THE FOUNDATION FOR KINGDOM RELATIONSHIPS

Clayton Wright

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INTRO

Good morning!

Have you ever had a moment in life when things just did not look like you thought they would? To some degree this happens all the time, but I remember one of the most profound times was back in 2019 when I was studying abroad in Israel.

We were visiting the ruins of Jericho, the first city Israel conquered after crossing into the Promised Land. At one point you can climb a rocky hill where you can look out over the land God had promised—a land described in Scripture as this land of abundance, flowing with milk and honey. And I remember being there and climbing this hill, and then we got to the top and we look out over the Promised Land expecting to see some lush paradise, some Edenic scene, only to see… [[this]]. A barren wasteland! Israel had just come through the desert, and had finally arrived in the land God had promised, and I can guarantee you, this is not at all what they were expecting. It’s not at all how they thought it would look.

This same sort of thing happens to us all the time—the job that God opened up isn’t going the way we thought it would, the marriage that God called us into isn’t exactly what we expected, the kids that God has blessed us with sleep way less often than we thought was humanly possible… Life just has a way of presenting us with these kinds of situations! And because as believers we believe that God is our shepherd, it causes us to pause and reflect—I mean, what is going on?? Why all this disappointment? Why all this discrepancy? Why don’t things look like I thought they would?

It happens in our lives all the time, and it happens all the time throughout the pages of Scripture. And today as we continue our study of the Gospel of Luke, I want to help you see that the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law are right in the middle of one of these kinds of moments.

And it all revolved around the question, “What does the Kingdom of God look like?” And what we’re going to see today is that Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom changes everything—including how we understand God’s Word, how we see other people, and even how we think about marriage.

We’re going to pick up our study today in Luke Chapter 16, so if you’ve got your Bible you can go ahead and turn there. Like we’ve seen recently in Luke, Jesus was preaching the good news of the Kingdom, but He was also breaking the mould for what people thought the Kingdom would be like. Jesus is touching lepers, and eating with sinners, and befriending tax collectors, and the Pharisees think it’s a total joke. They thought it would look different! They were surprised and scandalized by what Jesus did and by what He said, and they resisted Jesus because they thought they knew better.

It’s a question about authority, it’s a question about definition, and it’s a question that is going to have real application to our lives because not only do we have the same problem at times as the Pharisees, but also because, before the end of our time together, Jesus is going to use an example that brings up a difficult topic, which is the topic of divorce and remarriage.

And the reason I want to let you know about this from the beginning is that I want to share with you that I feel the weight of this topic. It’s not just because it’s a tough topic, or because it’s a huge issue in our culture. Really, it’s because I know and I feel the weight of the ways that this has impacted many of you right here in this room. I would imagine that every single one of us has been impacted by divorce—either because we ourselves have been through a divorce, because our parents got divorced, or because someone we know and love very much has been through a divorce. And I want you to know at the front that this is not going to be a time where someone is going to use God’s Word to hammer you down! INSTEAD, my aim, no matter who you are, where you’re at, or what you’ve done, by the grace of God, is to offer you the kind of hope that only God’s Word can provide, Amen?

And what we’re going to discover as we work through our Text this morning is that God wants to point us to something greater, something better, something more powerful, and more amazing, and more secure than anything that we could reach for on our own.

So now, if you’ve got your Bible open to Luke 16, find verse 16 and please stand to your feet to honor the reading of God’s Word, and let’s read these three verses together.

Read Luke 16:16–18 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

This is the Word of the Lord! You may be seated.

POINT ONE

The first thing I want to help us do as we get going this morning is just to orient ourselves to this passage because, there are some times in Scripture when we read the Bible and we think to ourselves, “Ok, yea, you know I don’t know everything about what Jesus or Paul or Peter is saying here, but it makes sense, I get what’s going on.” And then, there are passages like this, where it isn’t so obvious! Actually, scholars seriously debate how to make sense of this passage in its context. [Each of these verses by themselves make enough sense, but we’re left wondering why they’re together, and why they’re here in Luke’s Gospel.]

