Marriage, Divorce, and the People of God Part 2 - Mark 10:1-12

0:58Well, don't lord it over them, but let's work towards that end, right? But anyway, there's one thing that's sure in Scripture as you go through is that unity is a very predominant theme. David said in Psalm 133 that behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. Paul, you see this over and over, like in Philippians 4, he is urging Eodia and Syntiki to live in harmony together. In Romans 5, or 15, 5, he says, Now may the God, may God grant you that you would be of the same mind with one another, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unity is a key theme. In fact, when Jesus speaks on the subject, Matthew 5, he says, This, therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and therefore, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there and go. First be reconciled to your brother, then come present your offering. You see, unity was very important to our Lord. Reconciliation is important to him. He is a reconciliation-minded person. God is a reconciling God. In fact, Christ himself embodies reconciliation, that seeking after that which was broken and taking in his body that, the suffering, enduring the body, the suffering himself. And the one thing that he wants, he wants his followers to be the same. He does not want his followers to be divorced-minded. And this is especially true, especially true when it comes to marriage. We began looking at this passage last week. It's a passage that deals with marriage and. Divorce. Primarily, it's driven by the question about divorce. And that Jesus, in his answer, makes it very clear that he does not want his disciples to be divorce-minded.

3:13And the subject of marriage and divorce are very controversial issues today, as they were in Jesus' time. And hardly anyone in this room has not felt the sting of a marriage gone wrong. And this makes talking about marriage difficult, makes talking about divorce difficult. And yet, it's important that if we're going to hear from the Word of God, we come before it with honest hearts. If you look at verse 2, some of the Pharisees came up to Jesus testing him, and they began to question him whether or not it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. They had come for the purpose to test him. Let's throw him the controversial issue of the day. Let's throw him a hot potato for the purpose of having something against him. They were testing him.

4:05And that was their approach. And if we are truly going to hear from God on this subject, we must have the right approach to this subject. The Pharisees didn't come to learn how to be better husbands or to promote better marriages in Israel. They came to take Jesus down. And so, if we're going to hear anything that God has to say about marriage and about Divorce, we're going to have to come with the right approach. We can't come to the scripture with ulterior motives, wanting it to say what we want it to say. I'm going to tell you, there's a couple approaches that are wrong. First of all, justifying self. You know, don't go through life coming to God's words or coming to God's word as a mean to justify the things you do or the things that you want to do. If you come trying to justify yourself and finding those verses that justify yourself, the word is not going to be light to you, it's not going to be a lamp unto your feet. The same is true about defending yourself. That is another wrong approach. Don't go through life trying to defend something you may have done 20 years ago or 10 years ago or five years ago or yesterday. Don't come trying to defend yourself. If you do, you're going to miss what God has to say. You need to come with the right approach, and that is a teachable approach, a submissive approach. Lord, what is it that you say? And God, give me the grace to obey and give me a heart. And so this morning, I want to pick up where we left off. And we made it through verse 5 last week, and I intend to pick it up from there. Let me just read the scripture to you so we can get our minds around what's going on here. Getting up, he went from there to the region of Judea. And beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him again, and according to his custom, he once more began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing him, and began to question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And he answered and said to them, What did Moses command you? They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. But Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. In the house, the disciples began to questioning him about this again. And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. Let's just pray. Heavenly Father, as we approach this subject, I do pray that you would give us open hearts, teachable hearts, submissive to your will. God, I understand the great pain and the great consternation and deep hurt and sorrow and broken homes that have come out of marriages gone wrong. And God, I just pray now that you Would bless us by helping us just set aside all that so that we may come to the pure light of your word and receive from heaven your message, your view, and your understanding, and your expectation for us as it concerns marriage. In Christ's name, amen. So, this morning, I want you to understand Jesus' view on marriage and adultery so that you will not be divorce-minded people. You can go ahead and put up on the screen. We started working our way through this last time. We talked about what divorce is and why divorce occurs. And then today, I want to continue and pick up why Christ's followers should not be divorce-minded. So, what divorce is and why divorce occurs. But, by way of review, verse 2, the Pharisees had come up looking with a question, testing Jesus whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. Now, divorce, as we defined it last week, as biblically it is defined, it is the act of separating. It's the act of leaving or abandoning, sending a spouse away. It's the picture of the scapegoat, sending the goat off into the wilderness to die. That is the same word for forgiveness, letting sins go. But God doesn't let people go, He lets sins go, and He keeps people. But man is different. We tend to hold on to our grievances, and we see. Send people away as opposed to sending sins away. Well, it's this act. The one thing about divorce is it's active. Being left is not divorcing. Being left is being left. It's passive.

