"In Search of Amnesty"
Sermon Transcript for August 15, 2004
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
Last week I shared scriptural guidance for us, for the joining in and the maintaining of a Christian marriage. You might recall that we learned the following characteristics of a Christian marriage. Spiritual separation is one of the first qualities of a Christian marriage. Spiritual separation is that recognition that a marriage is a new creation of God and therefore God intends for it to grow and develop in its own identity. And so we learned it means that parents and extended family need to keep a respectful distance and that the new couples need to be willing to enjoy that distance. Permanence is the next characteristic of a Christian marriage—the realization that if God created it, God means for it to last a lifetime. And if God created it, then God will maintain it. And the best thing we can do to have a good marriage is to follow God’s way of maintaining our marriages. We remember from the symbol of the unity candles that a Christian marriage is marked by intimacy and uniqueness. That is to say that the two become one flesh just as Jesus said, but that they never ever lose their individuality. And there’s where the separation issue becomes more logical to us because we can know that these individuals have brought to the marriage everything that is part of who they are and yet they become one in their marriage. One creation by God. And finally the fifth characteristic of a Christian marriage, we found, was that it is designed and intended to be for the glory of God. And so, we want to use our marriages as a way of demonstrating to the world around us the very nature of the relationship between Christ and His church. And went so far as to say that the demonstration that a mother and father can show through their marriage may be the most important witness to their children about the relationship that they would have with Christ.
Now I hope you remember that while you were listening to that message you were encouraged to be a part of the Marriage Enrichment Workshop offered here at Grace by people here at Grace. It’s a successful program that’s been used around the world. And we want to bring it here to Franklin and use it here so that you can exercise some of these wonderful things that you’ve learned about the nature of a Christian marriage. I need to let you know that we’ve had such a positive response that we’ve added another date. There will be a Marriage Enrichment Workshop offered not only in October but also in November. And I want to let you know that Reverend Mike and Mickey, Laura and I will be participating in these Marriage Enrichment Workshops. And, you know, I’m crazy about Laura; I’m pretty sure she’s crazy about me. So we’re not doing this because we think there is something wrong with our marriage. So you shouldn’t approach it that way either. It’s marriage enrichment. It’s a way to make your marriage even better.
And yet as you’ll hear in the next few minutes, there are things we can do even when the marriages aren’t ideal. Because I suppose that as you listen to the principles that I shared last week, some of you evaluated your marriages and found them pretty close to the mark while others maybe recognized that there was room for improvement. And there were even a few, I’m sure, who were contemplating divorce. It is a fact that in the times we are living in, divorce is part of any conversation about marriage. I simply couldn’t allow myself to go into a series of sermons about marriage without also speaking about divorce because I’m betting that if I took a hand poll right now I would find out that virtually everyone here has been affected by divorce in one way or another. Either you’ve lived through it or people you love have lived through it and you’ve witnessed their pain.
And the truth is, if you haven’t been touched by divorce yet, you will. It’s that common in our country. And that’s why this is one of the most challenging sermons I’ve ever tried to prepare because as we will see, the Bible is very clear in its position on divorce. Jesus speaks without any reservation about the evil of divorce. And so the church is left with a dilemma. How do we communicate this important truth that divorce is a sin that is to be avoided and yet also acknowledge that there are marriages that are dreadfully sick and violent where emotional and physical trauma are routine? And how does the church reckon with that? So the dilemma in sharing any message from the pulpit about divorce is that we have to acknowledge that there are some people who probably shouldn’t be married. How do we deal with that? And yet say firmly to every one that there is no excuse for casually dismissing a marriage because it just doesn’t feel like it is working out right now.
So I hope that in the next few minutes that we can see the truths that Jesus is really talking about when He talks about divorce, that we will begin to see that it is really an issue of sin more than anything else, and that we will begin to recognize that sin can only be resolved by Jesus. There’s the answer. C.S. Lewis said in his landmark work, “Mere Christianity” that “moral law tells us the tune we have to play and our instincts are merely the keys.” Now that’s really profound but it takes a few seconds to soak in so let me read it again. “The moral law tells us the tune we have to play; our instincts are merely the keys.” You see, there are absolutes out there. There are absolute truths. And what C.S. Lewis is saying here is really simple. He’s saying that we shouldn’t rely on our feelings in order to interpret moral law, but it’s the other way around. The moral law should dictate our feelings. We should be grieved by our offenses because of the absolute nature of moral law.
