's debate over this passage in the law and so what does jesus do jesus doesn't jump straight into a discussion on deuteronomy 24 he says i acknowledge your deuteronomy 24 let me take you back to genesis chapter two and he recast he resets up why moses even gave the commandment to allow divorce in deuteronomy 24. so look at this he says because of your hardness of hearts in verse five because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment but from the beginning of creation god made them male and female therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they're no longer two but one flesh what therefore god has joined together let not man separate so jesus's first point is divorce don't do it that's not the intention of marriage god did not create marriage so that we might look for divorce but rather divorce is a concession given to israel because of her hard heart and the same thing is true for us today divorce is never ideal divorce is not the intent of marriage and so he lays out the design of marriage he says look in the beginning god created man and he created woman and when they come together they form a separate union their families become secondary they don't reject their families but guess what mom and dad i'm not in your house anymore mom and dad she's not in your house anymore this is a brand new unit a brand new covenant has been formed to become one and so jesus wants to recast that this is supposed to be a permanent union the emphasis that he draws out in mark is the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh whatever god has joined together let not man separate and i want us to start here because jesus starts here and so that we can feel the weight of what marriage actually is marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman before god that is intended to last let me show you where god emphasizes this in malachi chapter 2 verse 16 in the topic of divorce god says i hate divorce he hates it he doesn't like it it's not ever the ideal and then what's so cool is we get to ephesians chapter 5 and we get this progressive revelation where where paul is is giving us the like he's giving us the next step what does a marriage ought to look like in ephesians chapter five in fact go ahead and turn over there i want you to see this paul says marriage is not just for us but rather our marriages are reflections of something christ has done for his church in ephesians chapter 5 look at verses 31 and 32 with me therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh now you gotta say hey man we shred that in mark i know paul knows that too paul's referencing jesus's teaching on divorce in marriage he's saying this is how it was set up from the beginning man woman one year now look he says this mystery is profound and i'm saying that it refers to christ in the church so in the same way when the sun shines on the moon and the moon reflects light back to us our marriages reflect god's light in christ in the church the marriage is a reflection of something that's happened theologically spiritually between christ and his body now why do we need to care about that you see seth you've gone up to the 30 000 foot level all right i want it personal here's why because if our marriages are intended to reflect christ and his church then that means our level of forgiveness and our level of reconciliation is intended to reflect christ in his church as well track with this every single day you and i are going to stumble and sin are we not and every single day by god's grace he holds you fast because of what christ did on the cross in fact the church is described as the bride of christ and so in a strong theological sense when we step into marriage we are stepping into a relationship that is bound to bring about the opportunity to forgive another fallen sinner and that means we're going to receive wounds from them it means we're going to receive hurt from them and yet the intent is that we ought to be like christ and to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation because marriage is intended to last and i just want to lay that out before you because we ought to meditate on that every single day god could let me go he'd say you know what i've had enough of you you crazy sinner seth you're always talking about me and never walking the walk as well as you could and yet he doesn't he doesn't let me go he says my son purchased you perfectly on that cross you have been paid for you belong to me and so when we step up to the plate and we say i'm giving my life to her before god that's the level of forgiveness and commitment we intend to keep we intend for that to happen that's the intention and so before we take a step forward because what we're going to talk about now is that divorce is not always sinful it's not always simple but the moment we open that gate and say look there are going to be some exceptions where divorce can happen my heart says and i'm going to file those