Well, it’s good to be back. First, I want to thank all of you for the prayers, meals, and messages after I had my heart attack. A highlight for me was when Jen brought all the get well cards the children made me. One card was addressed “To: You, From: Me.” Thank you ‘me.’ One of the kids simply wrote, “I hope you don’t die.” Me too. He’s just saying what we’re all thinking. 

I had a very difficult decision last week when I started looking at this sermon. As we jump back into Matthew, as we do from January to Easter, we pick up where we left off last Easter and it’s Jesus’ teaching on divorce. After a near death experience, I can honestly say that divorce is not on my top 100 things I would choose to teach on my week back. And while I feel the freedom to go a different direction, I chose to stick with what we had planned. My decision was four-fold…

First, many of you know that Angela and I are heavily invested in the ministry of Family Life. We speak at their Weekend to Remember marriage getaways. We believe deeply that marriage between a man and a woman for life is a part of God’s design for most people and we want to help equip marriages to thrive so divorce is less likely to happen. We also believe that the struggles in marriage are a great door through which to bring the gospel to many couples. That’s first. 

Second, in the study we did on dechurching, we could see that becoming a single parent, however that happens, has created very difficult circumstances for millions of American churchgoers and caused them to stop attending church. This happens when people have to work longer hours or unusual hours to make ends meet. Custody issues can change Sunday rhythms. It also causes people to doubt God’s goodness and existence if the situation gets difficult enough. 

Thirdly, I believe that American Christianity in many spaces has made two grave mistakes. We have elevated marriage as the end all for individuals as if no one is really a complete whole person if they aren’t married. When we elevate marriage in this way, we functionally make it a right and it shouldn’t surprise us now that the rest of the country is talking about marriage in terms of their rights. The other mistake we have made is to elevate divorce as some other level of sin alienating and isolating people often when they need us the most. When we do this, we are not only misreading the Bible, we are misreading the context God has placed us in. 

Fourth, Those of you in this room who are on your first marriage and the man is or was the primary breadwinner, do you know what percentage of our society you represent? 8%. You make up 8% of the US. And do you know what year that statistic came out? 1991. No one has done that research since then. Most experts guess that now, you would make up somewhere between 2-3% of the US. 

So, what do we do with that information? Well, we can see that we don’t live in 1950 anymore and some of that is really a good thing. Some of that isn’t a good thing. But, 95% of the churches in America are just woefully behind in their ability to understand and resource those in our community today. We minimize the complexities of families that juggle two sets of parents, 2-4 combinations of kids, two homes, biological siblings, step siblings, half siblings, and maybe eight sets of grandparents. 

The conversation of divorce and remarriage in the church is so often handled in an academic way as if all this is happening in a vacuum or if there are divorces, they are happening in some far off place. What should be very clear to all of us is that divorce is messy, it’s serious, but in extreme cases, it’s necessary. So, we as Christians need to continue to remind ourselves, our kids, our friends and really anyone willing to listen that marriage and divorce are both very serious things. So, this morning, I want to look at God's plan for marriage, the seriousness of divorce, and the call of singleness.

1. God’s plan for marriage

There are lots of institutions we can tinker with. We can tinker with schools, we can tinker with business, we can and certainly should tinker with government. We can tinker with them because we made them. We designed them. But that’s not true of marriage. 

This is Jesus’ point. And there is a lot of context that needs to be understood to appreciate what Jesus is doing. Jesus is talking to Pharisees. In Jesus’ day, you had two sides to this debate. The Hillel and the Shamai. The Hillel Jews were more liberal and the Shamai were more conservative. The Hillel Jews, to whom Jesus is speaking, made up all kinds of crazy reasons they could divorce their wives. Their “legitimate” reasons to divorce included things like if the woman disrespects the man, if she disrespects his parents, if she is quarrelsome in nature, or even if she spoils the dinner or burns the bread. 

So, you can see that Jesus is speaking to people who have a flippant view of marriage and a truly abusive posture toward women. So, don’t let Jesus’ harsh tone rub you the wrong way. I have no doubt that if Jesus were talking to a wounded, recently divorced woman, He would have a much more compassionate tone. Much more like he did for the woman at the well. 

These Jews ask Jesus this question: "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" - Matthew 19:3 They are testing Him by asking if he is ok with this ‘any cause’ divorce or if He is one of the Shamai. Their hope is that by taking a side, Jesus will alienate some part of Jewish society. And what does Jesus say? Have you not read… Jesus is appealing to Genesis.  t“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, u‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and vthe two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh.wWhat therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” - Matt 19:4-6 Marriage was designed by God. God brought Adam and Eve together and He created the first human institution. It wasn’t a church, it wasn’t a country, it was a marriage. 

And God didn’t simply communicate this through the Bible, He spoke it into creation. He embedded it into who we are. We have never found a culture, no matter how old or remote, that didn’t have what we call marriage. And, certainly, there are those out there who believe that marriage is a social construct and a by-product of male dominated societies. And, if this is you, please hear me say that I do think much of our world is a product of male dominated societies, but whenever someone makes this claim, I have to push back a bit. It’s hard for me to imagine a room of men who get to decide how marriage is designed and think that this is what they would come up with. One woman for life. 