9:17But divorcing is active. It is the act of sending someone away. In fact, the terminology, you've often heard people say, we got a divorce, right? We got a divorce. Well, that's really not the correct terminology. That's terminology that's consistent with the modern no-fault divorce policy we have in the United States today. But the correct terminology is, I divorced, or I was abandoned. We tend to kind of mesh it all together and say, well, we got divorced. No, either you divorced or you were abandoned or you were divorced. And it's very important to see and to understand divorce is active. It's the act of releasing. It's the act of releasing oneself of obligation or duty and responsibility.

10:10And it doesn't happen all at once. Brothers and sisters, being divorced does not happen all at once. When you see two people get married, the last thing they're thinking on their wedding day is, okay, I can hardly wait to divorce this jerk. You know, that's not the first thing going on in their mind. Is it? No, it happens over time, and it happens. This divorce-mindedness creeps in through unforgiveness, holding on to offenses, not letting things go, and it culminates in a physical separation. Well, that is the divorce. It is self-centered, it is not concerned for the well-being of others. It's basically very me-central, me-centric. I'm not happy. I'm not satisfied. I deserve better. You've probably heard that. You've probably, or some of you may have even said that. And the bottom line, the divorce mentality is: if you do not conform to my standards, goodbye. My way or the highway. And over time, that builds and that grows. And brothers and sisters, you are not to be a people who grow in that area. You are not to be growing in the area of divorce-mindedness. This doesn't just apply to married couples, this applies to all of us, that we be a reconciliation-driven people.

11:36So that's what divorce is: it's the act of leaving. We also looked at why it occurs, and the answer is given in verse 5, that Jesus said, because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote this commandment to you. Divorce comes out of a heart that is hardened against God. It's not just a heart that's hardened against the spouse or tired of the spouse or whatever. It has to, it's a It's a fundamental issue between God and man, or God and woman. It's hardened against God. So divorce comes out of a hardened heart against the influence of God. And the only solution to that is going to be a softened heart, a right heart, a broken heart before God. So that is where we've been. What divorce is, why divorce occurs. Now, today I want to look at why Christ's followers should not be divorce-minded. And the first reason is because of what marriage is. Because of what marriage is. Look at verse 6. We'll just pick up there where we left off. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, God has joined together, let no man separate. Jesus takes them back to the ideal standard.

13:02You see, the errant theology or errant morality almost always focuses on the wrong passage to justify their position. If you'll look back at verse 3, Jesus asked them, What did Moses command you? And they answered, Moses permitted man to write a certificate of a divorce. Jesus asked them a question regarding the commandments of God, and they responded in terms of permission. Mission. What did Moses command you? Well, he permitted us to do this. And they went to a passage that dealt with a concession to human failure, but certainly was not commanding divorce at all. So Jesus approached the scriptures. He answers them with another passage. He answers them with another scripture, and he takes them back to the beginning. This is a classic scripture versus scripture. Aaron theology likes to focus in on the wrong passage. Jesus corrects them and takes them to a passage, to the ideal, to the time before the fall, to the time where that hadn't been befouled by man.