away and can't wait for the day when i am wrong to such a degree that i can bring out that card and say you know what this is my get out of jail free card but you've got to see that jesus even though he is going to show us where there are exceptions and divorce is not sinful says the intent is that you ought not to be divorced and it always comes from sin and my goal for your marriage my goal for your relationship is that you would reflect me and my church and so that's the weight that we bring to the forefront now let's talk about divorce point number two is this divorce is not always sinful and we need to actually be able to defend that in the bible and so i want you to see a couple places in matthew chapter one uh the very opening of this gospel we get the birth of jesus and before jesus is born we get the story of how he is conceived in the little bit of drama that happens around that so in chapter 1 verse 18 it says now the birth of jesus christ took place in this way when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph before they came together she was found to be with child from the holy spirit and her husband joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly now in first century a.d engagement had the same legal binding effect as marriage itself so although the marriage wasn't consummated you still had to go to the courts and actually write a certificate of divorce to put away your betrothed and so what is joseph doing he says wow my fiance is pregnant i didn't do that and so i'm going to divorce her and how does the text talk about joseph it says that her husband joseph being a righteous man a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolve to divorce her quietly so in this instance the text describes joseph as righteous in his move towards divorce is there anything else that all we got seth is just joseph and his patrol no uh god in jeremiah chapter 3 uses the metaphor of divorce to talk about his relationship with israel so in jeremiah 3 8 he says that i have written a certificate of divorce to israel and have given her away that i've put her away and so if god is going to talk about divorce with himself in israel and although his redemptive plan is he's going to restore israel through christ god himself is not going to talk about something that he does and have it be sinful that's actually contrary to his nature and so what do we conclude that there have to be at least some instances by god's own discretion where divorce is not sinful so while divorce may come from a hardened heart it is a result of sin it is not always sinful to get divorced something else that we need to note here is that marriages can actually end that the covenant that is made between a man and a woman can actually be severed uh there there are some theologians who want to talk about uh divorce can happen but you're spiritually still married that's not how god talks about divorce when god talks about divorce it is an actual severing of the covenant so the question is not were you divorced and or were you just civilly divorced but you're still spiritually married the question is no you are divorced should you have been divorced and then repentance and forgiveness flows from that question not whether or not you actually are should a divorce end let's talk about it number three divorce is permissible but never required in the case of sexual immorality this is going to be our first exception to the rule you'll notice the way i've ordered this point is divorce is permissible but it's never required that's because required would imply that someone's sin against you necessitates punishment from you that you're going to be the one who brings retribution for what this person has done and we know from the biblic from the bible that god says look vengeance is mine if someone has sinned against you it is not your job to bring about retribution divorce is the symptom of a hardened heart because of someone else's sin but it's never the requirement for their sin and that's important i'm going to keep bringing us back number one christ has forgiven us great sin and our first intent ought to be to forgive but turn with me to matthew chapter 19. i want you to see a parallel account to what we're reading parallel account is when the bible gives you the same story from a different author and so matthew giving us chapter 19 is going to give us the same story from mark chapter 10 and in matthew he's going to include an extra sentence that isn't included in mark and we'll talk about that in a little bit like why did mark and luke leave that out and matthew included hold on i'll i'll show you that but first let's see what it says if you go down to 19 verse 8 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 now this is what the pharisees have shown up to actually talk to jesus about they want to know where he stands in the debate so 19 is a commentary on deuteronomy 24 you ready let's turn over to deuteronomy 24.