So having said that, we have to agree that a breakdown in communication, a gradual decline in intimacy, is not sufficient grounds for divorce. Divorce is not the answer. In fact, for many marriages what is needed is re-evaluation of priorities, a sacrificial commitment to restoration, and practical methods for maintaining a healthy Christian marriage. I want to repeat those; you might want to write them down. For many marriages all that is needed is a re-evaluation of priorities. And listen carefully to this one—a sacrificial commitment to restoration, and practical methods for maintaining a healthy Christian marriage. Now forgive me for this, but I want to tell you right now that if you are sitting next to somebody you think really needs to hear this, stop it! This word is for you. I will tell you that the Marriage Enrichment Workshop is a superb way for you to practice the very things I’ve just demonstrated in the Word here. So I want to urge you again, I’m begging you, consider prayerfully becoming a part of the next Marriage Enrichment Workshops.
I want to take a minute to talk about anger and frustration before I move on because there is a lot to be said there but it is really not that complicated. I included in last week’s sermon transcript, on the back page, a list of scriptures that tells us the Bible way of dealing with anger and frustration. I would urge you to pick that up and take it with you today. Because what you will discover is that anger and frustration are normal. When any people are gathered closely together in a relationship, there will be occasional times of anger and frustration. That anger and frustration are not bad or good. It’s what you do with them that has the potential to be bad or good. And the Bible has excellent guidance for us on how to deal with that. You may have heard of a wonderful Vaudeville comedian by the name of Ed Wynn. I loved him because he was in all my favorite Disney movies growing up. Ed Wynn said, “Divorce is a hash made up of domestic scraps”. Now there is a lot of wisdom in his little joke there because, you know, if you stop and think about it, once we’re done carving each other up all that’s left is scraps and some people take all the scraps and pick them up and make them into the hash that they call justification for divorce. And so perhaps all we need to do is to learn how to deal with anger and frustration in a Biblical way and we won’t have so many scraps at the end of the day. I urge you to pick up those passages and take them home and study them in your devotions.
What Jesus had to say about divorce is primarily outlined in Matthew, Chapter 19. Now you’ll find references to these thoughts in other parts of the Gospel, but this is the most complete package. And so we’ll use that as our guide as we study today. And begin by sharing that passage with you that begins by telling us that some Pharisees came to Jesus to test Him. And they asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” Now, be sure you understand that Jesus’ response to them is given in light of the fact that He knows what their real intentions are. They don’t really want to know the truth that He will share with them. They are just trying to trip Him up. There are a lot of factions in Jesus’ day, lots of schools of thought, and there were two competing Rabbis who had very diverse opinions about this topic of divorce. And they were trying to see if they could nail Jesus down on one side or the other. But Jesus, as always, is much wiser, much more wily than they give Him credit for. And so He responds to them in a way that is really kind of amusing if you think about it. The first thing Jesus says is, “Have you not read?” Now consider who He is talking to. He’s talking to the authorities on the Bible. He’s talking to men who prided themselves on their knowledge of Scripture. And so the first thing He says is, “Have you not read?” You talk about knocking them back on their heels and making them stop for a minute. And what does Jesus do to diffuse their malicious intentions? He says, “Well, I’ve read it and the Bible says that for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and two shall become one flesh.” Jesus took them all the way back to the book of Genesis. A book they knew inside and out. And He told them, “There’s the truth. There’s the answer to your question.”
But knowing their ignorance and knowing how they had taken common knowledge and over the years manipulated it into something that wasn’t entirely correct, Jesus expands his teaching on divorce at that moment. Now in order to appreciate what Jesus said in the Scriptures we are looking at, you need to know the setting for that which is given to us in Matthew, Chapter 5. Jesus is teaching on the mount that overlooks the north shore there of the Sea of Galilee. He’s teaching what we often refer to as the “Sermon on the Mount”. Last February I got to go to that place. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. If you go with me to Israel in January, you can go too. (Shameless plug). Jesus has been teaching for two or three days, we think, so this conversation occurs within the context of the Sermon on the Mount, which is a time when Jesus is in some ways turning common interpretations of the law upside down. But what He’s really doing is setting them right. And He’s getting to the heart of the matter. And so His answer about divorce is very consistent with everything else Jesus has said in that Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is saying, “Fellows, the real issue here is sin.” So Jesus demonstrates this by saying that, “You have heard that it is said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her in his heart already.” And I’m sure that if Jesus were speaking these words to us, He would say men and women alike who look at each other with lust in their hearts have already committed the sin of adultery in their heart.