14:17And so Jesus declared that the original pattern set forth in Genesis 1 is, in Genesis 2, is a better pattern or a better passage to be using. So he goes back to the way it was meant to be, verse 6, but from the beginning of creation, he takes them all the way back to the beginning of creation, to that pristine time, that pre-fall. I remember growing up in northern New Mexico, we lived at an altitude somewhere around 8,000 feet, and those spring snows were always fun to have.

14:54I never could figure out where the term mud months are. Have you ever heard of the term mud months? Well, that's those mud months. Months in the spring and in the fall, where it's not quite cold enough for the snow to stick, and it's warm enough, and it melts, and there's mud everywhere. Well, I can remember on one of these spring days, we had one of these snowfalls, and our yard would just be beautiful. I mean, you'd wake up in the morning, the sun coming up, the sparkling snow, just this blanket of pristine white, beautiful. Looked like a winter, looked like a fairyland, a winter wonderland. And then we'd let the dogs out into the yard. Of course, they'd go run through, and then one would lift his leg over there, and they'd have a little pile of yellow snow. And then he wouldn't just do that in one place, he'd go hit a couple of others, and the other dog would come around, do the same, leave a couple of other landmines. And then, as the day went on, the thing kind of melted, and then the dogs would run around and get mud all through the snow. And before too long, you just had this mess, and you couldn't wait for it all to be gone. And then it didn't quite smell right either. It was just an ugly, ugly scene. This pristine, beautiful picture turned very ugly. And you couldn't wait for the next snow or something to do something out there because it was an eyesore. Well, this is what Jesus does: He takes marriage back to its simple state, profound simplicity. He wants the disciples to understand His design, God's design for marriage. And so He takes. Takes them not to a state like the Pharisees did that had already been befouled by man, but he takes them to that pristine state and says, Let me tell you how marriage is supposed to be, how God designed it. And the opening chapters of Genesis make it clear that it was God who established marriage. It was God who said, it is not good for the man to be alone. It was God who said, I will make a helper suitable for him. And it was God who brought Eve to Adam to be his wife. And no matter how you slice it or which perspective you come from, it was God who did the whole thing. Marriage was God's doing. And it wasn't until this union had been made that God declared that creation was very good. At that point, creation was very good when the union of man and woman was complete. So therefore, marriage is an honorable estate because its origin is from the mind of God. And it's important to recognize, as you work your way through Scripture, that marriage predates government.

17:44Government did not create marriage. The government came into existence after marriage. Marriage was the first institution. It wasn't created by some government subcommittee that says, you know what, I think what would be a good idea is marriage will be a good idea. Let's just get a committee, let's put a task force, and let's get it through the legislature, and let's put it into practice. No, marriage predates government. Marriage also predates the church. Marriage predates the church. It's the oldest institution. Just like the government doesn't have the authority over marriage, neither does the church. All the church can do is recognize what God has done, what God has set in motion, and that's what government should do too. To the degree that you recognize what God has done, it's to the degree which a government will be blessed or a church will be blessed. But it's also important to understand that marriage predates all of us. All of us.

18:48It's something that transcends government. It's something that transcends the church. And it transcends all of us. Marriage was here long before you and I were here. And so, what we as individuals need to do is to recognize what God has done. That's all we can do. So, neither you nor I nor the church nor the government can define or redefine marriage because it was already defined and in place before these ever came into being. And neither can you or I or the government or the church speak with authority upon the institution of marriage save the Lord Himself.