in deuteronomy 24 i'm going to read you verses one through four it's a little bit of a uh of a of a drama going on in deuteronomy 24 there's some there's some odd stuff happening but i want you to pay attention to some a few things 24 1 when a man takes a wife and marries her and then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her and he writes her certificate of divorce and puts her hand and sends her out of his house and she departs out of his house and if she goes and becomes another man's wife and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house or if the ladder man dies who took her to be his wife then her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled for that is an abomination before the lord and you shall not bring sin upon the land of the lord your god is giving you for inheritance not look we're not going to dive into the the counseling session this married couple needed okay i want you to get back to verse one there's a phrase that you need to see because this is the phrase that is debated by the two camps in first century judaism so 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 some indecency is an ambiguous phrase in hebrew if you want to look it up it's erwas dabar erwatibar is ambiguous we don't know specifically what the indecency is the only context we have in the bible to figure out those two words comes from chapter 23 and it's basically referencing extreme it says you need to go dig a hole outside the camp go make sure your ex-man is outside the camp this indecency is outside of the camp well context here that doesn't make a ton of sense does it uh if your wife has to go to the restroom you can put her away in a divorce that's that's not the point of this passage and so what happens the rabbis begin to debate what does this mean in what sense do we understand indecency or all indecency and so here the two camps that have formed um and were were very very popular in the time of jesus the first is a conservative shamanic school and in the mishnah which is a is a rabbinical writing this is what the school of shema says they say a man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her for it is written because he have found her indecency in anything and so the the conservative side is going to interpret that phrase and say this is talking about sexual immorality this is as we read the rest of deuteronomy as we look at the context of god's view over over sexual relationships we think indecency in the context of marriage would be sexual immorality on the other side you've got the hillel school and they say he may divorce her even if she spoiled a dish for him man that's as liberal as it gets right like one bad meal and he can put her away um what we're seeing in matthew 19 is jesus is clearly coming down on the side of the conservative view and he's saying no no i'm going to make this crystal clear you can't put your wife away for anything that's not how divorce works that's not how marriage works if you think you can put your wife away for anything you actually don't understand the covenant into which you've stepped and he's going to give us very clearly 19 and i say to you whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and mary is another commits adultery so this is where we come to this conclusion that based on matthew 19 and based on our understanding of deuteronomy 24 there is an exception for divorce when there is sexual immorality uh jesus uses a broad term for for sexual morality he doesn't use the word adultery he uses a word called porneia which basically means fornication or it covers a wide range of sexual sin and so what we need to understand is that sexual sin is what breaks the covenant in a marriage this is what causes divorce is when we take the covenant and we sign the dotted line on someone else's covenant he's saying what you're participating in in sexual immorality is actually borrowing from a covenant that doesn't belong to you and it has the power to end the covenant that you're in it makes that permissible so let's look at the second one uh number four divorce is permissible but never required in the case of abandonment of an unbelieving spouse so if you would turn over to first corinthians chapter seven because i know we're bouncing around the bible today but if we don't use the word of god to talk about this subject we're not going to know what to do with it we're just not we'll end up in a place where we're going to do what we want to do and what we need more than anything is god's word first corinthians chapter 7 verses 8 through 16. i want to read these to you and i want you just to take them in and allow them to celebrate because there's a little instruction to the unmarried as well it says to the unmarried and the widows i say that it's good for them to remain single as i am but they cannot exercise self-control they should marry for it's better to marry than to burn with passion to the married i give this charge not i but the lord the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife so again you see what is the intent of marriage that it shouldn't end especially in a relationship between two believers the aim is always reconciliation verse 12 to the rest i say not i i not the lord that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him he should not divorce her if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her she should not divorce him for the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made wholly because of her husband otherwise your children would be unclean but as it is they are holy but if the unbelieving partner separates let it be so in such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved and we'll come back to that word in slaves it's very important in building this understanding this exception god has called you to peace for how do you know wife whether you will save your husband how do you know husband whether you will save your wife first thing let's let's get this semantically out of the way paul says uh i say this the lord doesn't say this or he says this is the lord speaking not me when he says that what he's not doing is saying that this authority is that this is an unauthoritative teaching he's not saying you can just kind of highlight this paragraph and this is outside of the context of scripture we know that because ii timothy 3 16 says all scripture is breathed out by god good for rebuke correction exhortation that every single word that we've been given is from the lord what paul's saying there is i didn't get this by direct revelation from christ this is the teaching from christ through his apostles so he's this is not a direct quote he's not quoting mark he's not quoting matthew's not quoting luke he's not quoting peter when peter said i heard you say directly this is an exact quote for jesus he's saying this is the principle this is the wisdom that comes from the knowledge of what christ has given and i'm giving it to you with the authority of an apostle and so we take that just as seriously as the paragraph before so sometimes that church people up they say well i want to follow jesus not paul paul clearly said this is paul what he means is this is apostle this is the apostleship teaching from christ if you're married to an unbeliever and they wish to stay married you should stay married that's the first thing as believers we don't get to abandon unbelieving spouses and the reason why is because god is going to possibly use you and listen i'm going to say possibly you don't know how he's going to use you but your long-suffering your frustration that my husband won't come to christ my wife won't come to christ they're living in such a way that makes me just cringe because i love jesus and they don't love jesus and there's there's tension because we've got two different world views existing in the same home and it's it's tearing our kids apart it's not a reason to get divorced and that might be hard for some people to hear because you say i can't mesh we're like water we're like oil and water now because we've got christ and we've got an unbeliever and yet the text clearly says that your witness as a believing spouse could draw your spouse to salvation your prayers your words the way you conduct yourself as one worthy of the gospel because you've been made righteous by christ you are behind enemy lines to love and serve your unbelieving spouse