You see, Jesus is reminding them of what they should already know. That the Old Testament tells them that you are not to commit adultery under any circumstances. And of course their response is to quote Scripture and say, “But Moses told us that we could write a letter of divorce.” Jesus said, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at another with lust in their heart has already committed adultery.” He’s taking them to the heart of the law again. Now, when Jesus is asked specifically to respond to the teachings of Moses, He simply says, “Moses gave you this permission—God gave you this permission through Moses—because your hearts were hard. And I tell you that any one who divorces his wife except for marital infidelity, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Once again it is very clear that Jesus is bringing this down to the real heart of the matter, which is sin. Sin—the great equalizer—that says it doesn’t matter if you are a Pharisee or a devout righteous person teaching the law or whether you are a respected man in the town. If you do this, you are equally guilty.
Let me share with you just a little aside about what they are guilty of. Do you realize that in the culture within which Jesus is teaching this message, women were treated like second and third class citizens? That they were restricted to rules of little or no authority, that they were expected to remain pretty much confined to either their father’s home or their husband’s home? Women were considered inferior to man in every way and under the authority of man in every way. So when a man divorced his wife in those days, in most cases she and her children were condemned to a life of poverty—begging, stealing, and prostitution—just to survive. Jesus knows to whom He speaks. And He knows that the real subject is not about if divorce is okay, it’s whether sin is okay. And it is not! And that sins have consequences. And the consequences of the sin of divorce and the context within which Jesus spoke of it is that woman and children, people who were virtually helpless in that society, were devastated and destroyed.
So Jesus’ response to the question about divorce is much bigger than the question of divorce. Jesus is saying that sin is the great equalizer. And that the real answer to the question is, “Have you ever committed a sin?” If so, then you are on equal ground with the divorced. And further, if you participate in enabling this destruction of the innocence, then you are committing an equally grievous sin to that one that everybody agreed was terrible—adultery. Jesus used the truth about sin to take people down to a common level and to say that adultery, the destruction of the innocence, that lying, cheating, choosing to do everything outside of God’s will is sin and the consequences of sin is death. And by default Jesus is pointing at Himself as the only answer, the only way out. Now it’s interesting, after His teaching His Apostles had kind of a funny response. They said, “Jesus, (this is from Matthew 19:10) if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it’s better not to marry!” In other words they are saying, “Wow, you mean that if I’m married to someone I’m bound to be married to them for life except for immorality?” You know, Jesus doesn’t respond to their question by saying, “Oh, that’s foolish.” In fact He says, “You have a point there.”
Now the reason I want to share that with you is because you need to know that what Jesus says not everyone can accept His teaching, what He’s really saying is that the consequences of sin are really the same when it is all said and done. And it doesn’t really matter what you call the sin. It doesn’t matter how public or private the sin. The consequences are the same. And this is what He’s really saying that people can’t accept because we sort of enjoy, just as they did in Jesus’ day, being able to point our finger at someone else and saying, “Your sin is greater than mine.” No, it’s not! Sin is sin. And in the eyes of a holy God, there is no greater sin than another. They are all bad. And all sins bring about devastating consequences.
Now before I move away from this let me just examine that phrase that Jesus puts in there—except for immorality. Jesus said that that would be the one justification for divorce. That word, immorality, comes from the Greek word pornea or pornos. You are probably already thinking of English words you know that that comes from. Right, it’s part of that word pornography. Jesus is saying except for any kind of lewd sexual behavior, there is no justification for divorce. But please keep in mind the context within which He has said this. He’s already pointed out a long list of impossibilities for your average sinner. Jesus has already illustrated that you can’t escape sin. It’s part of our lives. Immorality is definitely part of our culture. This sort of lewdness that He refers to is definitely part of our day and age and I’d say that every marriage, no matter what its condition, has been affected by this lewdness that Jesus is referring to.
So we can either take it that Jesus is saying that there is justification for virtually every divorce that we know about or we can take it that He’s saying that sin is sin and it doesn’t really matter what happens. If you sin there will be consequences. And the type of the sin will determine the type of consequences. I like what the Apostle Paul says about this issue, by they way, of sexuality. It’s not an easy thing to talk about from the pulpit but I figure if Paul said it, I can say it. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, he says that it’s the man and the woman’s responsibility to provide for each other’s needs where the intimacy of sex is concerned. And I think it stands to reason that what he is saying is if you stay busy taking care of your husband or wife, you won’t have the time or the energy for immorality. It’s okay to laugh; that’s funny. There is a lot of humor in the Bible because the real nature of humor is, when it is all said and done, that it’s based in truth. And Paul addresses that truth because in his writings on the subject, he affirmed everything that Jesus said about the subject. He just took it a step further in order to interpret it to Gentiles. And to say that it doesn’t really matter whether your spouse is an unbeliever or not, the fact is that you need to work at your relationship.