19:31The Lord Himself is the Lord of marriage. And to the degree that we can speak with authority on the covenant of marriage is the degree that our words reflect our Lord's. He is the right authority. He is the one who can speak on. And that's what Mark has been taking us through. He's taking this journey. Jesus is the Lord over all. He's Lord over creation. He's Lord over the human body. He is Lord over the demons. He is Lord over the institutions of God. And he is Lord over marriage. And there are three significant characteristics of marriage that Jesus specifically mentions in this passage. First, it is a union between male and female. Verse 6, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Verse 7, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. This forbids homosexual marriage. It is a perversion of what God ordained. It's interesting how he does this. He quotes two parts of, or he quotes parts of two passages. First of all, he quotes verse 127, Genesis 1.27. God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him. Male and female, he created him. Then he jumps to Genesis 2.24, and he says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

20:58And so this male Female aspect of marriage is seen, first of all, in the direct definition. He defines it, male and female. But it's also by expressly mentioning the two sexes, Jesus declares that the maleness and the femaleness are germane to marriage. It is firmly rooted in the will of God. Fundamental, foundational for marriage. But you see, this male-female aspect also in the procreation charge. See, God made them male and female, and then in Genesis 1:28, the very next verse, it says this: God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So, in the charge to fill the earth, maleness and femaleness was necessary for the purpose that God had for marriage. The maleness and femaleness is also seen in the fact that one is going to leave father and mother. You can see the father and mother, the aspect of leaving father and mother in 2:24 or is a consequence of male and female. You see, God's purpose for marriage was male and female to have children, and then those children would grow up with a father and with a mother, each in submission to each other and submission to God, each in submission to the roles that God had given them, and that through that, not Not only would all of the world be blessed, but also true religion would be passed on.

22:37So, you see, when God created Adam, Adam wasn't, he didn't need a football buddy. He didn't need a golfing buddy. He didn't need that. That's not what he was lacking. That was more of the same. He needed a compliment. He needed something to complete Adam. He didn't need a buddy. Now, buddies are important. I mean, iron sharpens iron. And to the degree that you need fellow men in your life is to the degree that will help you do your God-given tasks in life.

23:13So, the second thing that Jesus says about marriage is that it's a union between two people, two and only two people. Look at verse 8. And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. The word for two is duo, the Greek word for two. However, you want to, whatever language you want to translate it in, it's two, not three, not four, not five. And what this does is this forbids polygamy. Polygamy is also a perversion of God's intended purpose for marriage.

23:49And you could go through this polygamous history begins. You see it in Genesis 4 when Lamech, a descendant of Cain, Takes two wives, and he's kind of an assertive, bold, God-hating man. And he says, you can see this when he says, I have killed a man for wounding me, and if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech 77fold. In other words, that's where it begins. And then you just see this plague of polygamy that just runs through the scripture to where Jacob, Israel, some of the David, Solomon, and you start seeing this polygamous relationship just develop. And you're kind of going, why is the Bible silent on this? Well, it isn't silent by the time you get to Christ. Very good. Christ sets it out and he clears it up right here.

24:47And this is what I love about the doctrine of marriage. It is a treasure of Christianity. It doesn't come out of Old Testament Judaism. It doesn't come out of Islam. It doesn't come out of secular humanism. This is a distinctive of Christianity. One man, one woman for life. Well, God did not bring Adam four women. He didn't bring him Eve, Eva, Evie, or Elvira, or he just go on down the road. He just brought Eve. This completed humanity. Once you see a word, look at it. He says, so they are no longer two, no longer.

25:31The phrase literally is never again. The two are no longer. It's never again. Mark 14:25, Jesus speaking about the fruit of the vine says, Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Never again. That's the expression here. Never again are they two, but they are one flesh. And the one flesh speaks of a complete unity, completeness. In Numbers 13, 23, this completeness is seen that the spies go into the land and they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes. So you've got these many parts, but it's one cluster. That's the idea of unity in marriage. Two parts, one entity.

26:33In fact, Deuteronomy 6:4 says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Yet we know Scripture affirms that he exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So marriage is oneness out of two. It's a new state. It's the passing of an old state and the beginning of a new state. It's a cessation of two singles and the beginning of one new entity. With distinctions, but with one whole. One flesh also speaks of sexual completeness. There is nothing lacking for sexual fulfillment or for the propagation of the human race than male, one man, one woman. It's all there, a complete package.

