He is Good | Marriage & Divorce | Mark 10:1-12 | Coleton Segars

We're in a series titled He is Good, going through Mark's Gospel and just going bit by bit.

And sometimes when you're going through Mark's Gospel, the text just aligns really well with the day.

This is not one of those days the text does not align as well as I would love for it to align with this particular day.

But we're just gonna, he is perfect in all of his ways.

And so we're just gonna really lean into that.

But this is Mark 10, starting in verse 1, going uh all the way to verse 12.

But this is what Mark writes.

He says, Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan.

Again the crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

And some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

What did Moses command you?

He replied.

And I said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.

Well, it was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law, Jesus replied.

But at the beginning of the creation, of creation, God made them male and female, and for this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

So they're no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

And when they, the disciples, were in the house again, they asked him, they asked Jesus about this, and he answered, Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

This is the word of the Lord.

You know how people have these inside jokes where they're like, remember that time we like, you know, ran out of gas on the interstate and you know, because we were acting dumb or whatever.

Remember that time?

Well, this is gonna be one of those times, like, remember that time Colton preached on divorce on Father's Day?

And that was the dumbest thing anyone's ever done.

That's what this feels like.

But it is it is the next text.

That is what's what's happening.

And so this is just the text that we have today.

It's not like I'm noticing something in the life of the church, and it's like, let me align Mark 10 with what I see happening in the life of our church.

It's just what's next.

And um, so I wanted to start by uh saying uh there's this quote by uh Soren Kierkegaard, whom I've never read, but I love this quote.

Um, and so I don't want to sound smarter than I actually am.

But he says, he has this quote that says, Everything essentially Christian needs to be presented in a way similar to the way a physician speaks to someone on their sickbed.

And so any Christian truth that you speak, any Christian doctrine that you talk about should be presented to people in such a way that it looks like and sounds like the way a doctor would be talking to someone who's sick on their sick bed.

And so you might have to say very hard things about things that are going on in that person's life, but you should do that with a lot of care, a lot of compassion, a lot of mercy, a lot of understanding where this person is coming from.

And you don't know everything that's going on in their background, but you're you're trying to say some things, but you need to say them in a way that is similar to someone who's speaking to someone on their sick bed.

And so, as much as it concerns me today, I want to try and do that.

I want to talk about some challenging things in a way that uh is caring and compassionate and loving and not condemning or you know, anything like that.

Um, so I want to try and do that today because divorce is just a tough topic.

Uh, talking about divorce is a tough topic.

I was trying to think of another passage that is as personal or has as as personal a take as this one does.

Because people have this personal experience with divorce that's normally wrapped into pain and and a background of conflict and things that like not everybody can fully understand, and things you try to get other people to understand, and they can't ever fully understand it.

And so there's rarely a verse that you can find in the scriptures that's more personal than this one.

And so it's it's a topic that is that is very difficult.

Everyone has been affected by divorce in some way.

You either have been divorced, you have grown up in families that are divorced, or you know someone who's gotten divorced.

Everyone has experienced this to some extent.

And if you've missed out on all of that, I don't know how that's possible, but most people have been exposed to this in some particular way, and it's affected areas of our lives.

And so, what I want to do today, on Father's Day, is I want to give you some background on the divorce discussion that's actually taking place in this particular time.

Just like here's what's going on in their space in Jesus' time.

I want to give you two harder things that Jesus says about marriage.

Um, and then I want to give some application based on those harder things that Jesus says.

And then lastly, I want to give you Pastor Tommy's email address just in case you have any issue with anything that I say today.

You're gonna want to talk to Pastor Tommy.

I gave up email for Lint, and for me it's still going.

We're just I don't have one.

Um that's a joke.

You can email me.

I'll be in Mexico next week.

Okay.

All right.

Here's the background on divorce.

Hey, that's the only levity we have moving forward, just FYI.

If you laughed, I'm thankful that's all we got.

Next, we're going okay.

Um, background on divorce.

This is the first thing.

Uh the Pharisees are asking this question to trap Jesus.

They don't even ask this because they actually want to know.

They're trying to trap him.

And so I don't know if you've ever done that.