And as I’ve been studying this passage this week, I’ve become convinced that Luke wants us to read these verses as the continuation of what Jesus has just been saying in this conversation with the Pharisees. Let’s zoom out just a bit so I can help you see what I mean, because this episode in Luke’s Gospel began all the way back at the very beginning of Luke 15! What we read back in Luke 15:1–2 is that “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, [“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”]” So the theme of this whole section of Scripture is that the religious elite don’t approve of Jesus’ behavior.

And this is the conflict that underlies everything that happens in the rest of Luke 15 and 16, all the way up to our Text. So turn back with me to Chapter 16 and find verse 14 so we can get a sense for the conversation leading up to our Text. Because Jesus has just offended the Pharisees again, and we read in Luke 16:14–15 “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

So now, we can see what’s going on in the lead up to our Text: The Pharisees and Teachers of the Law are watching Jesus’ life, and listening to Jesus teach the very Word of God, and they’re realizing something. They’re realizing that Jesus is representing a very different set of values, and they are “snearing” or literally “turning their nose up” at Him. See, the Pharisees can’t stand Jesus because until Jesus came along, they were the big kids on the block. They were the ones who were experts in the Law of God.

But the problem was, they knew the letter of the Law, but had totally missed the heart of the Law! They knew a bunch of things about God, but they had missed His heart. And this is a huge danger for us as well—and this is one thing that makes Jesus’ teaching, His proclamation, and the rest of the inspired Scriptures so helpful to us! It’s because, in a culture that has its own values, and its own vision for human life, and its own agenda, and its own thoughts about the way things should go, only the Word of God presents the heart of God, and His vision for human life. When it comes to knowing how to live well and with God, there is just no other place to go!

So back in our Text, Jesus continues in His response to these Pharisees, seeing their heart, seeing that they have missed God’s heart, and Jesus says to them, listen you guys… “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. [but] Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached.” In other words, the stuff that you’re an expert in, the stuff that you’ve built all this religious scaffolding and tradition on top of, we’ve moved beyond into a new chapter—and in this new situation, I have come to proclaim the good news that God’s kingdom is right here, in me, and this is what it looks like. I have come to reveal the heart of the Father!

And so what the Pharisees are learning, and what we need to learn, is that what we “see,” and what we “value” needs to be conformed to Jesus’ Kingdom message. Jesus is the one who can authoritatively show us God’s vision, and God’s heart, and so we need to bring our lives into alignment not with the culture, not with our religious traditions, but with Jesus himself. But the Pharisees had failed to do this...

And back in our passage, just one great illustration of this is the fact that the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law are scoffing at all these sinners flocking to Jesus. See, as Jesus is proclaiming the Good News that the King is inviting everybody to come to His banquet, “everyone is forcing their way into it.”—or as it says in the NLT, “everyone is eager to get in!” It’s as though so many people are being drawn to Jesus and to the heart of the Father that everybody is trying to get in at once, and it’s resulting in this bottle-neck at the door as people are making this mad dash to this place where they are seen, and known, and offered hope and a future.

And what is particularly tragic here is that these religious elite who were supposed to know God’s heart are seeing what Jesus is doing and trying to stifle it. The very people that are flocking to Jesus are the people that they have totally written off. The poor. The lonely. The broken. the downtrodden. The sinners. The lost. Friends, do you see how far off the Pharisees were? They’ve had this whole conversation about a Lost Sheep, and a Lost Coin, and a Lost Son, and in the end they still can’t see that Jesus came to seek and save the lost! They just can’t get over it! And so in pursuing what is right in their own eyes, they totally miss the point—and you can write this down, “Jesus’ Kingdom proclamation teaches us to value people, not label them.”

The Pharisees were labeling Jesus and the people He was eating with, but Jesus doesn’t see people for their labels; He sees them for the image bearers that they are, regardless of their checkered past. And friends, the same is true for us today. And as we will see later, I just want to remind us that this specifically includes those of us who have failed greatly, and that includes having a failed marriage.

So many of us have had these labels put on us because of things that we have done. But whether it was a label from someone else, or from ourselves, if you feel that you have been judged and labeled because of mistakes that you’ve made in the past, or because of what you’ve done, or because of a divorce, or for anything else for that matter, can I just remind you that no one else has the authority to tell you who or what you are beside the God who made you.

