Our scripture this morning is from Luke chapter 16 verses 14 through 18. Luke 16 verses 14 through 18. Hear the word of the Lord. The Pharisees who are lovers of money heard all these things and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void. Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery Father we come this morning open to your word to teach us to Encourage us to exhort us to rebuke us reprove us whatever we need father. Give it to us this morning and And we pray in the end, Father, that you would strengthen us as your people, you would strengthen our marriages, and that you would shine forth the glory of the gospel through the miraculous picture that marriage is. Father, give us ears to hear and hearts to receive your word this morning. We pray it in your name. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. Well, as you can guess, if you've been with us a little while, we're back in the gospel according to Luke, and we're gonna dive right in, aren't we? Right here, as we get back into the gospel according to Luke, which we've been walking through for a while, we are going to talk about Jesus's teaching on divorce. One of the reasons I love that we teach through entire books of the Bible is first that we get a better understanding of the whole book of the Bible. We don't just take little snippets here and there, but we get to see the whole book together as best as we can in one sitting. But I also like that we don't then get to skip hard verses or passages. I mean, we could try, but I know many of you would call us out on it and say, why'd you skip that? I want to hear about that. And so we do our best to not skip over the hard passages or the hard verses. And this morning is an example that we're going to talk about divorce and marriage. Now, before we get into all those details, we must acknowledge, I want to acknowledge that I know most of us, perhaps all of us, have been affected by divorce at some level in our lives. Some here in the building or on the live stream have been divorced, while others have had family members, parents or grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers or sisters, friends, that have gotten divorced, and the pain is real. And for many of us, it is still at times very fresh. And I'm sorry for the pain that many of you have experienced because of the damaging effects of divorce. Sometimes the pain comes off and on for the rest of our lives. Others might be in such a difficult place right now that you're even contemplating And so this is going to be a hard passage to deal with. But while the pain and the consequences of divorce are real, we must acknowledge right from the beginning that divorce is not the unforgivable sin. God can forgive anyone, even if they have been divorced. Forgiveness is available through Christ. And not just forgiveness, but even healing. If you've been hurt and you still experience the hurt of someone close to you that has been divorced, there is healing in Christ. Doesn't mean it will be easy, but there's healing possible. My heart breaks for any of you that have been affected. And in my personal experience, at some level, I understand the pain. And so this topic can bring such pain and heartbreak, but it's also a difficult teaching. It's one that without a proper biblical foundation for knowing God's heart for us, his people, that it could be easily dismissed, out of touch with our current world. The world in which we live today has created many paths to divorce, many ways to dissolve a marriage, And at times it seems even enthusiastically in support of people that choose to get divorced. The goal of the culture seems to be that we just want people to be happy. And if you're unhappy, then end that relationship and go find someone else who will make you happy. But marriage is not about our happiness. As Gary Thomas has said, marriage is about our holiness. It's one of the means in which God makes us more and more like Jesus Christ. So Christians who desire to follow God's word are really, we are swimming upstream in our culture. Holding to biblical morals, especially in any area of sexuality or gender, is going to be challenging for us. And yet, we can't just skip over these. We can't believe whatever we want to believe. We need to take the Scriptures as they are, embrace the painfulness of that, the difficulty of it, and dive in and see what God says for us. But the elders want you to know that we love you. And if you're in a difficult situation, If you've experienced divorce or you're even contemplating, we love you and we want to help you. We want to talk with you. We want to pray with you. We want to support you and fight with you for your marriage. And this morning we are going to look in this passage in three main points to understand what Jesus is saying. First, we're going to look at the context in which Jesus teaches about divorce. Because the context, if you study the Bible, context is key. We don't just take one verse out and build a theology over it. We need to look at the context, what's before and after the teaching in particular. So we're going to look at the context. Second, we're going to just examine what Jesus says and then what the Bible says very briefly about divorce and marriage. And then finally, we're going to talk about how the gospel relates to marriage and even to divorce. So first, the context of the teaching. I want you to think about your own life. In a time that maybe you did something wrong, that you got yourself in trouble, and the moment that you got yourself in trouble, you immediately came up with a reason for why you shouldn't get in trouble. Why it was somebody else's fault. It wasn't your fault. It was some other situation or circumstance that is the reason this thing happened. It's really their problem. Kids are pretty good at this. I remember being a kid riding my bike, as kids are supposed to do, right? I'm not playing video games, I'm not riding my bike. I'm doing what kids are supposed to do. And I happened to turn a corner, there was a sidewalk, and there just happened to be this lady there, and next thing you know, she's on the ground. because I ran into her, but it wasn't my fault. I mean, I wasn't going too fast. Why was she on the sidewalk anyway? I mean, is that, I mean, I'm a kid, right? I'm trying to justify that I'm playing outside. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? This can't be my fault. I think we tend to do that in our lives. We tend at times to seek justification. I'm not wrong. They're wrong. Or this is the reason why this happened. It couldn't really be me at fault. We tend to be pretty good at self-justification and sometimes that self-justification even comes into our spiritual life, into our relationship with God. If you know your Bible, that starts all the way back in the garden when Eve ate the fruit and then Adam ate the fruit and then God comes and says, Adam, what happened? And he goes, it was the woman that you gave me. It was her, she did it. There's this self-justification. I'm not really the one at fault. Do you find yourself justifying your actions, your words, your thoughts? Comparing yourself to others? I'm not as bad as that person. It's this very self-justification that the Pharisees are doing which leads Jesus to point out this sin in their lives. Look at verse 15. You are those who justify yourselves before man, but God knows your heart. They self-justify to exalt themselves over others. They try to make themselves look better than others, as less sinful or even not sinful at all, so they would justify all their actions, their behaviors, their teachings. They wanted to make other people seem like they were sinners, but not themselves. We're better than those other people. Which is why in the second half of verse 15, look there again, Jesus says, For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Why is this justifying of themselves an abomination or a sin in the sight of God? Because when we self-justify, we're not taking responsibility for our sin, but we're always trying to find a way to excuse our sin, to make ourselves look good or holy or righteous. But in the end, God knows our heart, that we are sinful, that we are wretched, that we are his enemies because of our sin. And see, when we, when we self justify like the Pharisees did here, we start changing the standards of holiness in which God has given his people. We want to make the scripture say something different than what they say so that I will be justified in my behavior or my words. But the scriptures are clear. We don't justify ourselves. No one is righteous. No one does good. So any effort to justify ourselves is noticed by God. He knows our heart. And we are still counted as sinful, not as holy and righteous. The only way for anyone to be justified is not by themselves. The only way to be justified, which is to be made right with God, is by grace through faith in Christ. That's the only way to be justified. Trusting that Jesus took my sin upon himself, that he forgives me and then he gives me a new heart and a new life in Christ, seeking to be obedient to what he has said in his word. So here in this context about divorce, the Pharisees are living to justify themselves, to exalt themselves before men. And Jesus is exposing their sin by using divorce as an example of their self-justification. So a little background, in the Jewish world at the time, there were different schools of thought of Judaism that had different views about marriage. One of those views that the Pharisees tend to line up with was really a little more open and loose. And by that I mean that the standards were ever-changing all the time. And so the Pharisees tended to follow this called the school of Hillel. And an example in this school of teaching that one of the reasons that a man could divorce his wife is if she burnt a meal. That's it. You burn a meal, lady, wife, he's out. He can walk away from you and leave you. Now, if that was a school today, guys, you burn the chicken on the grill, right? I mean, so who doesn't burn a meal? But that was, there's the self-justification. I just don't like this. I'm going to find any way possible to get out of this marriage. And I'm going to create this new tradition, this new law, which God hasn't said anything about burning a meal, and I'm going to create it as the standard to justify my own decision. So that's the background of why Jesus, I think, might bring up divorce. He could have brought up lots of different laws that the Pharisees were breaking or twisting or adding to or taking away from, but he chooses divorce. Now I think he does it for a couple of reasons. One, because it teaches us that in Christ the law does not go away. We don't now get to choose to do whatever we want because we're in Christ. No, the moral law of God still stands and God still says, don't get divorced. But I also think he's choosing to bring this up because marriage is so important to God. It's so important to the foundation of a culture that Jesus chooses to go after this in the lives of the Pharisees. See, their teaching is not only off, but now they're teaching others. And so the ripple effect of damage from the Pharisees is far-reaching. And so Jesus is seeking to correct that for them, but for us as well. I think this is true of our culture today, that we have found many ways to justify divorce. I think we can agree that burning a meal will not justify divorce, but there's lots of other reasons that in our culture and in our legal system that says, yes, go ahead. And all of those may not line up with scripture. So what does Jesus really teach about divorce? Let's look again in verse 18. Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. And he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. So here's the situation that Jesus is describing to teach about divorce. There's a man who has divorced his wife. He has left his wife and divorced her. And now he goes and he marries another woman. When he does that, Jesus says, not only has he divorced, but now he has committed adultery. And then the second half of that verse 18 is basically just saying the same thing, that if a man marries a woman who has been divorced, he commits adultery. In this situation, Jesus is identifying and pointing out two different sins. First, there's the sin of divorce. In the scriptures, divorce is counted and called a sin. Why? Because marriage is a covenant. It's an unbreakable promise between a man and a woman before God that they will stay married till death they do part. We learn this from various scriptures about the covenant of marriage, all the way from Genesis chapter 2, where God writes, husband will leave father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. There's the covenant, they become one. In Malachi chapter two, Malachi the prophet speaks God's words to the people because they are in sin. And one of the ways they're in sin is they're breaking their covenant. This is Malachi chapter two, verse 14. Because the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you have been faithless, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. So they've been faithless to their wives by covenant and God is speaking against their sin, calling them to repentance. And then in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus teaches about divorce and he goes all the way back to the creation account. Matthew 19 verse 6, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become, here it is again, one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." So it's clear from the teaching of the Scripture that marriage is a covenant, and to break the covenant, to divorce the spouse of your covenant, is a sin. It's a sin. Now here in Luke, when Jesus teaches, He not only identifies the sin of divorce, but then He adds to it that this man who has left his wife, divorced his wife, goes and marries another, and that's adultery. And so it's another sin. It's a sin on top of a sin. We know adultery is a sin all the way back in Exodus chapter 20, the Ten Commandments. One of the Ten Commandments, you shall not commit adultery. And so to commit adultery, to have a sexual relationship with another person who is not your husband or wife by covenant is a sin. I hope this shows you that marriage is a serious matter with God. It's serious to God. And why is that? Well, Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter five that marriage is this picture of Christ and the church. That marriage is not just for us to be married to, again, as I said, to be happy. No, it's about our holiness and it's to reflect the beautiful relationship between Christ and the church. Marriage displays the glory of God and the gospel. And it's also the primary means in which we fulfill the creation mandate in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. Marriage matters to God. And so because it matters to God, Jesus speaks against divorce. But this is not the only place that Jesus speaks against divorce. As I said earlier, we don't build an entire theology on one verse. We want to understand holistically what the scriptures teach. And so I hope you have time because it's going to take about four hours. to get through everything about marriage and divorce. This is why we invite you to talk to us. We want to talk more about this, because we can't cover every situation possible. But in the Scriptures, there are two times that we read where there seems to be this exception that would allow someone, not encourage someone, but allow someone to get divorced. These exceptions are not meaning that God desires anyone to get divorce. No, it goes back to the fact in the Old Testament, Moses, and Jesus was asked this question, Moses granted divorce. Why was that? Why did Moses say through the law that there was allowances for divorce? Well, we know from the teaching of the scripture that it was because of the hardness of people's hearts, probably their own self-justification. And so these regulations of divorce, you could go back and read in Deuteronomy 24, verses 1 through 4, those are the regulations about divorce. They're given as a means really to protect people, in particular, I think, to protect women. Because at the time, culturally, if a woman was left and divorced, her life was basically over. She really had no means to take care of herself or to provide herself. The whole culture was built through marriage and family. And so God knows the hardness of people's hearts, especially men's hearts, who are going to leave their wives for ridiculous reasons. And he's seeking to regulate that and to break laws against it, protect and provide. It's because God knows the hardness of people's hearts. See, it's the Pharisees that they're often going back to that Deuteronomy passage trying to find loopholes. How do I justify myself? What does He really mean by this? Doesn't this count and this count? Next thing you know, you get to burning a meal leads to divorce. But when Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce, He doesn't go back to Deuteronomy. He goes all the way back to the creation account. And why is that? Because in the creation account of Adam and Eve becoming two, becoming one, we have this ideal of marriage in God's heart and mind. That's what God desires for us. That's what He wants for us. But here in the New Testament, we have to address there are two exceptions taught. The first is in Matthew 5, verse 32. Where Jesus says, but I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So there, Jesus says, the exception is sexual immorality. And then later in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians, Paul also gives another exception. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 15, But if the unbelieving partner or spouse separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister, that means the brother or sister in Christ, is not enslaved. So the second exception from 1 Corinthians 7 is that if a believer is married to an unbeliever, a Christian married to a non-Christian, stay with them, but if the non-Christian leaves, then they can be let go. Now my guess is when you hear all these verses about marriage and divorce, especially the exceptions, it leads you to ask all kinds of questions. So what counts as sexual immorality then? What counts as abandonment? What falls under that category? I want answers to that. I want to know, but I want to caution us. We need to walk carefully as we seek out those answers. We need to know the answers, but we want to make sure that we don't find ourselves doing the same things the Pharisees did, seeking to justify ourselves and counting something as abandonment or sexual immorality when it may not count as that. This is why we need to walk through this carefully and lovingly, helping one another. See, our goal in understanding these scriptures is not so that we can find all the ways that we can allow divorce, but it's to understand the very rare, very, very rare circumstances in which divorce could be allowed if all other avenues of reconciliation are exhausted. If anyone within the body of Christ, within the church, is contemplating divorce, they should bring other believers into the situation. They should bring an elder or two into the situation for help. Our goal is to bring, as elders especially, is to bring the word of God to your life, to help you follow his word, to do so with care and compassion for those that are struggling in marriage. We want to seek to obey God's word fully and completely. And so if you are struggling, if you're in a difficult situation, you need to bring others into that so that they can help you follow what God has said, no matter how difficult it may be. Now, I do want to clarify, we are all for marriage, and we want to help every marriage sustain itself and last for a lifetime. But we're not in the business of counseling someone to stay in a dangerous situation. We're not going to ask people to put themselves in a place where they're in harm's way. No, we want to walk with you. We want to help you be protected, but we want to help you figure out what God has said. And ultimately, our prayer is to help you fight for your marriage. Again, I wish we had hours and hours that we could talk about every possible scenario. But what we learn from this scripture is that Jesus cares about marriage and the covenant of marriage. And he does not want us to be a people that divorce our spouses and then marry another. The heart of God is that no matter how difficult a marriage may be, no matter how hopeless you may feel, is to be reminded that there is hope. And sometimes people ask, some of you may be asking, really, does God really want me to stay in this marriage that is so bleak, so hard, so painful, and I see no hope? I think the answer is yes, because what God has brought together two into one flesh, Jesus says, let not man separate. God desires for all of us to stay in our marriage. And all of you that are married, you know, it's not like Hollywood. It's not easy. It's not difficult. It's hard work. It takes fight, discipline. to pursue one another, to stay in it, but that's what God desires for us. But He doesn't just desire us to stay in our marriage. He's not just saying, don't ever get divorced, just suck it up and deal with it. No, see, He provides a gift for us. When He says, don't get divorced, stay married for a lifetime, then He provides the gift, the means in which we can fight through the difficulties and stay united as one flesh in our marriage relationships. And it's the same gift he provides when we were lost sinners without hope of being in a relationship with God. It's the good news of the gospel. So the most important question I have for all of us this morning is, do you believe in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Really, do you believe that God can forgive and that He can save and that He can justify, that He can adopt and that He can sanctify, making you holy, and one day that He can glorify anyone who has sinned against Him? Do you believe that He can do that? Do you believe that He can do that in your life? Pardon me. Do you believe that God can take sinful, wretched people, enemies of Him, and make them brand new creations, holy and righteous by grace through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do you believe it to be true? This is the question that I think needs to be answered when we talk about marriage and divorce. It's the key to knowing that it is possible for a husband and a wife who seem to be destined for divorce, to have their marriage resurrected, and for them to be reconciled to one another. See, not only is it the truth of the gospel that has the power to save us from our sins, from an eternity in hell separated from God, to relationship with Him instead, but it is this gospel message about resurrection and reconciliation that provides hope for our marriage. See, it's the gospel that allows Jew and Gentile to come together and be united as