You're trying to get somebody, my kid does this terraining me a lot, like trying to ask us a question can I get can I get one Oreo?

And if we say yes to one Oreo, he's like, Can I have two?

If we say yes to two, he's like, Can I have three?

If until we stop saying yes, he's gonna keep asking for it.

So it's a trap, really, to see how much he can get.

Well, the Pharisees are doing something similar in this space.

They're trying to trap Jesus into a thing.

They want to get him either to disagree with what the Mosaic law says so that they can accuse him, or they're in this space where Herod is ruling and reigning, and so if they can, the last time someone mentioned something about divorce was John the Baptist, he had his head chopped off, and so they're hoping that Jesus steps into that particular space as well and has the same fate.

And so they're trying to trap him on one way or the other.

But the conversation is around is divorce lawful?

And the reason the conversation is around that, the reason they asked that question, isn't it?

It is to trap him, but it's it's centered around the law of Moses and what he says in Deuteronomy 24.

And so, next slide here.

Moses wrote this about, and this is what the conversation centers around.

Now when a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of the house.

And so that's that's part, that's that's verse one of a longer strand of things, but this is what Moses writes in Deuteronomy 24.

And there was all of this debate over what the term uncleanness meant.

And so if you find something in your wife that's unclean, uh you are you're able to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away.

And so there was all this conversation and debate over what uncleanness meant.

Now, there are two schools of thought.

Rabbi Shemai, this is David Guzick, he says this Rabbi Shemai said that uncleanness meant sexual immorality and said that was the only valid reason for divorce.

But Rabbi Hillel understood uncleanness to mean any sort of discretion, even to the point of burning the breakfast being valid grounds for divorce.

We're all out.

It's all done.

Uh William Barclay picks up on Rabbi Hillel and says this Rabbi Hillel said that the term uncleanness could mean if the wife spoiled a dish of food, if she spun in the streets, literally if she twirled, uh, if she talked to a strange man, if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband's relatives in his hearing, good Lord.

If she was a loud woman who was defined as a woman whose voice could be heard in the next house.

Just that's it, certificate of divorce.

You're too loud.

Um Rabbi Akiva, who was a Hillelite, he followed Rabbi Hillel, uh, even went to the length of saying that the term uncleanness could mean if a man found a woman who was fairer in his eyes than his wife, if you found somebody that was just a little more beautiful, you're free.

That's the uncleanness.

She's not as clean as that woman is, and so you can drop her like a bad habit.

And so uh what happened in this debate, what happened in this this whole thing, uh, was that people began focusing on when can I get divorced versus focusing on what is the true purpose of marriage?

And so it began, it began to become this question where their focus was really the wrong question.

They're asking the wrong question to Jesus, and Jesus actually responds to that because it's like, when can I get a divorce?

And he's like, that's never, that was never supposed to be the question that you were all asking.

None of y'all are asking, what is the what is marriage supposed to be?

What is the original vision of marriage and all this stuff?

They're not asking that question.

And so as they focused on a lesser question, what happened in their society was they lowered the sacredness of marriage itself.

And so people were getting married at this time, not because they were trying to honor God's plan and design for marriage, they were getting married for financial gain, or they were getting married for uh pleasure, or because it was just like a good family decision.

It was gonna make their families stronger, or it was gonna lead to some historical conflict that they had in the past, and now it's gonna be this space where they actually reconcile this huge conflict in the past, and it's like, yeah, marriage wasn't really meant to do all of that.

There was an original purpose for marriage, but this wasn't it.

And so people were getting married for the wrong reasons, and then they were going, look, you can get out of it whenever you want.

Like if you don't like it, like just figure out a way to get out of it.

Just, just, you know, just don't worry about it.

And so there was really, at this time, there was no commitment level really at all, because if the marriage serves you, stay married.

If the marriage doesn't serve you anymore, just get out of it.

It doesn't really matter.

And so that idea and that space is what Jesus is actually addressing.

If you think like it's not that big of a deal, then you can just get out of it.

He's like, I'm, I want to, I want to, I don't want to talk about divorce.

And Jesus doesn't really talk about divorce, he talks about the original vision of marriage.

And so that's the space that Jesus then begins addressing.

Two things that he says.

