Hey friends, in this episode of the Bible in Life, Jesus deals with a topic that may be so close to home it hurts. But his words are wise and are good when we hear them in his context. So stick around and let's reflect on what Jesus has to say about the subject of divorce. everyone, it's so good to be together again here on the Bible and Life podcast. I have received so much encouragement and even positive feedback from some of you who have listened that it's just been really encouraging to me and has meant a lot to me. So thanks for your encouragement, your support as I'm just trying to get this podcast going. Thanks that you've been able to join me and that you feel like it's been beneficial to you and you're learning and you're growing. In fact if you feel that way and that you feel like you're really gaining some good value you're learning from this and you would like more of this I have a kind of a secondary podcast page over on Patreon.com. 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All right, we're continuing to walk through Matthew chapter 5 the Sermon on the Mount and listen to Jesus as he he really gives us some key instruction for our life as followers of him, you know, if we're going to be a follower of Jesus and be his disciples, then one of the things that means is that Jesus is our teacher. Well, Matthew 5, 6 and 7 the Sermon on the Mount is some of the key bits of Jesus' teaching, where we can really learn how does Jesus want us to do life. What is his vision of the good life, and what is his vision for life for his followers, and what does that look like. So we've been walking through that, and here we are in Matthew chapter 5, and today it brings us to a passage that man is a little bit Sensitive and difficult and obviously if I could I would just skip it. But here we are at Matthew 5 verse 31 Let me just read you what Jesus says here in Matthew 5 31 and 32 and then we'll begin to reflect on it He says this and it was said whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the cause of unchastity, adultery, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. And so here today we come to this of divorce, and that's a sensitive subject. That's a that's a difficult subject to even talk about. It is a obviously a real and prevalent problem. I would be surprised if a number of you my listeners haven, haven't been in some way, haven't experienced it. Whether you grew up in a home where your parents were divorced or you yourself experienced a divorce on some degree of painfulness that you experienced from your spouse. It's just a difficult and sensitive subject because it's so real and it's so prevalent and and along with it there comes Within the church almost a sense of shame, which is sad because it shouldn't be that way I was actually preaching through the Sermon on the Mount a handful of years ago at a church and When we came to this text leading up to it, I knew it was coming and so I wanted to I wanted just to get some feedback from some of the folks in the congregation and so I gathered together a handful of the folks I knew who had been divorced and I wanted their input and Wanted to be like a focus group for the for the message and so I was gonna gather their input Well as I was gathering their group. There was one gal who I really wanted her input. She had a long history in the church. She'd been a Christian for a long time and yet she'd been divorced. And so one Sunday morning she was in the lobby at church and I was in the lobby. Service was already started. We were the only ones in the lobby. So I approached her and I asked her, you know, hey, you know, I'm coming up to this passage in the Sermon on the Mount that deals with divorce. And before I could say anything more, she hung her head in shame and she said, I know, am I gonna go to hell? That's like man, the shame, the hurt, the brokenness. No, no, no. And that kind of shame, that and heaping more shame upon you, that's not Jesus' intent in this passage in the Sermon on the Mount. That's not my intent. That's not what Jesus is trying to do. So let's reflect on what Jesus is actually saying and let's hear what he's saying so that we can understand really the force of it. And let's just kind of walk down through various contexts that add a little shape and a little bit of understanding to this text. And so first off, if we're going to hear what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, we need to remember the context. We looked at that in the last episode, where the context is the seventh commandment and committing adultery. And there it says, you shall not commit adultery. And we said in the last episode that what Jesus is really doing is then he's giving two examples in the following sentences from that of ways we can be unfaithful to our spouse and unfaithful to our marriage beyond just the literal physical act of sex with somebody who's not our spouse. The first example we looked at in the last episode was looking to lust. Well here divorce, it's the second example that you you can be unfaithful to your spouse and unfaithful to your marriage by sending your spouse away, by filing for divorce, by serving him or her with papers in our language. That's the context. And Jesus' whole point is that there's more to marital faithfulness than just never having an affair. And there's other forms of marriage and faithfulness that are very painful and very hurtful. And in Jesus' cultural context, you see it in the text, he refers to a certificate of divorce, divorce papers. And only a man, as best as we can see it, there may have been a few exceptions, but pretty much only a man was able to file for a divorce. And the whole purpose of the certificate of divorce was actually to protect the woman who was divorced. And so the picture in their cultural context is a man decides he wants to divorce his wife and there was all sorts of debates in their culture about what were the reasons for divorce. There were some very more liberal schools of thought that said you could divorce your spouse for literally any reason or there was the more conservative school of thought that's basically similar to Jesus where you could only divorce your spouse in the case of unchastity or literal adultery. So there's all of this debate going on and it's a big deal in their cultural context where there's the religious leaders are trying to debate all this out and divorce probably happened, you know, more often than they cared to admit and there's a big debate about that. And so this certificate of divorce was actually intended to protect the woman who was divorced, so that if she remarried, she wouldn't be accused of adultery. And so she has her paperwork to say, I am no longer married. I am not an adulterer. And if you marry me, you won't be an adulterer. That's the context in the culture. And so that's the issue in Jesus's day, is this concern for this female who is being divorced by her husband for who knows what reason. And what Jesus wants to say to them and to us or this text is, guess what? Just because you gave your spouse a certificate of divorce, that may be legal, but that's not really in keeping with God's desire, plan A for marriage. There's a way of faithfulness to your marriage and to your spouse that's deeper and wiser and bigger and greater than just that. And you see that really in the theological context of Matthew chapter 5 when you read some of the other things that