And that includes you. You do not have the final say on your value. You don't have the final say on who you are or what you've done. God does. And the only label that is fitting for those of us who are in Christ Jesus is "beloved." It's "son." It's "daughter." Jesus' Kingdom proclamation teaches us that each one of us, any of us who would really choose, can become citizens of God's Kingdom through Christ. And not only citizens, but co-heirs with Him!

But above all powers, all kingdoms, and all thrones, the greatest gift—the greatest name we could ever be called is "mine." Listen to how it’s written in Isaiah 43 "But now, this is what the LORD says--he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.…[and then He goes on to say,] I love you.” Beloved, no other label has any worth here—because this is what God’s Word says, and we need His Word to reveal His heart and vision for us.

POINT TWO

But back in our Text, as the conversation goes, what Jesus says in verse 16 raises some questions. See, Jesus is presenting some kind of a contrast between His ministry and what came before in the Law and Prophets, which we now call the Old Testament. So, [x] “the Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John,” and now “the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached.” But where does this leave the Law and the Prophets? That’s the question that Jesus turns to answer in verse 17—look there with me.

I like how the NASB begins their translation with this conjunction “[but]” because it helps us see that Jesus is clarifying this potential misconception about the Law. So as Jesus continues, on the one hand, a new chapter has arrived, BUT, on the other hand, “it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.” In other words, while everything is changing, and while Jesus is clearing off all the religious junk that the Pharisees had stacked onto God’s Word, the truth is that the Word of God persists through the ages! Because friends, our words share our character. If I am untrustworthy, then my words are untrustworthy. And the same is true of God: If God is truth, then His Word is true. If God is unchanging, then His Word is unchanging.

And so, even though a new thing is happening, the same God is speaking. Jesus’ Words, and the New Testament in general, they don’t replace the Old Testament—rather it’s a continuation of the same story. This is why we have them together in one book—because it’s one story!

Or just as Jesus says in Matthew 5, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In other words, Jesus did not come to disregard the Law, or the Old Testament, rather He came as the culmination of all that the the Old Testament want pointing towards. So what we need to know as followers of Jesus is that the Law is NOT abolished; it is fulfilled by Christ in our place!

This means that Christianity is not a clean break from the Jewish faith; rather, it is the fulfillment of it! [[[So then, as a general rule, one thing you can take away from this is that whenever we see Jesus interacting with the Old Testament, He is always doing one or more of these things: (1) He is clarifying the true intent of the Law that people (like the Pharisees) had missed; (2) He is showing how the Law and the Prophets point to Himself, and how it culminates in Him (like Luke 24); or (3) He is living up to the righteous requirements of the Law so that He can be our perfect sin substitute.]]]

This is why, for example, you and I don’t sacrifice a lamb for Passover at this time of year. It’s not because Passover was fake all along—it’s because our Passover Lamb was slain once and for all on the cross! Jesus “filled to the full” the Passover sacrifice on the cross on our behalf! And this means that the proclamation of Jesus does not undermine what God has already said; rather, it proves once and for all that God’s promises stand! And so the point I want you to take away from this is that Jesus’ Kingdom proclamation proves the unshakable foundation of God’s Word. It is the solid ground in a world where so much is shaking.

So, what we’ve seen so far is that the Word of God presents His heart and vision for human life, and the Word of God persists through the ages as an unshakable foundation for our life. These are two absolutely essential truths for those of us who would chase after Jesus!

[[And they're also going to be important to us as we turn now to this last verse, because we need to recognize, God's word is what reveals his heart and vision. And it's an unshakable, firm foundation for our life.

And so as we read verses that are challenging and difficult to understand, and that maybe even offend us, understand that we need to submit ourselves to what it is that God is saying. Because he is the one who has the authority to show us the path that leads to life. And so now with that in mind, let's turn to verse 18.]]

POINT THREE

Back in our Text, in what Jesus says next, He takes this idea a step further by giving an example—and actually the NLT makes this really clear by adding in the words, [“for example”] to clarify the flow of ideas. So what I want to help you see is that this is not just some random command that Luke shoved in between these two stories—Jesus brings up divorce as an illustration because it is a perfect example of the ways that the Pharisees were misusing God’s Word! He could have chosen other examples, but regardless His point would be the same: The way that the Pharisees are using God’s Law goes right against God’s heart.