The first thing that he says to them in this space is that there isn't a godly reason to get divorced.

There is no godly reason to get divorced.

Verse 4, they said Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.

And Jesus says, it was because of your hearts and how hard they were that Moses wrote you this law.

And so what Jesus is saying is divorce wasn't an actual command.

Y'all have taken this as a command, it was a permission that now you're saying, I'm I've been commanded by God to go and get a divorce if I find something unclean in her.

And he's like, This was never a command of God.

It was permitted by God, but divorce was never commanded.

It was allowed under certain circumstances, divorce was allowed.

But God don't think that God was ever thrilled or is ever thrilled about anyone who gets a divorce, even regardless of the reason.

Even if the reason is, even if it is allowable to then consider that God must be pleased with this, it's like, no, no, no, he's not thrilled with this because this wasn't the original intention.

There is never a godly reason to get divorced.

No one is acting godly by divorcing their spouse, and the reason is because God wouldn't act that way.

He is the perfect husband who took a bride and will be faithful to the bride even when the bride is faithless.

This is what Paul says in 2 Timothy 2.

He says, even if we are faithless, he remains faithful.

And so we're not acting like God when anyone gets a divorce, because he would never do that.

Even when we give him reason to divorce us, he's like, still, I'm gonna stick with it.

I'm gonna stick with you to the end.

And so there's never a godly reason to get divorced.

There's an allowable reason.

There are allowable reasons, but there's never a godly reason.

Divorce is not something that God ever wants to see happen.

It is either divorce is either sin, if done for the wrong reasons, or it's allowed if done under certain circumstances, namely marital unfaithfulness, or in 1 Corinthians 7, the desertion of a pagan spouse to a Christian.

And so God is never going to cheer on a divorce.

He may not call it sin, but he's never gonna celebrate it as righteousness.

It's a hard thing that Jesus says, but he's just going, look, I can't say that there's a godly reason for it because God would never act that way.

I can't say that there's a Jesus way for it because I have married my bride, the church, and I will never divorce my bride, the church, regardless of how faithless she is.

Even though they give me all the reasons in the world, I'm never gonna do that.

And so for them, Jesus is saying, look, y'all are spending a lot of time talking about divorce.

You're spending a ton of time debating about divorce, you're focused on the wrong thing.

You need to know, and he's telling them, you need to know.

Divorce is never something God wanted in marriage.

You're asking the wrong question.

Divorce is never something God wanted for marriage.

And the reason is, and then Jesus gives his second thing that he says about marriage.

The reason is that marriage is something that God created.

It was a union that God created to be a permanent union between a male and a female.

And so he gives, he's like, divorce should is never something that God wanted because this is a created thing that God actually made himself.

And so because he's the creator of it and the maker of it, he gets to decide what it's actually supposed to be used for in the same way that if you ever started a business and then you, you know, your business is supposed to function this way, and then somebody else comes and works for you, and they're like, you know, I think I'm gonna do this business a little bit differently.

And you're like, no, no, no, I made this.

And so you're gonna function inside of this thing that I made in the way that I created it.

And so Jesus says the reason that divorce is never something God wanted is because he actually created it to be a permanent union.

And so he says this in verse six, starting in verse six, he says, But at the beginning, uh at the beginning of the creation, God made them in perfection.

Like this is there's no sin as under the world.

God made them male and female.

For this reason, a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

They're no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, God joined it together and made this thing together, let no one separate.

And so Jesus is saying, this is what marriage was made for, the original design, God's will and design for marriage is that if you get married, you go into it with the knowledge and the desire and the commitment that I'm never going to separate.

This thing is unseparable, inseparable.

It's never gonna separate.

And so for them, again, Jesus is saying, look, if you're just doing this for financial reasons, if you're if your view of marriage is like, this is gonna make my family stronger, this is just, this is really just to let some pleasure out and to get some pleasure, he's like, I'm just letting you know that's the wrong reason to move into marriage because marriage is permanent.

Like to just to go into it for financial reasons, that's the wrong reason to go into it.

We should go into marriage with this elevated view of what it was originally created for.

When anyone gets married, they're stewarding something that God created.

You're holding a created thing.