27:22And the perfect expression of this one flesh is seen in children, right? We know this, right? Half the DNA comes from the mother, half the DNA comes from the father, and they are literally joined in one flesh. You get their biological material to a degree. It's joined, and you see the traits. You can see them. Sometimes they're scary. But you see that, and this is what makes divorce so painful: is the tearing of two apart. It's when you force a child whose very makeup comes from genetic material from the mother and genetic material from the father. It's like you're totally pulling them apart. And then when you act, okay, how does the soul come into it? Where does the material from the soul come from? We studied this, remember, in our biblical anthropology night, where does the, we understand the physically components from mother and father. What about the soul? Well, one thing we know for sure is the soul is not just floating out. Out there, and that there always has been existence, and they just come on and take on a body. No, there is creation, body, and soul, at conception. And so, somehow, there is an element, and I don't know how God does it, but there is a unity there that comes from mother and father, and it's not to be separated, and that is why it just shreds people to court. The worst thing you can do is start telling your kids, choose between mom and dad. Talk about dividing a person in two because they are together. But the third thing that Jesus says about marriage is that it is for all time. It is for all time. Look at verse 9: What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. This forbids divorce. Divorce is a perversion, just like polygamy is a perversion, just like homosexual marriage is a perversion of God's original design. So is divorce. The word for joined together is a very graphic term. It's the picture of two oxen yoked together. And that's what, it's not saying that the wife's an ox or the woman. There's a yoke there.

29:50Nothing like that, but there's a yoke there. And the two oxen were joined together and they were to pull together. They were yoked together. And that is the picture, what Jesus is saying, what God has joined together, what he is yoked together. It's a picture of bonded for life. They are to pull together. They are to pray together. They are to play together. They are to think together. They are to go through life responding together, reflecting on life together, sharing pain together, experiencing joy together. They live together. Whatever life may have in store, they are yoked together to go through life together. And this command is an imperative command. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. This is the only imperative in this passage. When you get down there, he gets really emphatic right here at this point. It's like he's saying, what God has joined together, don't you dare separate. That's the word. Very strong. And this is all the crowd hears. From here on out, it's going to be a quiet conversation with the disciples in private. But this is all the crowd hears. This is all the Pharisees hear. Don't you dare separate.

31:13It's a very strong bond. If you look at this, it's stronger than the mother or the parent and the child bond. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. It's a stronger bond. In the Ten Commandments, that first command involving the horizontal relationships is: children obey your parents, right? Next to obeying God, you need to obey your parents. Well, now, here, this bond, this marriage, is stronger than that parent-child relationship. For this reason, you are to leave and go and be joined to another. A stronger bond, so that the duty of the husband to the wife and vice versa is greater than the duty to parents. It's a stronger bond.

32:08You can't divorce your parents, can you? I know there was a gymnast back in, won the gold medal in 1996 who tried to divorce her parents. It was a lengthy process, and at the end, she was successful in getting what she wanted, but the terms were she got legal independence, she got legal emancipation. But what she really wanted was just legal separate finances, and she wanted to control her finances. But in the end, you can't really divorce your parents, right? I mean, you can call it whatever you want on paper, you can't separate.