however

if the unbelieving spouse leaves abandons because i'm out i've had enough of your jesus i've had enough of you or anything to do with you i don't believe in your god i don't believe what you believe i'm gone then paul gives us an exception it says you you let them go because you don't know your job is not to bring about their salvation your job is to be obedient to christ and so you don't know what god has in store for their life and you're able to let them go and you are separated from that covenant and it's the second exception for divorce the divorce is permissible and again i emphasize it's never required in the case of abandonment of an unbelieving spouse

so let's just quickly review and then we're going to dive in to the hard stuff

god's intent for marriage is that it would last we have discovered divorce is not always sinful it comes out of sin but it is not always simple to get divorced the two exceptions that are not sinful that are explicitly given to us in scripture are uh sexual immorality and abandonment from an unbelieving spouse so number five is this when the divorce was not permissible any subsequent remarriage results in adultery and again i just want you to know like all week i've been praying about this because this is so personal in my own life that there are going to be men and women in this room around the city in your community who have been remarried and and they're going to say i just got tagged god just called me out on something that was sinful and i don't know what to do with that and i promise you we're going to get to the cross we're going to get to christ and i want you to see the forgiveness and the path forward for us when we don't divorce for the right reasons but here's the principle when the divorce was not permissible any subsequent remarriage results in adultery and so let's take a look back at mark and we'll take a look at matthew as well in mark chapter 10 let's read how jesus talks about this he says and in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter which by the way i love i love that the apostles swing back around because you've got to think they hear him talking to the pharisees like oh uh man we better follow up on that one that sounded dicey yo like jesus can you give us a little more clarification what's going on here and in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter and he said to them whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries another she commits adultery and so when we first read mark we say well that's kind of watertight i don't see any permissible remarriage here i don't see any what like what does this mean and so we have to read mark in light of matthew 19. and so let's take a look at the exception clause that we're given in matthew 19. in matthew 19 it says and i say to you whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery and so here's what we know for certain when we sinfully divorce and we've got to call it that it's a sinful divorce when we're outside of these exceptions and we go and we are and we have sex with our new spouse what we're doing is we're engaging in signing a new covenant that doesn't belong to this person it belonged to the person we should not have divorced and that's why in the very beginning we don't ask the question uh am i divorced you are divorced the question is should you have been divorced that's what decides whether or not what you do um subsequently is sin and so here's the deal we can shy away from that and say uh we're just not going to talk about that in fact a lot of churches do that they say let's just let's just we'll let that one get figured out in glory but i think that's the wrong way to approach because if i'm in sin or i have sinned then i need forgiveness i need healing i need christ i need to have my heart restored and and and we'll talk about how that happens at the end but i just want to like press on you if this is the moment in the sermon where you say okay i was i was tracking with you but now you're kind of talking about me i just want to encourage you that the cross paid for all of our sins all of them every single one of them and when we're faced with sin even sin that is as personal as this because some of you might be saying you don't know the scumbag i was married to you don't understand the situation i was in i'll say you're right but jesus does

and we can come to him and if we've made a mistake and we've we've done something that's sinful let us not shy away from our sin but rather press into repentance

when the divorce was not permissible remarriage results and adultery but the second point number six is if the divorce is permissible then remarriage is also permissible and that's a freedom and a grace of the lord how do we know that i want you to look at matthew 19 because again you've got to see these things in the text and i say to you whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery we're going to go toe geeky on grammar you guys remember eighth grade having to draw those weird little lines and triangles to connect sentences this would have been like an absolute gem for eighth grade english all right so he says i say to whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery that clause except for sexual morality qualifies both the first and the third clause you track with that so let me read this as if it was on our diagram and i say to you whoever divorces his wife except for sexual morality and marries another except for sexual immorality commits adultery you're tracking the grammatical flow how that's set up those qualifiers are showing us that if there's a permissible reason for divorce then it's a legitimate severing of the covenant the covenant's really severed you're not in sin you're free to remarry same thing when we get back and you're gonna see this in first corinthians chapter seven um i'm gonna spin back over there you can stay ready or you can follow me um in verse