This isn't something you just decided, this is something that He has created that you get now to be responsible for.

And so if you don't think that you can handle what it was originally created for, he's just saying, don't do it.

If you can't come under what I actually made this for, don't do it.

And so God originally designed, this is what Jesus is saying, God originally designed marriage to be permanent.

And so those are the two things that he says.

There's no godly reason for divorce, there's an allowable reason, but there's no godly reason for divorce because it was created to be permanent and to be a permanent union.

And so that's how he wants us to think about marriage.

Think about it as permanent.

If you are married or going to get married, think about it in terms of like this is gonna be a permanent, you are stuck with that bro or that girl.

Like you are stuck.

Think about it as permanent.

And some would say, yes, but there's an allowable reason, right?

There's an allowable reason to get divorced.

Yes, there is an allowable reason if that person cheats on you.

But because no one goes into their marriage going, I hope they cheat on me, like no one marries someone hoping to get out of the marriage, no one marries someone hoping that that person is unfaithful to them or deserts them.

No one would, you would never want to marry that person.

You'd want to filter those people out.

And so because you'd never choose to marry anybody that would ever do those things to you, I realize it happens, but you your your intention isn't to marry someone like that.

And Jesus is saying, because, yes, it is allowable to get out of it that way, but because you'd never try and marry someone that way that would do that to you, your primary thought of it should always be, this is permanent.

I am moving into a permanent situation.

And so what Jesus is trying to do is he is trying to raise the standard for marriage.

He is like upholding this thing that God created, and he's elevating it to a point and trying to elevate it so far that some people would say, like, hey, I don't, that's so elevated, like, I don't know that I can handle that.

Like, I don't know if I can commit to the permanence of that.

And Jesus is trying to do that.

He's trying to lift it up in people's eyes to go, like, man, that's what it requires.

I don't know if I can do that.

And he would go, Great, you don't have to.

Marriage is an option.

It's a gift, but it's an option.

You don't have to step into this thing.

But you do need to know what you're getting into.

And what he's trying to do is save people from the pain of entering into something that they're just genuinely not ready to carry.

Like they just don't understand what they're moving into, and so they don't have the ability to actually do it.

And he's like, I want you to understand you're moving into something that has so much weight that it could crush you if you're not ready for it.

In the same way that like if somebody was like, I'm I'm going into war, and then you were shocked that they started shooting at you.

And you're like, Well, what were you, what'd you think you were going into?

Like, well, I didn't know they were gonna start shooting at me.

I was like, you went into war.

I'm not saying that marriage is war, although.

Um, but like if you didn't know what you were getting yourself into by going into war, you might be confused that people start shooting at you, that it got difficult.

And so, in the same way, Jesus is going, you need to understand what you're about to go into.

This is permanent.

You are going to be stuck in this space.

You need to know that it's permanent.

And so he wants us to think of marriage as permanent.

And the applications for this are really two things.

But if we really did believe and like walked into marriage believing that it's permanent, two things that it would do.

The first is if you were single and you believed, like I'm I'm living like it's permanent, uh, what it would do, it would cause you to be very careful about who you choose to marry and who you choose to move into marriage with.

So if you really lived like it's permanent, you would be, you would go very slow and you'd be super picky about who you marry.

Because if Jesus, I mean, just imagine if Jesus said this exact all this stuff, if he said this exact same thing about the house that you purchase, like you get one house and it's forever.

And you can only leave it when you die.

Like this is the house you're gonna live in forever.

And so, uh, and the only way to actually get out of it is either death or if it falls in on you and crushes you.

And since you don't want to buy a house that falls in on you and crushes you, this house is permanent.

If Jesus said these exact same things, you only get one house and you have to live in it forever.

What we would do is we'd be super picky about the house.

Like, this is the only one I get.

And so you would walk through this space of being very picky.

You wouldn't get the first house that you see.

You wouldn't get a house because it looked pretty or looked cute or was great on Instagram.

Like you wouldn't, you that's not why you would get a house.

Like you would go through this process of like you'd have inspections on the inside, you'd check the foundation of the house, the plumbing, the roof.

If this house is the one house that you get, you'd talk to realtors, you'd have your family check it out, you'd have your friends check it out, you'd think about it in terms of space and rooms, you would consider the house and your future in the house.

