Dawn of a New Age

A New Age

Big picture: the good news of the Kingdom begins a new epoch - under the same good king

Introduce me

A different morning

our pattern to work piece by piece through the bible, currently looking at Luke

means we don’t set the agenda, pick and choose what we’d like to emphasise, what to avoid

Today we come to a section addressing a topic I wouldn’t have chosen to speak on

But Jesus has something to say to us - so let’s listen to him together

This section seems to stand apart from what comes before + goes after - it’s unusual

Also addresses a topic which is sensitive and needs careful handling - so I’ll be talking a little longer than usual, and we won’t finish our time with discussion or open Q&A as we normally would.

Sarah’s going to come and read to us from Luke 16 v 16-18 - and this is Jesus speaking

1:30 Reading: Luke 16:16-18

Luke 16:16–18 NIV

“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.

2:00 Prayer for enlightenment

2:30 Dawn of a new age

So what have we got here? That first verse seems to be talking about a new age dawning: like turning over a page in a book, one chapter ending another as another begins. And John - that’s John the baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, a key character we’ve seen earlier in this story - is like the dividing line between the two.

Up until this John showed up, back at the start of Jesus’ story, the Law and the Prophets had centre stage, Jesus says. What does he mean by “Law and Prophets”? That’s Jewish short hand for the teachings from God that they had recieved and handed down through the history of their nation: the story of their people, the commands they had heard from God through Moses and others, the challenges and rebukes which had come through different prophets, messengers God sent over the years.

But now there’s a new chapter. The page has turned. There’s news, good news, a change that is being announced: the good news of the Kingdom

3:30 The good news of the kingdom =?

But what on earth is that? Let’s break it down: the Kingdom, simply, is the realm within which God is acknowledged as king. That’s fairly straight forward. There’s a sense in which he’s king everywhere and always, but here we’re talking about a realm where he is acknowledged not ignored, where he’s actively ruling. The kingdom.

But what’s the good news to go out about this kingdom? What’s changed which sees the kingdom take centre stage?

The good news is that it’s come near, it’s at hand

That’s what we’ve seen so much of as we’ve walked through the story of Jesus: at long last, he, the king, is coming. John prepared the way for him and how he's here. And he’s bringing his kingdom with him, his active rule.

He’s restoring things that are broken - that’s why there’s so much healing of the sick and casting out of demons; that’s why he spends so much of his time with the wrong sort of people; he’s renewing things that have grown cold, been forgotten or been covered - that’s why he’s teaching so often, calling for a renewal of devotion to God in the right spirit.

The kingdom has come near. The kingdom is at hand - that’s good news, the good news that’s being preached, being announced in this new age. And everyone is being urged to enter it - this is a new kind of kingdom, one where anyone and everyone can be welcomed in, can become a part - not a kingdom that comes to conquer and overpower, to thrust aside, crush and destroy, but a kingdom you can join, one you can enter into. That’s probably the sense that the last section of v16 is trying to get over - the translation there is tricky.

So there’s a new age dawning, a page turning from the Law and Prophets to the Kingdom of God.

5:15 But what’s new about the new age

But what’s new about this new age? What’s the distiction that Jesus wants to highlight for us here?

Well it’s not the king. This isn’t a good cop/bad cop sort of thing, where the mean old god of the old testament gets the first chapter but the Jesus, all woke and warm, turns the page to the new testament and gets to write the second happy chapter. That’s heresy - and an old one at that. Marcion in the second century.

The king is still on his throne. The same king: one God, unchanging through it all. It’s not a new age because there’s a new king.

And verse 17 shows us something else: it’s not his design for his kingdom that’s changed either. “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.” This is just Jesus’ way of saying his design for his kingdom is still the same: the way it should operate, the way it should work, the way we should conduct ourselves within it.

There are some things in that Law that Jesus is talking about which anticipate Jesus’ coming and what he will go on to do at the cross. Things like animal sacrifices and temple worship. These things haven’t changed, they’ve just fulfilled their purposes. His design for them is exactly what it ever was. These all looked forward to Jesus and pointed us to the signifiance of what he would do. Always part of the plan - and still a part of the one plan God has had all along now that we look back.

There are other things in the Law which set out how to run a nation, how to administer justice and the like. Again these haven’t changed, they’ve just fulfilled their purpose. Israel’s role as a unique nation state, tasked with showing the world what an earthly nation living God’s way would be like, had a set time and place within God’s plans. And now those things in the Law have fulfilled their purpose. His design for them is exactly what it ever was - always a part of the plan.