And so, if we back up to verse 16, Jesus says in the NLT, “now the Good News of the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is eager to get in. [But that doesn’t mean that the law has lost its force].…[this is the point Jesus is illustrating. Pharisees, you can’t construe me as disregarding the Law, and you can’t just use the Law however you want!] [For example], a man who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery.”

Now to you and I, this still feels like it comes way out of left field—but I don’t think it would have felt that way to the Pharisees, because what Jesus is doing is responding to a heated debate that was happening in His day. Back in the First Century, the rabbis and teachers of the Law were debating how to understand what God said about divorce in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. And while we don’t have all the time in the world to unpack the debate today, I want to read to you something out of the Mishnah which summarizes two of the very popular positions back in Jesus’ time.

Beit Hillel says: [a man] may divorce [his wife] even due to a minor issue, for example, [because she burned or over-salted his dish]... Rabbi Akiva says: He may divorce her [even if he found another woman who is better looking than her and wishes to marry her] (Mishnah tractate Gittin 9:10).

So what was happening in the First Century is that they took a Law that God had given and they had interpreted it to mean that these men could divorce their wives for almost literally any reason! [What’s especially insidious about this is that the divorce Laws in Deuteronomy were meant to be a protection for the wife, but these men wanted to use it for themselves!] And so we can see that, if this is true, then many divorces were filed with adulterous intentions. And Jesus is saying that this was not God’s desire, and He calls it out as sin! And so now, against this back drop, we can begin to understand why Jesus might have made a comment like, [x]“anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery!” It’s because they were using God’s Word to undermine His original intention for marriage!

And this is something that Jesus makes really clear in a passage we read through in our devotions this week in Mark Chapter 10, where He is very clearly engaging in this same debate:

Mark 10:2–9 “Some Pharisees came and tested him... They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. [united in what God intends to be a beautiful, life-long, covenant union!] Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.””

In other words, God gave them permission to divorce not because God delights in divorce, but as a provision for their hard hearts. It was something that was allowed, but it was never God’s original design. So they had taken something that was a provision of God and turned it into permission to do whatever they want, and Jesus is saying “that doesn’t fly in the Kingdom.” Instead, as Jesus turns and addresses the issue, we begin to see that the Word of God protects what He loves.

God’s allowance for divorce was never intended to cheapen the marriage covenant by making it an at will agreement, and when we treat it as such we miss the heart of God. And while there are a few exceptions to this, the general rule based on God’s design, just like we read in Mark 10, is: [“What God has joined together, let not man separate!”]

See, Jesus uses this example because He wants to rein in the wild divorce practices in His day, and because Jesus knows that divorce causes so much damage. And friends, THIS is why God says in Malachi 2:16, “I hate divorce!” God loves marriage, and He created marriage as a great gift for humankind! But God does not hate divorce because He loves marriage; He hates divorce because He loves PEOPLE, and because He hates the damage it causes. And this is true not just of divorce, but of all things that do damage to people’s souls! Or as you can write down, God hates sin because God loves people!

The important thing that I need you to see here is that whereas the Pharisees’ misuse of God’s Law plundered marriages, God’s desire is to preserve them.

CONCLUSION

And if nothing else, that should fill us with great hope. See, in the end, I believe that there are some situations, and some relationships, and some marriages that seem totally hopeless. There has been so much hurt, and so much pain, and so much water under the bridge that we don’t want to know the end.

And it’s in these very moments that we need to remember that Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom of God can change everything. Because God’s heart and vision for human life was never for you to just pick yourself up by your boot straps and figure it out on your own. God knows that the brokenness of sin, and the tragedy of death, are not problems we could handle in our own strength! But God had a plan, a magnificent dream—that one day, He would come and rescue us from this hopelessness. He would rescue us from death, and breathe new breath into our lungs, and make us live! The death of Jesus Christ was the darkest, most hopeless moment in human history. No situation that is represented by the people in this room could compare with the light of the world being snuffed out by death. But friends, sin and death do not have the final say! Jesus’ resurrection proves once and for all the unshakable foundation of God’s Word, and of His promises, and proves that God is in the business of bringing dead things back to life.