Does it have enough room for are you gonna have kids?

And you'd think about the kids in the house.

You think about holidays in the house and how that's gonna go, and can it fit your family?

You think about a yard, you think about, I mean, if you get one house, you would start thinking about not just moving into it right then, but you'd think about the entire life and what life would be like with that particular house.

And you would do so much work to make sure that you find the right one that would match you for your life.

And yet in marriage, people are like, I don't know, you're cute, I'm cute, let's move forward.

And like we just roll in sometimes into these things, and it's like, let's just get married.

I'm getting older.

Like, it's like that is not a reason to move into something that's permanent.

And so there's this space, Jesus wants us to be cautiously picky the way that we would with anything.

For some, like I talk to couples, and they're more picky about their jobs and about where they live and those things about than who they marry.

And I'm like, one of those is real, supposed to be permanent, and the other one is like, get a new job, whatever.

But Jesus wants us to think about it like it is permanent, and so be very careful.

I think our culture has made an idol out of marriage and has held it up as something that everyone must do.

You must get married, or you won't have a complete life, and that's a lie.

Like, none of that's real.

Your wife will not complete you, your husband will not complete you.

If that's what you're looking for, I bet you're unhappy.

Like it won't happen.

They cannot do that.

Those expectations that like you have to get married and you got to get married at this age, otherwise, da-da-da-da.

Like, those are cultural expectations that Jesus never places on anybody.

Because he understands, like, if you're going slow and you're taking your time, or life is just forcing you to take your time, he's thrilled with that.

That means you understand the weight of this thing that you're about to walk into.

You're not rushing into something that's permanent.

You actually do understand, hey, you're thinking about this as permanent.

And so what Jesus says about marriage should give us, if we are single, or if when we were single, it should have given us a healthy respect and a caution for who we enter into marriage with.

The disciples actually say this in Matthew's version of this particular scenario.

The disciples actually say this to Jesus about this.

When they hear Jesus' teaching and what he says about marriage, this is what they say in Matthew 19, verse 10.

Matthew 19:10

They say, if this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it's better not to marry.

And it's like those guys are listening.

And be like, wait, it's permanent?

Like, okay, no, I don't know.

I don't know that I can take that.

Like, I don't know that I should move into that thing.

I didn't realize that that was the teaching on marriage.

Like, I don't know that it's better for nobody to get married.

And Jesus says, like, well, yeah, kind of.

Not everyone can accept this, but only those to whom it's been given.

And then he talks about single people.

And he says, there are some who abstain from marriage because they're born that way.

And there are some who don't marry or who have been made not to marry by others.

And then there are others who choose to abstain from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

But the one who can accept God's design for marriage, the one who can accept this, should accept it.

And so if you can accept the weight and the of and the permanence of marriage and what it is, and you can move into that and go, like, no, I understand what I'm getting myself into.

And he's like, then accept it.

But some people can't.

Some people see the permanence of marriage and it scares them.

And it's like, that's okay.

It's okay that it scares you.

Just don't move into something that you're not ready for.

And the disciples really understood that.

And so the idea is if you can remain single, then that might be better for you and the kingdom.

And Paul actually said that better for you to remain single than move into something that you're not ready for.

If you're single and dating, I would have just encouraged you, and Jesus would too.

The fact that it's permanent should make you to be cautiously picky.

Do not get married out of fear of not being married.

The bad reason.

I'm just scared, I'm not going to find anybody else.

This guy's a bum.

But he's better than singleness.

I can promise you that's not true.

Like move forward in that 10 years, and you'll be like, I think singleness was better.

Don't settle for someone out of being impatient.

Have high standards because Jesus has high standards.

If you see red flags, do not move past those red flags.

Talk about them, bring them up, work through them, walk away from that person.

If they're not willing to deal with those red flags, those red flags will not go away on their own and they won't go away when you get married.

They will, if anything, they'll get worse and they'll compound.

And then one red flag will all of a sudden you're on a beach with waves and the flags are flying.

It's just terrible.

Don't do that.

Don't rush.

Don't rush because marriage is permanent.