And most of all, his design for life and for living, the fundamental ways we should conduct ourselves towards one another and towards him, haven’t changed. And if you think about it for a minute, you can see that would make sense: If God is good and loving, as he reveals himself to be through the bible, then his design for life, his design for how we should live, will be a design for our good. Not just arbitrary rules to make things difficult or to squeeze all the fun out of life.

God’s way is the best way. His design for living doesn’t change beause it was and is always a design for our good.

And more than that, it’s a reflection of God’s own character, an expression of who he is. What’s truly good cannot change - it’s rooted in God himself.

I mean, imagine this: imagine one day it’s right that children obey parents but imagine the next day it’s right for parents to obey children. How could that be? How could something like that ever happen? Only if the idea of what’s right wasn’t fixed, didn’t really have any objective anchor, wasn’t really attached to anything. Only if “right” could drift wherever it liked - or wherever culture thought it should go.

But Christians believe the fundamental idea and anchor of goodness, of what’s right, is God himself; he defines what’s right - and by implication what’s wrong. What he does is good and it defines good. So even as a new age dawns, God’s design for the right way to live hasn’t changed - it can’t change because God, in whom right is anchored, doesn’t change. He’s the same, yesterday, today and forever, as he tells us.

So the king hasn’t changed; the design for his kingdom hasn’t changed. What has changed?

8:30 his coming

Well first, it’s his coming - like we talked about already. Something dramatic, something fundamental has changed when Jesus comes onto the scene: the king has come, and with him his kingdom, the Kingdom of God, has drawn near. “The Kingdom of God is at hand”, as the bible puts it: touchable, tangible, something you can experience here and now. Good news!

But there’s more than that, there’s more which has changed: this is a new age, an age of grace has begun. Flashback to this guy John. The king hasn’t changed. The design for his kingdom hasn’t changed. We don’t measure up to that design. So when John arrives on the scene, dressed funny, “proclaiming the good news” as Luke 3:18 tells us, we have to consider cafefully what that good news actually is. Matthew, one of the other gospel writers lets us hear how John goes about proclaiming the good news: shouting “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand!” - Mt 3:2. He’s proclaiming good news, and that good news is “repent!”

How is that good news? It’s good news for people who don’t tick all the boxes, people who haven’t got everything right, people who’s life isn’t totally sorted. You see we have no place in God’s people, no chance of being a part of God’s kingdom by right - because how could a holy, perfect and good God allow someone like that into their kingdom? Or have anything to do with them?

But John’s good news is there’s still hope - all isn’t lost - there is a way. An age where God pours out his mercy on all kinds of people is dawning, even those who have rejected his design for living. An age where his grace means all are offered the opportunity to be welcomed into his kingdom. Good news! Repent, he says: change your mind; change your direction; turn back to the king. Because people who do that can still enter in: there’s a new way, opened up for them in Jesus.

I think we’d often like to have Jesus welcome people into his kingdom without this difficult step of repentance. We might like to imagine being in his kingdom doesn’t need that agreement, that alignment, around who’s actually king, who gets to call the shots. But there’s an unavoidable logic to the centrality of repentance: How could God’s kingdom include people who didn’t respect him as king? Remember God’s kingdom isn’t a patch of ground, like an eartly kingdom, a line on a map that you can be inside of or outside of arbitrarily just by where you stand; it’s the realm where he’s welcomed as king.

By definition, if you don’t - if you won’t - bow to God as king, you cannot be a part of his kingdom. You simply can’t be. So repentance, saying to God “you’re right, I was wrong; you’re king, I’m not”, has to be the path in. Does that make sense?

11:30 Why does Jesus move on to divorce? v18

So we’ve kind of gotten our arms around these first two verses. Hopefully.

A new age is dawning. The king hasn’t changed, nor his design for living - but now his kingdom is at hand, now there’s a new invitition into it - through repentance.

And then we have this verse on divorce and remarriage. What’s that doing here? I think the best way to understand it is as an example of somewhere the design for God’s kingdom hasn’t changed - somewhere it seems people were beginning to imagine it might have, wondering whether this new age, this new kingdom, might be different.