So here are some conclusions that I’ve made about divorce. No matter how you spin it, divorce is bad. It’s just bad. And it is a sin with grave consequences. However, if you are prayerfully considering divorce, I would ask you to pray with equal intensity that God will show you the way of restoration because maybe you are just dealing with that hash that we talked about a minute ago. On the other hand, the destruction of families and in particular, the willful devastation of the helpless, cannot be tolerated. And so we as a church must be willing to leave room for people to make those impossibly difficult decisions, and to offer them the grace they need to come out of those situations. And in all of these things, pray with great intensity heartfelt consideration of God’s Word.
I want to finish this by talking to those who’ve been through divorce for a while. Let me begin by sharing a few words from “Rock of Ages Cleft for Me”, that wonderful hymn. “Could my tears forever flow, could my zeal no rust but know. These for sin could not atone, though must say, though alone.” Billy Graham says this about divorce, “I’m opposed to divorce and regard the increase in divorces today as one of the most alarming problems in society. However, I know that the Lord can forgive and heal even when great sin may have been involved. The church is made up of sinners. And when Paul wrote to the Corinthians he gave a long list of evils. And then he added “and such were some of you”. They had been forgiven and made a part of the body of Christ again.” Friends, you need to know that the divorced person brings a deep sense of rejection and they ache with the loss of their self-worth because unlike many kinds of sin, divorce in most cases is played out in public for everyone to see. And part of the reason that you know about people who are going through divorce or have been through divorce is because there is no hiding it. But hear these words of comfort from Paul in II Corinthians, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old is gone and the new is come.” We need to recognize that what is past is past. And the word for the divorced person is you have to accept that the past is past. Laura, would you put that picture up there for me? Most folks can’t read this word but I want to share it with you because it is really good. That’s the one with the sun coming through the trees. It will be at the bottom of the list there. This is such an important point. It’s coming. I see it coming; here it is! Okay time to move on. Little teeny tiny writing so I know you can’t see it. I just didn’t have time to make it bigger. It says forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past! This is a word I want to share with those who have been through divorce especially. And if you didn’t know it, I want you to know I’m part of that club. It’s way back in my history, but it’s there. I know how you feel. And I know that the only answer is to receive the forgiveness that God gives you and then to forgive yourself and stop trying to make a better past. It’s time to move on and move ahead with Christ because I John, Chapter 1, Verse 9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
The church should respond to divorce with open arms and grace. Not embracing divorce, we’ve already agreed that that’s a bad thing. But there are many, many sins that lurk within the walls of a church and some of them are pretty ugly. The problem that divorced people have is that theirs is being broadcast for the whole world to know about. And so they bring a deep sense of humiliation to church with them. So we need to be like Christ and urge them and all sinners to work out their salvation. And we must be willing to announce the good news that Christ has living water for everyone who is guilty of sin. Think of the woman at the well, that Samaritan woman that Jesus met in the fourth chapter of John. He met her where she was, told her that He knew she had five husbands and several live in friends. And yet He offered her the waters of life. He gave her forgiveness. Something only He could give. And we need to go away from that forgiveness that Christ gives the same way she did—knowing that our challenge is to go forth forgiven and determined not to sin any more. If you read a little further along in that, you’ll find out that she was the one who grabbed everybody she knew and dragged them back to Jesus.
Church, I want to ask you to help me say something now to the divorced people among us or those who are suffering from broken relationships of any kind and sin consequences of any kind. Laura, turn to Psalm 103 please. And I want to ask you to read this aloud with me. But if you are one of those people that I’ve been talking to about divorce, I want you to be quiet and hear this because this is our gift to you. As the people of God, we want to say something to you now together. Let’s read this together. “Praise the Lord, oh my soul and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like a eagles.”
The last thing I want to do this morning is to pray for you. If you’ve been a victim of divorce, domestic violence, if you’ve suffered through broken relationships as a consequence of sin, this prayer is for you. If you are a sinner in need of redemption, this prayer is for you. So bow your heads now, and as I pray these words would you just repeat them in your heart as you need to. “Dear God, I thank you for sending your Son, Jesus, to earth to live and to die for me on the cross. I thank you for the gift of forgiveness of sin that you offer me now. And I pray for that forgiveness. And do, I pray, forgive me and cleanse my life in your sight. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, I am sorry for anything and everything that I’ve ever done that is unworthy in your sight. Please take away all guilt and shame. I ask you Lord Jesus, please come into my life now. I know you are alive and I want you to live with me now and forever. I’m turning my life over to you and turning from my way to yours. I invite your Holy Spirit to fill me and lead me forward in a life that will please you. From this day forward I commit myself to Christ Jesus, the Son of God, in whose name we pray. Amen”
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