one. It's the gospel that allows male and female and rich and poor and black and white and Chinese and Indian and European and Canadian and whoever to come together and to be united. It's the gospel of Jesus, the forgiveness in Christ that reconciles us to God and then allows us to be reconciled to one another. If he can bring us together as the body of Christ, This ragtag group of different people with so much differences and diversity, if He can bring us together and keep us united, then He certainly can do the same thing for a marriage. See, it's though we were dead in sin, no hope of eternal life in relationship with God the Father. It's in that moment that Jesus died for you. Then He was buried and then He was raised to new life, conquering death and sin. And for all of us who are in Christ, that we too have been raised from the dead. Paul says in Ephesians chapter two, five through six, even when you were dead in your trespasses, made us alive. God made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And listen to this, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You and I were dead in our sin. And because of the work of Christ and our trust in him, he raised us from the dead with Christ. When Christ was raised, we were raised. And now we are seated with Christ. If God can do that, then he can fix a broken marriage. He can heal disunity within a marriage. He can help you overcome the besetting sin that is causing havoc in your personal life and in your marriage. He can help you with the sexual problems in your marriage. He can help you with the emotional problems in your marriage. He can help you with the anger that is causing turmoil. He can help you with your selfishness. It's because of the gospel, our admitting that we have sinned, that we can stop trying to self-justify. to point out the error of the other and say, no, I have sinned and I need to repent and I want to seek reconciliation in this relationship with my spouse. It's because God has forgiven us that we can now forgive one another. That a married couple can remember that they're not each other's enemies, but they're on the same team. And that God has provided them the power through the Spirit and the Gospel to fight for unity in their marriage and joy in their marriage. Now the Gospel also speaks to us that if you have been divorced, that you too are forgiven. It's not the unforgivable sin. Christ died for all our sin. And so if that is your situation or in your family, there's no need to walk around in guilt or shame. There's forgiveness. There's forgiveness. And there's healing that is possible as we trust that God has reconciled us to him, that he can bring about that resurrection and reconciliation in our lives. So do you believe that God can resurrect a marriage? Do you believe that God can reconcile a husband and wife that are at odds with one another? This is the question that is most important. When we hear Jesus teach about divorce and then remarriage as adultery, it's the question we need to ask. How is it possible? All the questions about what is wrong with marriage or what falls into the category of being able to divorce one another, they're all important. Again, we want to talk to you if you're in a situation that's difficult and hard and you're wondering. We want to counsel you. We want to walk beside you. But in the end, our goal is not to justify ourselves and seek all the avenues out of marriage. Our goal is to trust that God can fix my marriage. He can reconcile me to Him, then He can reconcile my spouse to me as well. It's why marriage is a covenant. It's for a lifetime. not so that we would be miserable. No, God wants us to be married for a lifetime and it gives us the power in the gospel to reconcile when things are difficult and to stay as one flesh, which will ultimately lead to our joy and His glory. See, we're not a people that seek to justify ourselves, that excuse our sin as somebody else's fault. Now see, we're a people that have been justified. We have been made right because of the work of Christ. And now we have been raised with Christ and we are seated with Christ. And now it's through the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit that we can fight for our marriages. And it takes all of us. It takes all of us to help one another. At times, those of you that are married know it will be a fight. It will be difficult. But as we trust Him to reconcile our marriages and to resurrect marriages that seem dead, it will be perhaps the means in which God will produce the greatest joy within us and the means in which He will display the glory of the gospel to the world. He can do that in the power of the Gospel. Father, we praise You for Your Word. We praise You that You care so much about our lives, that You desire for us to reflect Your glory within a marriage relationship. And yet we know it's difficult at times. And yet it's because of the truth of our reconciliation to You that you overcame our sin, you made us brand new and forgave us in Christ, that those that are married can stay married for a lifetime and fight through any difficulty to be reconciled. Father, if you can raise a dead sinner to new life, then you can raise a dead marriage to new life. Would you make us a people that obey your word, rest in our justification in Christ, Admit our sin and then fight for our marriages. It matters to you. Help it matter to us. Help us be a people that bear one another's burdens, support each other in the difficulty, and that together we would fight for our marriages. And in the end, Father, would it be a reflection of the glory of the gospel of Christ and his church? And would it bring us much joy and hope to many others. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.