There was live debate in Jesus’ day around what was right or wrong on this front in wider society - and even in the Jewish community, in theory all singing off the same hymn-sheet of the law, there were two divergent views. So you can imagine people would be wondering where Jesus stood. On the one hand you had the school of Shammi telling you that divorce was only for exceptional circumstances. On the other hand you had the school of Hillel saying you could divorce for basically anything: a wife who burnt the food; finding someone else better looking. Really! That’s pretty “modern” for two thousand years ago, right? Just not in a good way.

Why does Jesus wade into this debate, sounding more strict than the strict end of Shammi? Because it’s a distortion of the king’s rule to say you can divorce for any and every reason. There’s a new age dawning but the king hasn’t changed and the king’s design for his people hasn’t changed. The king’s design has a purpose - the good of his people; the good of his kingdom, and more - and this distortion is harming the king’s people, obstructing the king’s purpose. So here’s good news: the king is coming, restoring his rule.

But it’s right that we should talk some more about divorce and God’s design rather than just leaving it there. It’s a topic Jesus brings into the foreground here primarily as an example of where the king’s design hasn’t changed - that’s what he’s doing here: demonstrating the continuity of God’s design. But this isn’t all he has to say about marriage and divorce - and this particular verse, if we read it on its own, can give us a less than full understanding of the bible’s wider teaching on this matter. And it is something that we should be informed about as a church.

Along with the other leaders here I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks looking very closely at what Jesus has to say about marriage and divorce, examining the wider teaching of bible on these things, and reading what others have written. I want to share a summary of the conclusions we have drawn together with you now.

Perhaps this doesn’t seem very relevant to you. Please don’t tune out, though, because divorce is having a huge impact on many people around you - although fewer people are choosing to marry in the first place, still in the UK over 60% of marriages are expected to end in divorce. It would be good for you to be equipped to think biblically about it, to understand why God’s design for it is the way it is, and to think about how best to respond to the difficult and often messy realities of life.

14:30 Divorce and God’s design

So let’s start with God’s design for marriage in the first place. Because it is actually God’s invention. It doesn’t belong to the state - it’s not theirs to regulate or define. Marriage first enters the picture right back at the beginning, super early doors in Genesis chapter 2. Jesus tells us it’s how Adam and Eve related to each other - Mark 10:6-8 - not just nookie there, they were married - by God, before God.

Marriage came into the world in response to the one thing that was not good in creation: it was not good for the man to be alone - Gen 2:18. That alone-ness couldn’t be addressed by any of the other creatures God had made (no matter how much you like snuggling your dog) - Adam needed somebody suitable, somebody like him.

Genesis 2:18 NIV

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now it’s important that we realise the final and full solution to the problem of being alone is not for everyone to marry. It’s for us to be in relationship with God. Marriage is not better than singleness, not the right or best destination for each person. The apostle Paul teaches there are clear advantages in singleness, in fact. And marriage, the bible tells us, does not endure into heaven - there won’t be any marriage there: Mt 22:30. Yet everything will be good - perfect in fact. For many who are married it’s hard to get our heads around how that will be good - but it will be. That not-good-ness of being alone will be gone forever because we will be with God; and we will all be His people, all together.

How has God designed marriage in the meantime? His design is for it to be exclusive and unbreakable - Gen 2:24.

Genesis 2:24 NIV

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

It’s designed as a permanent uniting, one not to be undone by humans - “what God has joined together, let no one separate,” Jesus says in Mk 10:9.

Mark 10:9 NIV

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

It’s designed this way for our good - but it also reflects God’s character. You see the bible tells us marriage pictures the relationship between Christ and his church - Eph 5:22-32 - and that’s a relationship which is exclusive, and one which is unbreakable. Jesus is never unfaithful to his church - and his church must not be unfaithful to him; Jesus will never forsake his church, and his church must not forsake him.

That’s why adultery is outisde of God’s design: it distorts that picture, undermining the exclusivity of the relationship. That’s why divorce is outside of God’s design: it distorts that picture, undermining the unbreakability of the relationship.

Now it’s important we see there are many more ways we distort God’s design for relationships - Jesus speaks about even looking at someone lustfully as adultery in Mt 5:28: distorting that design, undermining the exclusivity that should be at the heart of relationship.

Breaking God’s design undermines what marriage is meant to picture but that’s not all the harm it does. Breaking God’s design never results in our good. His design flows out of his character and goodness, out of his love and care for us as his creatures - his design isn’t just right, but it’s also best for us. So there’s always harm when we break that design.