verse 12. he says to the rest i say not i that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever she consents to live with him he should not divorce her right marriage intended to last if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he can sense to live with her she should not divorce him all right so for guys and girls for the unbelieving husband is made holy because his wife the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband otherwise your children would be unclean but as is they are holy but if the unbelieving partner separates let it be so in such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved that word enslaved is really important isn't it i'm saying is you're not you're not bound to this person the covenant's broken you have a permissible divorce you're no longer bound to that person you can go and be remarried now what i've just laid out to you this has been the majority view of the evangelical church for the last 400 500 years it's what we believe as a church these are our two exceptions that adultery and abandonment allows for remarriage now let's get to number seven and and this is where we're going to land the plane today and we'll spend the rest of our time here

simply divorced and remarried christians should stay as they are but also repent and be forgiven of their past sins and make whatever amends are necessary for me this is so personal because i think about i think about my dad you know he's one of my heroes and yet he struggled with this he had a divorce and it was a sinful divorce and he got remarried and god can still be the god of his marriage today god can still be the god of all of our marriages today but i can't be healed of my sin if i won't acknowledge what sin is and so that's the first thing we've got to do is say look if if i got divorced outside of these two exceptions i've sinned and if i've got re if i've gotten remarried since then i've committed adultery which means i need forgiveness and for that reason i just want to remind us where we are in mark in mark chapter 10 jesus's every single step is heading towards golgotha we talked about this two weeks ago in mark chapter eight that he has shifted his ministry he was healing healing preaching preaching and now he has turned his faith towards jerusalem why is that why is he going to jerusalem why did christ come to be with us here on earth because he had a purpose in fact you'll know it from john 3 16 that god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal everlasting life

church the first thing you've got to understand is that means that a sinful divorce is not the unpardonable sin and i know so many people so many who are hesitant to come back to church because they are walking in the shame of their either remarriage or the shame of their divorce and they think if i step foot in that place i'm either going to set fire that people are going to run me out because as soon as they figure out that i've done this thing they're gonna they're gonna drive me away and i just want to say to you like if this is you if you're sitting here this morning and you're just feeling the weight of like oh man like number seven's me you need to know you're not a you're not an anathema to us we don't see you as some lesser version of a christian like god paid for all of our sins with the death of his son jesus is going to the cross and he already knows you he already knows the mistakes that have been made against you and the mistakes you're gonna make and he knows and so here's here's what i want you to do i want you to not shy away from your own heart because remember jesus says it is because of the hardness of your heart that these concessions exist and that means there's a personal intimate absolute tough bone to chew because i'm part of it i'm part of the divorce and if it was a sinful divorce i'm part of it and i've got to repent of that in fact james 5 says it this way i love this because the new testament lays out that we can't earn our way to god we can't we've got to have christ but but christ doesn't want us to stay in just a broken wretched state he wants you to be healed he wants you to walk in holiness he wants you to walk in righteousness listen to this

and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and lord will raise him up and if he's committed sins he will be forgiven therefore confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed gosh i've got to confess i got to go to god i say god i i have so much resentment towards this person you don't even understand lord or or god i did such terrible things and it resulted in the in the dissolving of my marriage i'm walking in shame both of those have to be laid at the cross and we have to say jesus i need you to heal me i need you to show me the forgiveness so that i can show forgiveness because you know the parable you remember when jesus told apparel about the guy who'd like 50 million dollars to the king and the king forgave him and then he runs down the road chokes out this other servant he says give me my five grand back and the king tosses him out he says how do you exist in a kingdom where you've been forgiven so much but cannot forgive those who have wronged you this is the christian life

doesn't that take the power of the holy spirit you can't do that on your own you've got to have christ you've got to have him and there's forgiveness for you there's forgiveness for the knucklehead you divorce there's forgiveness for those who have been wrong there's forgiveness for parents who wrecked your childhood there's forgiveness at the cross it all is at the cross the cross of jesus christ it washes us clean