People over the course of history have tried to modify that design to accommodate polygamy or polyandry, that’s one wife, multiple husbands, but we have always come back to one man and one woman for life. Why is that? Because God has designed marriage to embrace a type of companionship that mirrors his character. And one aspect of his character is loving commitment. God knows that companionship is deepest when accompanied by commitment so he gave us companionship in the context of a covenant. Not a relationship that is based on the terms of a contract, but a covenant that is based on the character of the person. 

This is why we take vows before we marry. A vow is a future promise that anticipates hardship. You don't have to vow to do something easy. I’ll never have to vow that I’ll sleep in when I need to or watch FSU football. You vow to do the hard things. To stay committed in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, till death do us part. 

When the early explorers came from Europe over to America to settle the new world, do you know the first thing they did after unloading the ship? They burned it. The leaders knew that if an exit strategy was within reach, no one would really be committed. In the same way, God wants us to be just as committed to our marriage. 

So, how does this companionship in the form of a covenant show us something about our God? Do you remember when God made a covenant with Abram in Genesis 15? God promised old, childless Abram that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Then God has Abram take some animals, cut them in half and make a path with the front halves of the animals on the left side of the path and the rear halves of the animals on the right side of the path. And the custom was that both parties would walk through the path symbolizing that the same fate of the animals would fall on the party that does not follow through on their commitment. This is serious. 

But God knew that we would not follow through on our commitment so He caused Abram to go to sleep and God went through for both of them. God was making a statement that said, “May this happen to my body if you don’t follow through on your commitment.” And that is exactly what happened. We failed and Jesus’ body was broken for our failure. 

So, this union is God-mirroring in its commitment, but it’s also God-mirroring in its one flesh nature. This is exactly what Jesus is quoting. When a man and a woman are married they somehow become one flesh. You have two distinct and beautifully diverse people who become, in some way, one physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially, and spiritually. Not unlike our God who is three distinct persons, but one God. 

So Jesus’ question is simple. If God has designed marriage and God has ordained marriage and God has purposed to join a man and a woman into a one flesh union, who is man to break that apart? The design of marriage is serious. Lifetime, life giving, God-mirroring companionship in the context of a one flesh covenant. So, where does that leave divorce? 

1.     The seriousness of divorce. 

The Pharisees now see another way to catch Jesus. They seem very ready with this next question. They ask, “Why then did Moses give a certificate of divorce?” They are basically trying to get Jesus to pick between Genesis and Deuteronomy. They are citing Deuteronomy 24 that gives precedent for divorce if the woman has been unfaithful. The Pharisees in that time had taken this allowance or permission for divorce in extreme cases and elevated it to a commandment to divorce a woman whenever they decide she has been unfaithful in any kind of way. So, Jesus says,  “Because of your yhardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 zAnd I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” - Matt 19:8,9

So, two things have to be crystal clear here. First, Jesus is talking to men divorcing women frequently and flippantly for no reason. Women who had no recourse, no protection and no due process. This is the result of a male dominated societal ideas about marriage, but that doesn’t mean the institution is bad, it means the culture had corrupted it. Second, Jesus is not exhaustively teaching about divorce. Paul says things about divorce that Jesus doesn’t. Paul adds the category of abandonment as an acceptable reason for divorce and remarriage. So, we can’t develop a whole theology of divorce based on this passage alone. Jesus is making a point to men with very dark hearts.

The problem isn’t with the law, it’s with our hearts. We are sinful people living in a fallen world and God has made a provision to allow for divorce as the lesser of two evils in very extreme cases. God DID NOT make concessions for people who just don’t want to do the hard work of making a marriage work. 

Divorce is horrible, but sometimes necessary. It seems clear to me that divorce in situations of adultery, abandonment and I would even add situations of ongoing abuse as a subcategory of abandonment are permissible. God doesn’t want us divorced, but He doesn’t want us abandoned, abused, or adulterated either. It’s the lesser of two evils. 

Now, here is where someone might ask, “But, Jim. I thought marriage was supposed to represent God’s covenant faithfulness to us. If God isn’t going to leave us under any situation, how can we justify leaving the covenant of marriage even in extreme situations?” I would answer that by saying God did once divorce Israel for unfaithfulness. That’s the whole book of Hosea. In Ezekiel, God compares Israel to a prostitute who instead of being paid for her work, pays her clients. My point is that when there is egregious unfaithfulness or abandonment in a marriage, the other spouse is not being unfaithful to God if they have no choice but to walk away.

But make no mistake, even when a divorce is necessary, it’s like an amputation. If you went into the doctor’s office with a bad cut on your arm and he said, “Well, looks like we are going to have to amputate.” What would you say? “No! Have you explored every option? Can we get a second opinion? Is there any other avenue here to explore before we take the most serious measure possible?” This is the level of seriousness we need to have when evaluating if divorce is necessary. 