So that’s our foundation, that’s the ground we’re building up from. Marriage is good where “alone” is not - but it’s not the final solution or only option. Marriage should be exclusive and unbreakable, like the relationship between Christ and the church that it pictures. Marriage is for our good, and when we distort it, we reap harm.

18:00 There are some circumstances where it’s appropriate for a marriage to be broken

But we live in a in a broken, fallen world. Things are not as they should be. Life doesn’t always work out as it should.

And so there are some circumstances where it’s acceptable for a marraige to be broken. In Luke 16.18 which we read today, Jesus doesn’t elaborate as he restates God’s continuing design for marriage relationships: they should be exclusive, unbreakable - but in other passages Jesus is clear there are exceptions. In Matthew 5:32 Jesus tells us “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery.”

Matthew 5:32 NIV

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

In this case, where there is sexual immorality, it’s acceptable for a marriage to be broken. We should notice that Jesus doesn’t say it must be broken, or even that it should be broken, just that it is acceptable. The design for exclusivity in marriage has already been distorted through sexual immorality. It is then acceptable that the unbreakable could be broken - and while we can try and reason about why that’s the case, Jesus doesn’t explain further.

Where Jesus only mentions this single exception and you might think there were no others, the apostle Paul adds a second: Speaking about marriage relationships when one person from a couple becomes a believer, he encourages the believer to pursue their marriage - but accepts that the other party may choose divorce, and that what should be unbreakable has been broken: 1 Cor 7:15 declares “the brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances.” We understand this to mean the divorce is acceptable, and the believer is free to remarry.

1 Corinthians 7:15 NIV

But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

Rather than seeing Jesus and Paul in tension with each other, with different views on divorce, we understand this as what’s called “casuistic law” - that is, example decisions set out to illustrate a more general pattern. Teaching in the bible often takes this form rather than giving exhaustive lists - for example in Ex 21:33-34 we’re told:

Exodus 21:33–34 NIV

“If anyone uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the one who opened the pit must pay the owner for the loss and take the dead animal in exchange.

But you’re not off scott free if it’s a horse or sheep that falls in! That’s two illustrative examples to establish the more general pattern of responsibility. That’s obvious.

That’s how we understand the bible to be teaching on divorce. We have a general principle that marriage should be exclusive and unbreakable. We have two illustrative examples of exceptions to this - that’s not very many at all but it is enough to show us that circumstances exist under which divorce is acceptable, and under which remarriage is acceptable. We’re clear still that this is to be exceptional - Jesus flatly rejects the Pharisees’ suggestion that there could be divorce “for any and every reason” in Mt 19:3-6. But real life is messy and complicated. Each situation is unique and it would require careful listening, study, wisdom, compassion, righteousness and prayer to determine the right approach in many cases. It’s just not possible to draw up a short list of clear and hard rules.

21:15 That’s a quick summary for you of the big sweep of our understanding as leaders here on divorce and remarriage. If you’re interested or want more detail, I’d encourage you to read our policy document we’ve put together on this - you can find it in our public documents library at tinyurl.com/HopeCityPublic

This is our best understanding of it at present. We’ve tried hard to read and think carefully but we know we’re not perfect, we have biases we don’t even see and deceitful hearts we can’t fully defend against. We want to remain humble students of the bible, continuing to try and carefully discern and follow what it teaches and we stand ready to reform our position as we learn more.

As leaders in this church, it’s right you know what we believe and how we understand things. But this is one of those matters where Christians do disagree, even when trying to reason carefully from the bible. It’s important you know that you don’t have to agree with us on this to be a part of our gatherings - though we do ask you to disagree gently and gracefully. That’s particularly important in this matter since people who’ve been up close to this find the issue and their associated experiences extremely painful. I do need to say that if you want to be a part of the core of this church, you will have to be ready to abide by the policy that flows out of our understanding - even if you don’t agree with that understanding. So I do encourage you to read it and reflect on it. And if you would like to talk about anything in confidence with one of the leaders, we welcome that.

I know that’s a lot of content, and serious stuff. But I felt like it was right for us to cover that in more detail when the passage brought the issue to the foreground. And let’s try and take this back to the passage now, back to what the passage has been teaching us.

23:00 How does this connect to the new age dawning, the new king coming?