And if we really did take Jesus' words, like this is a permanent union, this is forever.

It would cause us to be slow and to go slow and to be very picky and to not be like religiously legalistic or something over someone, but it would be the space is like, I really need to make sure that the person I choose, I genuinely do want to spend the rest of my life with you.

And I really think that you want to do that with me, and then you're willing to do the work that it takes to actually make this thing work and stick together.

And then the second thing that Jesus, that if Jesus says, like, this is permanent, what it should do for us is for those of us who are married, the fact that Jesus says this is permanent would lead us and should make us put every effort, all of our effort into trying to stay together.

Put all of your effort into trying to stay together, put all of your effort into trying to make your marriage great.

And that's really what Jesus is getting to in verses 10, 11, and 12.

And so in verse 10 through 12, the disciples go into the house and they ask him about his what he just said about marriage, and Jesus answers them, Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

Most people read these verses and think that Jesus is just calling divorce sinful, and he is calling some divorce sinful, but that's not the main thing that he's doing here.

What Jesus is mainly doing here is he is explaining something in their culture that they did not understand.

He is correcting a practice of divorce that they thought was okay.

They have this practice of divorce that they think is like this is completely fine, and he is correcting an idea that they have.

And so, follow me for just a second.

These people lived in a culture where no one wanted to be guilty of adultery.

Do you know why?

Because you get stoned if you commit adultery and no one wants to get hit with rocks today.

Like that's not what they wanted to do.

And so they lived in this culture where to avoid adultery was very important to them because they don't want to be stoned.

They don't want that to happen.

So they really did not want to be found guilty of committing adultery.

So that's one thing.

But then they have this practice of divorce that they believe is fine and this is okay.

God's okay with it, and so this is fine.

So they have a practice, and then they have this, I really don't want to commit adultery.

And so instead of staying inside their marriages and trying to have great marriages, they would just leave, and that's their practice, okay?

And they thought, this is my practice of divorce, I'm not committing adultery, so I'm not going to be stoned.

Good, good.

Everybody's good.

Um, and so it doesn't matter.

But Jesus is saying, hey, actually, this practice that you have that you think is fine, it actually is sinful.

This actually is committing adultery.

And so he says it, he says it better in Matthew 19, but um, or at least more full.

He says, if you divorce them for any other reason than sexual infidelity, you're committing adultery.

And so he's letting them know, like, you're just you just like, she burned my food, that woman's prettier, whatever.

Like, this practice that you have, you are actively committing adultery, and you don't want to do that.

I know you don't want to do that.

And so I'm just letting you know that is actually sinful.

But then even beyond that, they would find these loopholes.

Jesus says, I believe it's in uh verse 11, anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

They had this practice of divorce where it was like, hey, if you um if you are married to a woman and um in their culture, uh you could only sin against men.

That was the only, they could only you could only sin against men.

So if you're if you are a man, single man, married man, whatever, and you sleep with somebody else's wife, you didn't commit adultery uh against the woman, you committed adultery against that woman's husband.

You committed adultery against the man.

Or if your wife slept with somebody else, that woman committed adultery against you, the man.

But there was never you can commit adultery against the woman.

And so what would happen is these men found these loopholes and was like, there's a single woman who's not married to anyone.

Um I don't really like you that much, um, wife.

And so I'm gonna sleep with her and marry her, and because I can't sin against you, I'm not committing adultery.

And so they were just, you know, here's a certificate of divorce, goodbye.

I'm gonna marry and sleep with this other single woman, and because she's not connected to anyone, I'm not committing adultery against a man because I can't commit adultery against a woman.

And Jesus is going, that's adultery.

You actually can commit adultery against women, it actually can happen.

And so he is actually elevating the status of women in this particular text, but he's also letting them know you trying to find loopholes around not committing adultery, you actually are committing adultery.

So he's correcting a practice and doing those things.

And these men, these people, do not want to commit adultery because they don't want to be stoned.

And so what it would lead them to is well, I don't, this is adultery.

I didn't know that.

I don't want to commit adultery, so what should I do?

And the answer is stay in your marriage and make it great.

That's the only other answer.

Stick with this thing.

Like, well, she burns my food, figure it out.

Like, it just it's fine.