Most counselors would take it further than an amputation though. When they counsel people who have been through a divorce, they deal with them as someone who has experienced a death. I’m sure everyone in this room who has been through a divorce would be the first to say, “Divorce is terrible. Avoid it as much as possible. You may fix some problems, but it often creates many others.” Some would take that opportunity to tell unmarried people to slow down and, as much as you can, wait to marry someone who has a strong walk with Christ, a repentant heart, and a gracious, humble disposition. 

For those in hard marriages, it’s easy to look at your marriage and think that it’s unredeemable without realizing that that is what Jesus specializes in! Even when there is egregious unfaithfulness, divorce might be permissible, but it’s not commanded. I know couples who have been through horrible unfaithfulness and seen God redeem their marriage and cause it to thrive. 

Don’t be like the Pharisees and look for technicalities. Jesus is after the heart, not the technicalities. In every situation, there is always hope and grace offered in Jesus for the repentant heart. Two men I admire greatly back in my old church are men who got divorced, found Jesus and remarried other people. Their marriages are great and both eventually became elders at that church. This is the grace of God on display! 

It’s a bold thing to use words in the name of your church like Bible or community or fellowship. If you are going to use words like that in the name of your church, you better be sure you’re executing on it. And, in our case, Orlando Grace Church, we had better be putting our money where our mouth is. If we ever start looking at divorced people as some sort of second class citizen or as having committed some unpardonable sin, we might need to change our name. 

God loves redeeming the worst of situations and failing or failed marriages are no different. Now, I want to finish by saying a few words to single people. 

III.   A word for singles

In the words of Time Keller, “Singleness under any circumstance, has to be seen as a calling or you won’t be able to endure it.” This is what Jesus is saying in verse 12: For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it." - Matthew 19:12

What in the world does this mean? If you don’t know what a eunuch is, it’s important you know...so, ask your parents on the way home:) Jesus is saying that some people are single because they are physically unable to marry for some reason. Others are single because they are called by God to be so. Singleness is not some inferior state. One day Jesus is going to come back and fully redeem not only us, but the whole world and you can see in Revelation 19 that at that time we…all Christians…will be wed to Christ, not other humans. So, human marriage is the temporary status. We can’t elevate it in ways that it cannot withstand. When we do we are idolizing the wrong idea of marriage. It also means that singleness can in some cases be the superior condition. 

It seems like Paul was married at some point, but maybe his wife died. Maybe she divorced him when he became a Christian. We don’t know. But, Paul became convinced that singleness was the superior condition for the calling he had on his life. He went so far to say, I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. - 1 Corinthians 7:7

I would argue that singleness is under greater attack today than gender or marriage. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying unmarried, I’m saying single and not in a romantic relationship. There is a big difference. Much of the discussion in our culture about marriage is a way to avoid being single. So the definitions of sexuality are shifting to accommodate that pursuit. 

Singleness, though, is a calling God uses to increase our capacity for ministry. It’s easy to forget that some of the most influential people in history Augustine, Paul, C.S Lewis (for most of his life), Corrie Ten Boom, Amy Carmichael, Bonhoeffer, John Stott... all were influential because they were single. They had time to devote to ministry that I, for example, never would being married with four kids. Some of them could take risks that it would be unwise for a married person with kids to take. 

But look at Jesus! Jesus was the purest form of humanity, the best of all of us, the most influential human to ever walk the earth….and He was single. So, being single just can’t be this subhuman status and sexuality isn’t the essence or fulfillment. Because of the condition of the world, singleness can actually be the superior calling. Some of you might be single for a season. Some of you might be single the rest of your life. But, rest assured that if God has called you to it, he will sustain you and he will use you in it. In the church, you should never feel alone or isolated because God has placed you in a church family that will support you. 

Conclusion:

Marriages are hard, marriages are messy, and divorce should be avoided if at all possible. If you are single, if you are in a hard marriage, if you’re dealing with the effects of divorce, or if you are dealing with the effects of your parents divorcing, I want you to know that God is faithful to you. That he will use this for your sanctification and it’s in our sanctification that we grow in our satisfaction and joy. If anyone could have claimed marriage, family, or sexual gratification as a right, it was Jesus. But he didn’t. He gave them up along with the blessing of a home, a comfortable life, and his own physical and spiritual well-being. 

Let’s circle back to Ezekiel. God sent his people, Israel, away with a decree of divorce. 59 "For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant….62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, Ezekiel 16:59, 60, 62

Israel’s heart was too sick so he had to do something drastic to atone for her son and fix her heart before she could be capable of serving as a bride. So, God paid the price of our egregious unfaithfulness by coming here in the form of Jesus Christ to give His life to pay our debt and to win back His bride. He then remarried us and clothed our bodies and our hearts in righteousness that we might love Him back. We are betrothed and loved and he will never leave us. That’s how serious God is about marriage and that is the fuel for all of us both in our earthly marriages and in singleness.