Well one of the things that makes the new age of God’s kingdom good news is that this is a new age of grace, where all are now urged to enter in - even those who have rejected the king’s design, or those who had been pushed outside of it. Imagine people who knew they were’t living in keeping with God’s design, right there in Jesus’ audience as he spoke. I bet they would be wondering what would he have to say to them, how he would respond to them after this statement of God’s unchanging design. Perhaps you’re wondering how Jesus would respond to you?

We don’t have to wonder because the bible records an encounter just like that. Come with me to John 4 and let’s see how Jesus works this out in practice, how he models responding to someone who has lived outside of God’s design. Perhaps you’re already familiar with this story but let’s read it together too. John 4, Let’s pick up at v4. John 4:4-26

John 4:4–26 NIV

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

What do we see here? First and foremost, Jesus doesn’t reject her out of hand. He doesn’t say “get away from me!” - he doesn’t even just keep himself to himself, and keep conversation at surface level. Instead he invites her into the kingdom. See that in v10 and v14? He’s offering her “living water” - that is, the Holy Spirit, who flows through every person in the Kingdom.

When he meets someone who it seems has made a career out of breaking God’s unchanging design, of rejecting God as their king - or at least of living outside of it - Jesus’ first response is to invite her into the Kingdom. Not call down judgement. Or send her away.

But we have to see that he does bring her situation ito the light too. v16-17. He knew all along how she lived outside of God’s design. And what he doesn’t do is just shove it under the rug and hope it goes away. Instead it brings it out into the open - somewhat gently, but very much out in the open.

Why does he do that? Because if she’s going to enter the kingdom, he knows she will have to repent and bow to the king. You can’t be in the kingdom without bowing to the king. So he shows her where she’s not bowing to the king. He gives her the opportunity to respond, to choose her response.

And it seems she does choose to respond - and rather than keeping her at a distance, on probation, she gets to take a leading role in advancing Jesus’ mission right there and then, sharing his message with a people the disciples managed to ignore while they were busy getting bread!

It’s a new age of grace, a kingdom that welcomes all who repent and bow the knee to the king.

If you’ve broken God’s good design, by illegitimate divorce or otherwise, what does that mean for you?

Practically there are acts which can’t be undone, consequences which can’t be undone

But we still must admit we were wrong, that the king was right; bow the knee. Are you there?

Test:

do you defend your action? blame, divert to others? attempt to justify it, find some wiggle room?

or do you own it? agree with the king you simply did wrong?

Jesus died for that, for you.

The ultimate penalty which goes with that is death

And Jesus took it instead of you

Beware unwillingness to bow to God’s design

What next?

Welcome into the kingdom

“Go an sin no more”

Do what can be done to restore things

Join the mission - woman at the well

Want to talk through your situation? Welcome to grab a leader in confidence

If you’re wrestling with God’s design right now, whether it’s really good

Remember he’s the king - the king who loves us, who works with everything he has for our good

Check your heart: are you ready to bow the knee to his good rule - even if it doesn’t lead where you want to go? to trust him nevertheless? or do you just want a god who always agrees with you? always goes your way, approves of your path?

Because none of us are perfect - and so all of us will find ourselves out of line with God somewhere. We have to be ready to find that God disagrees with us somewhere we’re deseperate for him to agree - and still to bow the knee.

If you’re living in the pain and mess which can so often flow out of where we flout God’s design, or where others do that, what does this say to you?

Don’t lose heart - this is a new age, filled with grace and restoration.

The king weclomes you in and he is making all things new

Brokenness isn’t meant to be the end of the story, the end of your story - think again of that woman at the well.

God is not a God of dead ends and hopelessness, but God of the turnaround, God of the second half.

And if you’re just walking alongside people living through these things, what does this have to say to you?

Live in the grace of the risen king; welcome others who live in the grace of the risen king

We are not a bunch of nice people

if you only knew what was in my past, in my heart...

we are wretches saved by grace

that’s how we must welcome one another, coming together to bow again before our king

So live in the grace of the risen king - and keep on living there

we come back again and again to this point of needing to admit we were wrong, do what we can to repair things, bow the knee again to God

Welcome one another and cheer one another on. As we bow the knee to the king he extends his endless grace. As we bring our brokeness to him, he restores even the darkest wound, raises even the dead. Where it seems we’ve written ourselves off, or we’ve been written off by others, God has more to do with us yet.

So let’s be a community of grace. We have a king. We must bow to him. A new age is dawning.