That woman's prettier than me.

I wouldn't say that to her.

She's that's maybe that's why she's burning your food.

Like, I just do whatever it takes.

Jesus is correcting something.

And he's like, look, y'all are looking for ways out of your marriage instead of looking for ways to stay in your marriages.

And so instead of looking and making it your primary aim to find a way out of your marriage, make it your primary aim to figure out how to make a great marriage happen so that you enjoy your marriage.

Instead of looking for ways out, look for ways to stay together, look for ways to make it great.

And the same is true for us.

If we are married, because marriage is permanent, we need to put all of our effort in making marriage, our marriage, as good as it can possibly be.

And I've only been at this church for almost two years, and so it has not been my primary experience here.

But one of the hardest things over 19 years of ministry is talking to couples in their marriages, struggling in their marriages, and telling them, would you please go do some work in counseling?

Would you please go work on your marriage?

Would you please do something to go work on it to make it great?

And I normally hear one of two things, most of the time I hear them both.

I normally hear them, we don't have enough money to go to counseling.

We don't have enough money to go to counseling.

We would, but we don't have enough money to go to counseling.

And you know what's shocking?

It's a couple months later, maybe a couple years later, I see those same couples going in debt over their divorce.

And I'm like, oh, look at that, you found the money.

Huh.

So you you you're paying thousands of dollars to lawyers, thousands of dollars in mediation, thousands of dollars in this thing.

Somehow you found the money to break up your marriage.

You didn't, you just couldn't find the money to save your marriage.

That's really interesting to me.

Somehow you're willing to go in debt to break your marriage vows, but you're not going, you're not willing to go into debt to save your marriage vows.

And it frustrates me.

Whoo, I get mad.

Sick bed, sick bed, okay.

But then the same thing happens with time.

I we just don't have the time.

Anyone who's been divorced knows how much time do you spend in the lawyer's office?

How much time do you spend on the phone?

How much time do you spend in mediation?

How much time?

How much time?

How much time?

I don't have enough time to go to counseling.

I don't have enough time.

Where am I gonna fit it in?

It's like somehow you fit in the time to rip your marriage apart and to allow somebody else to divide your money, your assets, and where your kids go on the weekends.

But you couldn't find the money to just sit in an office and battle it out and make it great.

Somehow in divorce, people find the time and the money.

But when it comes to keeping their marriage and making their marriage great, they somehow don't have the time and the money.

People are willing, and actually, people are forced to put in so much time and energy and money into a divorce.

You're forced to, you have to.

And I wonder sometimes, and I know it's not always true because everybody has a different background and a different story, but I wonder if if the time, energy, and money that you're forced to put into your divorce, if you just put half of that into actually trying to work on your marriage, I wonder at times if you would still be married and actually have a great marriage.

You're forced to put in so much time, energy, and money.

And I just wonder if you took just some of that and put it in.

And I'm not saying that you're like, some of you could be sitting there and be like, I did work on mine.

And I'm like, and again, I know, I well, the truth is I don't know.

But in my experience over 19 years of ministry, I've seen these things take shape in a way that's just discouraging.

And I think Jesus is too just going, because it's permanent.

Don't look for loopholes to find a way out.

Look for a space to actually make it work.

Make every effort to make your marriage great.

Don't work harder on your divorce than you are willing to work on your actual marriage.

Because you will be forced to work very, very hard on your divorce.

Marriage is permanent, so make every effort to make your marriage great.

We do this with our own bodies.

We know this is the body that we have, it's permanent.

And so whenever it's sick, we don't go, I'm going to get a new one.

See you guys.

Like you don't do that because this body is permanent.

When your body is sick, you try and heal it.

You stick with it, but you do want to heal it.

We do the same thing.

This body isn't functioning the way that I want it to.

You don't ditch it for a new body because you can't.

You know, this is all, this is what I got.

And so we know if it's not working for us the way that we want to, we work on this body to make it work better.

Like that's what we do because we know that it's permanent.

And that's how we should function if we are married.

And Jesus actually says that about marriage.

The two of you have become one flesh.

And so just as your body is permanent and you can't discard it and get a new one, you have to work on it.

You have to heal it.