32:44Well, that's what this bond that is formed between that God designed between and marriage is stronger than the bond of parent and child. Well, this is all they heard. Don't you? You dare separate. Why Christ's followers should not be divorce-minded? First of all, is because of what marriage is. But second, because of what adultery is. Because of what adultery is. Look at verse 10. In the house, the disciples began questioning him about this again. And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. So the basic thought in view here is that divorce is with the intention to remarriage. That's what's going on here. And this is what the Pharisees, this was the practice. I'm tired of this woman. I want to go after that woman. Let me put her away for the purpose of going after this woman. And that was, they had erected a whole legal system that allowed this to happen. And in fact, the actual certificate, historians tell us, actually read, you are free to marry any man. So the context of what's being talked about here is that action of putting someone aside for the purpose of marrying someone else. And the certificate itself said, you are free to marry any man. Well, the definition of adultery, in the Old Testament technical sense, it referred to any sexual relationship between a married woman and a man other than her husband. So women, it was a little bit stricter. For the man, it included. Included all sexual relationships involving a married man and another man's wife. So, strangely, adultery was not labeled as having relations with a slave girl. In fact, Genesis 16, you see, Abraham, Sarah gives him her handmaid, Hagar. I have Ishmael. Problems in the Middle East. But anyway, Hagar is given to her, and Scripture is silenced. It doesn't support it, but it certainly doesn't condemn it as adulterous. And same you see with this pattern. Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid. But as it goes on, it also didn't see polygamy as adultery, or it doesn't affirm it as adultery. And it gets kind of hard to, as you're going through the Old Testament, you're kind of going, why is it so silent in some of these issues? Where is the loud voice condemning this? Well, even in Deuteronomy 21, 15, there are laws: if a man has two wives, the one loved and the one other unloved, bottom line is, you're not supposed to give the favored child higher priority than the slave child. That's what that's all about. But the idea is it recognizes two polygamous affairs, and it doesn't call them adulterous.

36:01Even though it does not support them, and neither did that law permit it, it just recognized it would be there, just like the EPA recognizes that oil spills are going to happen, and it has to have some laws controlling the oil spills. So these laws in the Old Testament were set up not to permit certain things, but to recognize that in a fallen world, these things are going to happen and they are there to permit, to reduce the damage of marriages gone wrong.

36:35But then you come to Jesus, and in this passage, he brings sanity. He brings clarity. He says, You have heard, you shall not commit adultery. In Matthew 5:27, he says, You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks after a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So, what Jesus He brings sanity to the whole things. It's a one-woman, one-man relationship. And anything, whether thought, word, or action, or deed, that breaks that one union is adultery. And so, he brings sanity to the whole relationship between man and woman in marriage. He brings honor to it and respect to it. At the basic level, adultery is a breach of the one-flesh relationship. That's what it is. Adultery is a breach of that one union. Union, that one-flesh relationship that God intended there to be for marriage. C.S. Lewitz says it well. He says, the monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union, the sexual, from all other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.