first john chapter one says if we confess our sins he is quick and faithful to forgive us that means you can have forgiveness today you don't have to earn your way back because of a sinful divorce you can ask for forgiveness and the next step man is if if you've sinned against someone and you're looking back at your past you say man i i i really messed it up lord there may be some phone calls or maybe some meetings on your horizon where you sit down and say i'm sorry i sinned against you i sin against the lord now if you're remarried paul is very clear in first corinthians chapter 7 uh you stay where you are you're not to divorce your new spouse uh and go try and get remarried you've already you've made a new covenant you've got to walk in that covenant in holiness and righteousness but you can't do that without the cross you can't do that without christ if you're single and you've been sinfully divorced you are you simply divorced the bible is going to call you to singleness and that might be the hardest commandment you hear today that christ wants you more than he wants you to be remarried but i want you to just wrestle with that with me for a second because if if your immediate response that is well hold on i deserve a good marriage i i what about me i'll say man christ died for you walk with christ don't lean into the i'll get remarried and ask for forgiveness later don't lean into that sin has consequences walk with christ and you know i probably should have said this at the very beginning but i understand that as many people as in this room there are different situations and that's why we have elders in the church that's why if you've got questions about what you're hearing today come talk to me come talk to pastor scott our offices are open all week long and we'll drop everything to have these conversations with you because you we want you to walk in holiness to experience the love and the joy of christ as we come to a close i want to talk to my singles in the room and it's it's one of the beautiful things about our church is that we are we're growing we've got young believers here we've got believers who've been walking with jesus for a long time but if you're single here today and yeah you haven't been married and you know all the married people in the room are thinking yeah yeah marriage is tough and you need forgiveness and this is this is good is to bring clarification for a young person i want you to hear something christ has to be your focus now or you're not going to stand up to the storms of marriage later in fact in matthew chapter 7 jesus tells this story he says a foolish man hears my words and ignores them and he's building his house on the sand and when the storm comes that house crashes to the ground but a wise man he hears the words of christ he says i'm going to reshape my whole life to follow jesus that means if i have to set up boundaries if i have to live differently if it costs me more money like i'm going to do what i have to do to follow jesus because i'm telling you if you don't care about jesus today and your spouse comes to you six seven eight years from now and says i've had an affair forgiveness won't even be on the table for you in fact you may find yourself just being generally unhappy and saying you know maybe i just married the wrong guy you're going to find every loophole you can to run from christ because christ is not the centerpiece right now and so that's my exhortation you single people is like you're in a moment of time where you are only where you only belong to christ use this time wisely to draw near to him and grow now let's end with this jesus is on his way to the cross we're getting through chapter 10. you can be forgiven i just want to end there because i'm a sinner you're a sinner we have sinned and we need grace we need christ would you pray with me

father i'm just i'm overwhelmed with my sin sometimes because it seems impossible how can i ever measure up to what you want me to do how can i live my life in a way that's obedient to christ and what we see over and over again lord is that you're gracious to forgive us when we confess our sins that's my prayer lord this morning and that you would bring healing in this room that people would be given the power and the courage to forgive those who have wronged them and to ask for forgiveness where they have wronged others now we ask you to empower that obedience that's something that only your holy spirit can do romans 8 says if we put to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit will live would you do that for us this morning lord

and god if we're full of questions if we're like man my story didn't get talked about this morning lord would you just give us the courage to come and talk to the pastors talk to an elder so that like when ephesians 4 says that you've given us the pastor and the shepherd so that we can equip people for ministry would you give people courage to not stay in the dark but come and and process and talk and pray and lord we pray over our young people in this church especially those who haven't yet been married would you lay a foundation that is firm for them would you draw their hearts to you to obedience let them dive into your word and let them fall deeply in love with your son lord jesus we love you we cannot do this without you it's in your my name we pray amen hi i'm pastor scott pastor of the oasis church listen we are so excited that you decide to join us for the preaching and teaching of god's word we just pray that this will stir your affections towards christ but we have one encouragement we want to leave you with please do not allow this to take the place of the local body of believers we pray that you will be involved in a local congregation a local church that you can find yourself submitting under the eldership and the leadership of a local church we pray that you will find yourself stirred towards christ and that your joy in christ will be ever

increasing you