So the final invitation, and the one thing I want you to take home with you today, is this: Because of Jesus’ Kingdom proclamation, we are invited to build our entire lives on the unchanging Word of a faithful God.

And actually, that’s the lesson I learned that day, years ago, standing on a sand dune in Israel. At the beginning of the sermon, I put up this picture of the Promised Land. And while it was a long journey, and while it didn’t look like what they had been expecting, the truth is that, in the end, through danger, and darkness, and wandering… God kept His promise! He brought His people THROUGH the wilderness, and to the land that He had prepared for them.

And in the very same way, when you and I get into these situations where we feel dry, and worn out, and totally discouraged, we need to look back and remember, God is faithful! Great is His faithfulness to me. So I put my faith NOT in [these other things,] but I put my faith in the WORD and PROMISES of God, I trust what He has said, I submit gladly to His direction and guidance, and above all, I put my faith in Jesus—HE is my anchor to the ground. He is my hope and firm foundation. He will never let me down.

Great is His faithfulness, Church—Amen? No matter what comes our way.

And as we close, I also want to speak directly to those of you struggling in your marriages.

First of all, [[for those of you who have been divorced, and for those of you who have been remarried,]] for some of you, God may be using this passage to point out sin in your life. All divorce occurs because something has gone wrong, and all divorce results in great brokenness—but that does not mean that God cannot bring deep healing to your soul!

In our text, Jesus is confronting the casual, self-serving divorce practices that were common in His day, and He is calling it out as sin. Simply put, divorce on unbiblical grounds is not what God intended, and neither is remarriage after this kind of divorce. It’s sin, and it leads to brokenness—[[which raises the question]]: What do we do when we realize that we have sinned? Do we do penance? Do we try to work off the debt? Do we try to go back and rewrite history? Absolutely not!! RATHER… we rely totally on God’s grace.

Now I want to be very clear about something: the grace of God is not permission to ignore the commands of God; the grace of God is what we cling to when we realize we have already failed. It’s a lifeline for those of us living under the weight of what has gone wrong.

So when the Holy Spirit points out sin in our life, no matter what that sin is, whether it’s pride or adultery… whether it’s lust or murder… whether it’s unforgiveness or betrayal… we CONFESS, which means, we agree with God that it was sin. We REPENT, which means we turn away from sin and we turn to God, and throw ourselves into the embrace of His lovingkindness. And we BELIEVE THE GOSPEL. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin; and neither is adultery. And so our only hope is in the cross of Christ! That because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free! For God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me. So my friends, if you’re here this morning and the Holy Spirit might be convicting you of sin, understand it’s because God wants to set you free from guilt, and pain, and the hardness of heart through the love, redemption, and forgiveness that is available through the cross of Christ.

And now, [[for those of you who are feeling so hopeless in your marriage,]] let me remind you that God’s design, and His desire is to PRESERVE you. God has brought the two of you together with a purpose, and to display His glory in you—it was no accident! And if your marriage is struggling, I want you to know that there is just as much hope for your dead marriage as there was hope for the crucified and buried body of our Lord. I have hope for EVERY seemingly hopeless situation because the God who takes dead things and makes them alive again is the same God whose Spirit lives in me, and in all of you who believe! In other words, God is MORE THAN ABLE, as Paul says so beautifully in Ephesians, to address the death and the decay in your marriage.

[Beloved, my plea to you as your pastor is this: Don’t lose hope! Not now. And I know for some of you, you can’t imagine the next ten years, the next twenty years, the next thirty years, because you feel like it will just crush you into oblivion. But I just want to remind you this morning that God isn’t asking you for ten, or twenty, or thirty years right now. He’s asking you for today. God was not asking Israel to travel the whole wilderness at once; He was only asking for one more day. One more step of surrender. One more step of faithfulness. And if you’re struggling with what that step of faithfulness looks like, come and talk with us! We want to walk alongside you. Don’t walk through the wilderness of marital difficulties alone.]

And just like Israel, I believe what you’ll find is that the wilderness doesn’t last forever. That He’s faithful to His promises. His love never changes. His Word is enough. His grace is sufficient. So, let’s trust Him again today with everything we’ve got. Amen?

Let’s pray.

Closing Song: Promises

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