Work on your marriage because it's one flesh, and try and heal your marriage because it's one flesh.

Treat it the exact same way.

Treat it as permanent as your body is.

Okay, Jesus says there's no godly reason for divorce.

There's an allowable reason, but you're never acting like God when you get a divorce because he would never divorce us.

No godly reason for divorce because God's original design was for marriage to be permanent and to be a gift to us in this permanence, to be sanctifying to us, to where we have to work on it, and it does something in us and it shapes us and it makes us better than who we were before.

But it's supposed to be permanent.

So we should go slow and be cautiously picky about who we marry.

Go slow for you if you are single, go slow, be cautiously picky, or remain single.

What a gift that could be in this space.

But if you are married, you should put all of your effort and to do whatever it takes to make your marriage what God intended it to be, this permanent, a beautiful, permanent union.

And Paul would say that your marriage has this ability to be an evangelistic message out into the world, that the way that a husband lays down his life for his wife, the way that a wife submits to the leadership of the husband, the way that she does to Christ, like when that is functioning well, he says this is the way that Christ loves the church.

And it becomes a way that people can see what God is like and what Jesus is like just by watching our marriages.

And so one of the best evangelistic tools I have with my lost friends and my family, or to Teddy, is just the way that I interact with Rainey, the way that Rainey interacts with me.

And so in this space, it's supposed to be the thing where we get to experience God's love for us in a new way, but it's also a space where other people can see.

Does God love me as much as your husband loves you?

Does God respect me the way that you, the way that you respect your husband?

It's like, man, and ten times more and a thousand times more.

But they're able to see God's love through our marriage.

Okay, I want to finish with this.

I don't just honest.

I kind of don't know where you're at.

I don't know how this hits you.

I have no idea.

And I I I mean, if you want to chat, I'd love to chat.

Um but um I just I want to finish with this.

Paul writes this in Romans 3.

He says that God's righteousness is given through faith to all who believe in Jesus.

He says, for all have sinned, all have sinned, and all have fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus.

Because God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood.

I love that passage.

So if your marriage, if you've been married, if your marriage has ended in a divorce in a way that Jesus would say, that was a sinful divorce, remember, you are not alone in that.

You're not the only sinner in the room.

And that's not your only sin in your life.

Paul says, all have sinned in many ways, and all of us fall short of the glory of God.

But then in the same breath, without breaking rhythm, he says, But we are all, we are justified, we are made right.

God sees us correctly, He sees us as righteous freely by his grace through his death on the cross.

And so he does not hold any sins against us to those who believe in him by faith.

This means that I will not be judged for my sins, and you will not be judged for your sins if we are in Christ.

I will be judged by his perfect, righteous life, and so will you.

You will not be judged by the imperfection of your marriage, you will be judged by the perfection of his marriage and how perfect and faithful he is inside his marriage.

And in his marriage to the church, he is flawless.

And so now we are been, we have been given his flawlessness, that our sin no longer doesn't condemn us, but it also doesn't define us.

He doesn't look at us and constantly go like divorced, divorced, divorced.

He doesn't do that because we will be judged according to his righteousness and not our righteousness.

Okay that's it.

I love you guys.

Um, I think you're great so much, and um, I that's that's really all.

But um, yeah.

There's a reason I think that Jesus says uh our all of heaven cries out to him, all hail King Jesus, all hail King Jesus.

There's just no one who's ever treated us as kindly as he does, and he does not hold our sins against us, and so what a gift.

Um let me pray.

Father, thank you for your word.

Um thank you that you have uh a vision of something that is challenging and difficult and in many ways impossible to live up to.

Um and so, in order to make it possible for us, uh, you were willing to give your life so that we wouldn't be judged by our undoings, our wrongdoings, our sins, our rebellion, but we would be judged by your righteousness to those who know you and love you and have chosen to call you their Lord and Savior.

And so, Lord, thank you uh for that.

I pray that you would encourage us, uh those who are single uh and those who are married, God, that you would encourage us in each of our spaces to go cautiously, slowly, be picky, but then also to put more effort not in trying to find a way out, but a more effort and trying to keep our way in and make a thing great that should be great.

Could you help us with that in Jesus' name?

Amen.