Mark 10:1-12
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March through the text
March through the text
1 He set out from there and went to the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Then crowds converged on Him again and, as He usually did, He began teaching them once more. 2 Some Pharisees approached Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses permitted us to write divorce papers and send her away.” 5 But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts. 6 But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], 8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.” 10 Now in the house the disciples questioned Him again about this matter. 11 And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 Also, if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
He crossed the Jordan.
He is on his way to Jerusalem.
The kingdom that he has been announcing is about to arrive at the holy city.
Jerusalem, the place where God has dwelt in His temple,
the place that Jesus loves because it is the home of His chosen people and the home of God,
will receive Him, first as a celebrated potential king,
and then will abandon Him to a cross.
But the profound mystery of the gospel is that it will be in this death that the kingdom will be ushered in,
because the powers of the old kingdom will have been defeated.
As Jesus goes along the way, He is giving blueprints for the new kingdom.
If you immigrate to a new country, and then desire to be a citizen,
there is a process for learning about how to be a citizen in this new kingdom.
You take classes, you take vows, and you BECOME part of the story of that nation.
It’s the same thing for the kingdom of God.
Jesus is reorienting people to what it will mean to truly be an Israelite.
And it’s twofold.
You will follow Christ as your King and God.
You will be able to obey Him by nature of the Spirit of God writing His law on your hearts.
For those who will be a true son or daughter of Abraham, they will be playing from a different sheet of music than the rest of the world.
But unlike the Old Covenant,
in which the law simply revealed sin to people,
Jesus is establishing a brand new covenant, in which people will actually change.
Did you know that is the promise of the gospel to you?
You can change.
You can be made new.
That is the announcement of the gospel.
I love what Jesus says at the end of Revelation.
Behold!
I am making all things new.
The very first thing that was made new was Jesus Himself when God rose Him from the dead.
And after that,
Everyone who has faith in Jesus is made new, is being made new, and will be made new.
What Jesus is doing in this passage is painting a picture of what part of being made new looks like.
If Christians themselves are the preview of the kingdom of God, what do they look like and how do they act?
The past two weeks Jesus has been expounding on the law.
In particular, what does it mean to bear God’s name?
How do Christians serve each other and how do Christians interact with children.
This week, Jesus picks up on the second table of the law which has to do with us and other people and he discusses marriage.
In light of the coming kingdom of God,
What do Christians look like when they are married?
And the banner headline for this week is:
They stay married.
And we’ll talk about why.
2 Some Pharisees approached Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
Testing Jesus.
Finding our if He’s lax.
It’s gonna backfire.
Jesus is a master theologian.
And full of wit.
3 He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?”
Notice His word command.
He is appealing to Moses, which is the scriptures.
So they will work on level playing field.
They respond:
4 They said, “Moses permitted us to write divorce papers and send her away.”
Moses “permitted”.
Already they are losing ground by admitting that this was less of a command, but rather something permissive.
And Jesus strikes,
5 But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts.
And Jesus perfectly interprets the law.
This wasn’t about just giving you an opportunity to divorce!
This was because of sin!
He goes on...
6 But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], 8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.”
There are biblical grounds for divorce.
31 “And it was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for a matter of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
but that is not the point of this teaching.
What Jesus is doing is addressing a part of their culture and practice where a man could divorce a woman, leaving her without hope.
What is the state of marriage in America today?
The average marriage length is 8.2 years
An estimated 41% of first marriages end in divorce
The average age of people going through a first time divorce is 30.
26.5% of children under 21 have a parent living in a different home // 21.9 million kids - 30% in poverty
67% of Americans believe divorce is better for kids than them witnessing the problems in a troubled marriage.
Culturally, we are profoundly addled when it comes to marriage.
We don’t know what it is,
and when we do we rush to dissolve it.
3 Ways Christian Marriage points to the kingdom of heaven
Marriage is rooted in God’s created order.
Marriage is rooted in God’s created order.
Notice what Jesus does here.
When God made all things he made them good.
And at the very capstone of what He made,
He instituted and ordained that when one man and one woman are given to each other in a covenant,
that it’s called a marriage.
And it’s not just about them, it’s about them and God.
When two people are married they are now capable of imaging God to a greater degree than they could by themselves.
Because now in one we have two.
Which points to the unity of God.
Also, we have male AND female, both of which come from God and give a fuller picture of His attributes.
Also, a male and a female joined together now have the power to create other image bearers.
All of these things are distinctly the privilege of human beings.
The reason why divorce is a problem biblically is because it does away with all of this.
Christians stay married.
Christians stay married.
No fault divorce is a massive global catastrophe.
Prior to the 20th century you can’t really find examples of no fault divorce.
The divorce industry is worth 50 billion per year
“New House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to make divorce harder.”
“Many members of the Christian Right believe God hates divorce, and are advocating for bringing back previously overturned laws that made women fundamentally unsafe.”
Don’t be gaslit by headlines like this.
16 “For I hate divorce,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “and he who covers his clothing with violence,” says Yahweh of hosts. “You must be attentive to your spirit and you must not be unfaithful.”
16 “If he hates and divorces his wife, ” says the Lord God of Israel, “he covers his garment with injustice,” says the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously.
Either way, the message is clear, divorce cuts at the very heart of God’s intention for marriage and culture.