37:55So, what Jesus is saying here is that the whole system of divorce and remarriage that the Jews had set up was adultery. And when he starts out, he says, What did Moses command you? And they say, Well, Moses permitted this. Well, what did Moses command? Thou shalt not commit adultery. And their hearts were drawn in the wrong direction. They were drawn toward their own sinful inclinations. No, very clear. What Moses commanded you, do not commit adultery. And your practice is adulterous. John the Baptist lost his head over this. It's not a very popular message. And here Jesus is saying, the whole Jewish practice that you have instituted here is adulterous by nature. I see this so many times happening around us today. I mean, what would you think if I went back here and stole all the money out of the box and I walked out the door, took the cash, Cash, and then I went over to try to make an investment, and I got down on my knees and said, Lord, really bless this investment. Will you bless this? Well, you kind of think that that's a little out of order, a little misplaced, right? Well, that's basically what happens today over and over in the realm of marriage. People knowingly put aside someone to go after someone else, and then they're praying, God, bless this one, bless this one. It's really, really out of place. But this should not characterize God's people. And that's what Jesus is calling his people to do, a different standard, a different way. So, who's the Lord of the marriage? Well, it's not man. The Jews had set it up to where man was sort of the Lord of the marriage. It's not government. They're not the Lord of the marriage. It's not the church. Church isn't even the Lord of the marriage. It's Jesus Himself and Jesus alone. And we must come to see this: that it is Jesus who is the Lord of the marriage. And followers of Christ are to perform their marital obligations first and foremost for Christ's sake. There is discipleship in the marriage. He calls you. If you're married, he calls you to honor and to perform your marital duties as to him for his sake and then for the sake of your spouse. And so the solution for For divorce mindset is a softened heart towards the Lordship of Christ. How do you see Christ? Are you open to what He has to say? Is your heart softened, or is your heart hardened, and you're going to do what you want to do, and you're going to figure out a way to do it regardless of what Scripture says? Well, this is a revolutionary shift in the way men and women relate in marriage. If you look back over the history of earth and look at this day, this teaching of Christ and to his disciples on how they are to conduct themselves in the marriage covenant is huge. Huge implications. Like I said, this stuff, what this did to society, what this has done for our society, has been huge. It has brought together the battle of the sexes, which began when Adam and Eve were cursed and they were sent out of the garden. And no longer was Adam using his strength in the God-given, directed path that he was supposed to use it, but he was using it to serve himself. But Jesus brought amazing sanity to it. Look, all we can do is recognize what God has done and align our lives accordingly. Government doesn't have authority. You don't have authority. And listen, let me tell you, kids, everybody here, if you will learn to honor, God's design for marriage in all seasons of your life, you will avoid a great number of pitfalls. And it doesn't matter if you're young, old, where you are, if you will properly orient yourself to God's design for marriage, you will avoid so many pitfalls in life. Children, don't challenge the union. I mean, some of you think you may challenge the union by, you know, Dad, can I have a Coke? No. Let me sneak over. Mom, may I have a Coke? You know, you ever see that? You ever done that? No. But somebody probably has. But to married, stay faithful to the covenant of marriage, before marriage and after. Marrieds, likewise, and you'll avoid a whole bunch of pitfalls. Well, the bottom line is that Jesus is calling his people to radical, radical obedience. This is a shift. In fact, the disciples are so perplexed by this teaching that in Matthew's gospel, they say to Jesus, well, if this is the case about marriage, then who in the world should get married? It's better not to get married. But this is consistent with Mark. This is consistent with Mark. Everything that he is calling his disciples to in this section is radical. The whole messianic mission of Christ was accomplished through. Rejection. He's the Messiah, yet he's going to go and be rejected. He's going to suffer. He tells the disciples, you must lose your life in order to find it. You must become least in order to become the greatest. These are totally countercultural. You must welcome those who you naturally would reject. You must love those who hate you. You must not be divorce-minded. Listen, Jesus is not trying to heap a bunch of guilt upon those who have failed in this area. Mark 3:23 makes it very clear that Jesus says, Truly, I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men. There is no instance in Scripture where an individual who is seeking forgiveness is denied. And I understand there is deep pain, there is deep rejection, and there is deep humiliation for those who have experienced divorce. Let me tell you, Christ experienced pain and rejection and public humiliation like no one else. And if anybody is justified to let anyone go, it's Christ. And yet we are called to be like him. And that is what he's calling his disciples to do in the marriage covenant. Our marriages are to be living testimonies of Christ. That is what they are, a living testimony of Christ's love for his people. He likens himself in Ephesians 5 to Christ and his church. Men, take serious your call.

45:00To love your wives like Christ loved the church. It is a living testimony of the gospel itself. The lostness of our times is seen in its confusion over marriage. And yet, the opportunity of our times is for the church to stand up for biblical marriage, regardless of your marital history. And the opportunity of our times is to proclaim the gospel through the marriage covenant. There is one who says, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

45:31Christ overcomes, he is reconciliation-minded towards you and towards me. And this is the gospel. And we invite people to union with Christ through this glorious gospel. And the marriage covenant represents. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I know this topic is expansive, can hardly touch on all of it. But Lord, I just pray that you would create in us a people that are reconciliation-minded. And God, that in this day and age when our society is confused over the basic institution of life, God, that you would use your church in such a way, not as to make our mission feel our enemy, but in such a way to proclaim your grace and your goodness through the marriage covenant. You instituted.

46:32We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.