are said about divorce, the other things Jesus says, even in Matthew about divorce, we hear a little bit more of the whole Bible's teaching on this. Matthew chapter 19, Jesus takes up this issue again. And in Matthew 19, when Jesus takes up this issue again, because he's asked a question by some Pharisees about it, he actually refers back to Genesis chapter two, and the creation account where God first makes woman and brings her to man, Jesus recaptures that in Matthew 19, and he says this, haven't you read? Jesus replied that at the beginning, the creator made them male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife the old King James cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they know no so they are no longer two but they are Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." Well, that's the real heartbeat behind Jesus' words about divorce. It's this original intent of God. When God, the Creator, invented and designed marriage, He designed it to be something deeper and greater than just, well, you know, I don't like my spouse anymore. I'm going to give her a bill of divorce, a certificate of divorce. He, Jesus, when he quotes Matthew, or Genesis chapter 2 says, the two shall become one. Therefore, what God has joined together, what God has made one, let no one separate well here in the context of Matthew chapter 5 That's the heart of Jesus behind this there is a a kind of faithfulness to your spouse That's deeper and greater than just avoiding adultery Or giving her a certificate of divorce so that she can go and get remarried. And Jesus wants us, wants you, wants me to be people who can actually embody the Creator's original intent and the Creator's original design. And so divorce, this is the point of Matthew chapter 5, divorce is a form of betrayal of your marriage vows. Divorce is a form of unfaithfulness to your spouse and betrayal to your spouse. And maybe that sounds harsh to you or maybe you respond with that's true. I think this focus group that I gathered around me when I was going to preach on this a handful of years ago, they would agree that no, that's true. That's true. Sitting in that room and having a conversation with these people who've been through divorce, every single one of them, even those that had a really legitimate and even biblical grounds for divorce said it was incredibly gut-wrenching and painful. One of the people sitting in that room said, I think it was more painful than death because I felt like I had been just kind of crumpled up and thrown aside. I had felt so betrayed that it was in some ways almost more painful than death. That's the heart of Jesus behind these words. He knows that marriage brings two people together in such a unity, such an intimacy, such a oneness, that when you tear that apart through divorce, there is pain, there is heartache, there is betrayal in that. And Jesus doesn't want that for any one of us. That's the point. He wants His people to be the kind of people who can live with another person for a lifetime. That's Jesus' dream. That's Jesus' desire because that's God's dream and that's God's desire is that marriage would be this sacred, holy union where there is this commitment to each other that says, I will not betray you. I will not be unfaithful to you. I will stick with you through thick and thin because God has joined us together and you are mine and I am yours and we will be one and we will fight for that unity and that oneness. That's design. That's Jesus' heart in this. And so what God wants and what Jesus wants is He wants something for us. He wants faithfulness. He wants unity for us. And divorce goes against that. And that's why Jesus says what He says. It's another form of betrayal. And again, I think we know that. And those of you who have been divorced probably know that better than anyone else. You know the pain and the heartache. Even if it was necessary. You know the pain and the heartache. grew up in a home where my mom and dad were divorced. And those of us who grew up in those homes, we know that's not God's plan, eh? I never really had a relationship with my father. Just this past week I was talking to a fellow who said, I probably don't have the relationship with my kids that I would have if I hadn't been divorced. Even though in that case my wife left me and even though she had been unfaithful to me and even though there were biblical grounds, I can recognize it's not God's plan A. That's the heart behind what Jesus says. And so really if you want to take what Jesus says and turn it around and say, all right, divorce is not God's plan A. It's not what God wants. It's a form of betrayal, if you want to turn that around to the positive, what I think Jesus would say to you and to me is this, then you, as a follower of Jesus who are learning from him how to do life, then you need to become the kind of person who can live with another person for a lifetime. That's ultimately what Jesus wants to teach us, is what kind of character does it take to live with another person for a lifetime? What kind of faithfulness? What kind of purity? What kind of graciousness? What kind of gentleness? What kind of character does it take for you and for me to be the kind of person who can live with another person for a lifetime? That's Jesus's hope. That's Jesus's dream for you and for me is that we would work on becoming those kinds of people. Interestingly enough, you know, I've been to a lot of marriage retreats. I've even led some marriage retreats. I've been to marriage seminars and those things are great. They're wonderful. They can be very helpful to us. But the most important thing is your character, your character. If you're a person of Christ-like character, then you can add maybe a few marital skills to it that will really enhance your marriage. But if you don't have Christ-like character, then the amount of marriage retreats you go to or marriage seminars probably aren't going to do a whole lot of good. The most important thing for having a marriage that can go the distance is being a person of godly Christ-like character. Look at the fruit of the spirit. Love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithless, and self-control. You and I have that kind of character and guess what? Our marriage can work. Our marriage will last and that's what Jesus wants for you and for me. He knows that faithfulness is good. That gentleness is good. That love, joy, and peace is good. And that's what he wants for us. He also knows that unfaithfulness, the kind of unfaithfulness that even leads to divorce and that betrayal, that's painful. That's hard. That's not good for us. And that's not what God designed or God intended when he created marriage. So, so Jesus' encouragement to you and to me in this section of the Sermon on the Mount is, be faithful. Be faithful to your spouse. Love him, love her, till death do us part. Don't betray your vows, don't betray your spouse, don't be unfaithful. If you want to have surpassing righteousness then you become the kind of person who can live with another person for a lifetime. That's God's dream, that's God's intent, that's what God designed marriage to be. Alright that's it. I know that's a sensitive subject and that's a difficult subject but I believe Jesus' words are so good, so helpful for us. So go and the grace of Jesus and the power of the Spirit and become that kind of person. We'll see you next time on Bible and Life.