The radical committed nature of a covenant points to how Jesus loves His church.
“In 1960’s the feminist movement began a four decade fight in all fifty states for no-fault divorce laws that would make it much easier to obtain a divorce. These laws got rid of the legal requirements that forced spouses to prove in court, with witnesses, that abuse or infidelity had taken place in order to dissolve a marriage.”
The Bible gives us two scenarios where divorce is allowed for.
Sexual Immorality
Wilfull abandonment.
And abuse falls under wilfull abandonment but we have to be careful.
There’s a story in the Bible that highlights the fact that God, chooses his people even when they have been unfaithful to each him and abandoned him.
Hosea story.
You may have a “lawful” reason for divorce, but what if what is available to you is so valuable that it should be pursued, even at the risk of public exposure?
What do you do?
AZ Covenant Marriage
2000 descending steps.
Stop and take an assessment of your marriage.
Going to church regularly reduces divorce rate by 27-50%.
Church orients us away from ourselves and towards someone else.
Which is always healthy in a marriage.
In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is writing to a church in Corinth that was all twisted up concerning marriage.
And he has two main points for them, both which could fall under the heading
Christians stay married even when the going gets tough.
Point 1: People who are married have a responsibility to each other sexually.
No rights - Don’t deprive - Unless under mutual consent for prayer - Come back together so that Satan doesn’t tempt.
Notice how he is descriptive and not prescriptive here.
“You have to have sex an average of 2.8 times a week”
Nope.
Everyone is different, every marriage is different.
He’s simply saying sex should be regular.
And that is subjective to the extent that it needs to be a mutual understanding in your marriage.
“We regularly have sex once a year.”
The principles here are
You don’t get to do whatever you want
And you can’t just not have sex because that’s easier than working through whatever difficulties your dealing with.
In fact, if you are having difficulties, get mutual about prayer.
Sex within marriage is by definition intimate.
If your marriage is struggling with intimacy, pray together.
A husband and wife who have covenanted before God to be married who join their prayers and their wills to God are on the right track to repairing their marriage.
The second thing Paul teaches them is that if you’re a Christian who is married to an unbeliever, stay married to them.
12 But I (not the Lord) say to the rest: If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not leave her. 13 Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not leave her husband. 14 For the unbelieving husband is set apart for God by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is set apart for God by the husband. Otherwise your children would be corrupt, but now they are set apart for God. 15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace. 16 For you, wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Or you, husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife?
He’s talking about the power of the covenant household here.
A covenant household is a family who has even one parent who follows Christ.
And the benefit of that is that everyone in the home experiences the benefits of being in covenant with God, whether they will turn to Him or not, and experiencing the benefits is a powerful way to bring someone to the faith.
We will baptize the child of one believing parent for this reason.
We are acknowledging that this child has been set apart for God because of the faith of their parent.
It’s also why we will help someone fight for their marriage if they are married to an unbeliever, because their faith in God will have a powerful effect on the other person.
The subpoint of this is Christians stay married, and when they don’t there is a pathway to repentance and reconciliation.
Marriage points to how Christ loves His church
Marriage points to how Christ loves His church
I want to paint a scenario for you.
I have a friend who grew up without a father.
He’s considering Christianity.
His perception of marriage and in truth masculinity in general is warped because of his upbrining.
When someone like that encounters a community of Christians,
what do we hope they see?
If the church is just like any organization of people with shared interests,
then what we can expect to see is a group of people who act just like the rest of the world when it comes to marriage.
But the church is not a group of people with a shared interest.
We are a group of people with a shared Lord.
We are the BRIDE of Christ.
We are a collection of people who were woefully astray from God.
To use the same imagery that God uses to describe His own people,
we were all spiritual prostitutes.
And what did Christ do for us, church?
He washed us.
He bought us when we were slaves to sin.
He brought us into His home and gave us a new name,
new clothes to wear,
He has shared His inheritance with us!
That is who we are.
We are the people the God.
We belong to Christ.
So what does the observing pagan friend of mine see?
A people who esteem marriage.
A people who fight for marriage.
When he walks in the doors he finds people who have been divorced,
and their sins have been forgiven.
And when he learns their stories he hears tales of reconciliation, repentance, and forgiveness.
When he sits at the table for dinner he hears stories from
children who grew up in split households,
who have reconciled with their parents,
and who have found true peace in knowing God as their father.
In the church, sin doesn’t have to have the last word.
10 Now in the house the disciples questioned Him again about this matter. 11 And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 Also, if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
This is just one way to commit adultery.
Jesus says on the sermon on the mount that anyone who lusts after another in their heart is already an adulterer.
We are church full of adulterers.
We’re all on a level playing field here.
The question is,
what do we do about it?
We pursue repentance and reconciliation and then pursue holiness together.
That’s the whole point of this teaching from Jesus.
Holiness means to be set apart.
Christians ought to be distinct from the watching world as a people who are radically committed to each other.
Not just in marriage but in all our relationships as Christians.
The unity that is on display in marriage is something worth fighting for.
It doesn’t matter if you are in your first marriage, your 9th marriage, or your getting ready for marriage,
You’re a Christian now.
Your marriage, however difficult and broken it may be, has the opportunity to reflect Christ’s love to the watching world.
