So we are we’re back after a couple of weeks away from our teaching series on what it means to be human and we started this at the start of the year and we’ve spent quite a bit of time kind of going through this and we’ve still got a
Little bit of go of time uh and some areas to cover but we started I won’t go through the whole series we we looked at the kind of the the contrasting biblical sort of world View and the sort of prevailing secular worldview about what it means to be human we looked at humans
Being relational and that reflects The God Who relational existing three persons father son and spirit we thought about the fact that that our humans are embodied that God has placed us in a physical physical body we thought about the human mind uh we thought about humans as being sexual beings which I
Think I said before to you is the most watched of my sermons on YouTube which uh is quite funny um we thought uh then looking at a relational status we looked at being single we looked at being married and then Mark Petron took us to think about start of life end of life
Abortion euthanasia and some of those kind of difficult questions and so we’re back uh looking at some of the relational aspects of um our humanity and as I said uh before if you think ah this this doesn’t apply to me because uh if you can double click on it for Me
Feel so I can do the PowerPoint that would be brilliant um you might think it doesn’t apply to me and we’ve looked at marriage we’ve looked at singleness and today we’re looking at separation and you might think oh not me please stay with it you’re part of a church family where
This really impacts people and so part of our love and care for each other is to understand and to support each other so that’s what we’re thinking about today we’re journeying together as we think about what this whole big area of sep ation before we get there oh it’s
Not behaving today Phil can you just click on for me if it’s not doing it myself okay double click okay so I want you to come with me imagine that God loves safe driving okay God loves safe driving he’s all over it and so so the church gets right behind safe driving
And produces some brilliant teaching and resources on how to drive really safely but the trouble is every so often there’s a crash and people are hurt and they might be stuck in their cars they might be injured there may be children in the back seat of the cars crying afraid
Injured themselves what should the church do well because that God loves safe driving the church decides to do nothing after if it steps into help people might think that it doesn’t really care about safe driving after all so so sometimes the church pretends that accidents don’t happen they’re not mentioned and the
Care of those who are injured in those accidents are left to other people the church doesn’t rush to be the people in the ambulances who come to rescue all the doctors and the nurses in the A and E departments who treat the injured the church doesn’t say too much about the
Accidents and the injuries at all it chooses at times not to get involved instead it will redouble its emphasis and efforts on telling people about the importance of safe driving one Christian lawyer said this I’ve spoken at many Christian events over the years and whenever I ask for a
Show of hands for anyone who’s heard pastoral teaching about family separation in their local church in the last 10 years no hands go up each time I’m surprised there are vast numbers of children who are growing up with parents in different households and yet it’s not spoken of a generous interpretation she
Goes on to say of the church’s silence on family separation is that it has its head in the sand buried and unresponsive due to helplessness Unsure how to navigate the mess or frightened of making this the norm a less generous interpretation is the church is more comfortable wearing the clean pressed
Clo clothes of judgment Than The Grubby Rags of Grace challenge challenge and I think there’s some truth in this we are going to try to put on The Grubby Rags of Grace today because it’s true I think as a church we we’re pretty good at encouraging Godly unions celebrating a
Couple’s Journey towards marriage marriage prep courses uh we talk about love languages and we talk about a family but if we’re honest churches generally speaking are not great at supporting those in the congregation who are facing the prospect of a divorce who are currently going through divorce or are trying to heal
From the impact of a broken relationship and I want us a heal you to be better so let’s dive into this what do we mean first of all by separation we mean uh when a marriage is broken down and a husband and wife are are no longer
Either living as a husband and wife so they have separated but still remain married or they have gone through the process of divorce and before we look at God’s word and the picture there there’s three things that I would like to say uh in terms of kind of introduction the
First is let’s just have a quick look at the current picture in 20122 there were 880,000 divorces in the UK which is a significant decrease in 10 years ago but the reason why it’s so significantly decreased is huge numbers of people are not getting married now so the stats are
Kind of Fairly skewed there the percentage of married couples which divorce each year remains under 1% in England and Wales an estimated 42% of marriages in England and Wales actually end in divorce and the most recent figures show that almost half 45% of them involve children under the age of
16 SE living in the family half of the reasons for given for divorce uh 50% uh is unreasonable behavior is the most common sighted reason adultery sleeping with someone who’s not your husband or wife is stated as 10% of the reason why people get divorced the average age of divorce is
Mid-40s slightly older for men than it is for women and estimates from 2021 show that just over a 5ifth 22% of dependent children in this country live in Lone parent families 22% which includes divorced separated or widowed around 64% of people of children still live in a family with a
Heterosexual married couple so that’s a bit of the current picture of our country uh and I want to talk a a little bit about the crippling pain of divorce as well I remember my previous Church there was a couple that used to go around and do sort of uh talks about
Marriage and they were really good at it and they used to glue at the start of their talk two pieces of paper together you might have seen this being used before and then towards the end of their talk when they were talking about sort of Separation that they pulled these two
Pieces of paper apart and there were bits of of kind of one bit of paper left on the other bit of paper and the point was that actually any kind of separation or divorce is painful and some of you know this sitting here today that there’s part of you that’s
Left with that other person and part of the other person that’s left with you and the truth is that anyone who’s been involved in a separation or divorce will know the Deep pain involved to go from we to me to go from us to I in such a public way is
Tough there’s the loss of a dream a soulmate there’s the loss sometimes of financial stability sometimes of friends who choose which way they’re going to go often there’s a lot of of confidence sometimes leading to depression and despair there can be a fear about the future and of loneliness if children are
Involved there can be the ongoing challenges around birthdays and family gatherings and all of that people can be very hard on themselves they can feel that they’ve damaged their children’s lives and many Christians feel deep Shame about the breakdown of their marriage they can feel they’ve let their
Friends down their families down godam as well and the witness of the church has been tarnished and they carry this stuff deeply within them some can feel because I’ve spoken to some really judged by others in the church one divorce he said that they could see people in the church’s face
Changed when they told them that they were divorced and so rightly we’re going to tread carefully and sensitively here and then the last thing I want to say say before we look at God’s word is to talk about there’s a range of views and practices across the church around
Divorce and remarriage some believe it is incredibly black and white that marriage is an institution created by God and that anyone who breaks it for whatever reason goes against his will others take a different approach recognizing that there’s a variety of perspectives on divorce and remarriage reflected in the Bible and that the
Responses offered by Jesus and Paul derive from the interplay of the context and pastoral need so we’re going to look at what the Bible says we’re going to do a quick summary and then we’re going to go through uh one passage in particular so what does the Bible say about divorce
The truth is not that much the truth is not that much in the all the direct comments about divorce and separation are actually quite few in the Old Testament there’s only one mentioned in the Mosaic law and that’s Deuteronomy 24: vers 1 to four and you can look this up it’s pretty
Niche it doesn’t set the grounds for divorce as much as limit the impact particularly for women so the line from these verses says if a man finds something pleasing and indecent about her talking about his wife and sends her away then he needs to write her a certificate of
Divorce and then he talks about what happens if she’s divorced a second time and can she come back to the to that first husband and and that dishonor God so it’s quite Niche that’s the only mention in the mosaic law what we do have in the Old Testament
Is the clear imagery of God and his people and being in a married relationship the covenantal faithfulness of God contrasted with the the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel probably most uh clearly expounded in the book of Hosea the strongest words come from the prophet Malachi in some translations it
Reads this I hate divorce says the Lord God of Israel though many translations have a different emphasis and more about the man divorcing his wife being like an act of violence the one that he is supposed to protect but even if you take the I hate divorce translation hear this God
Is not saying I hate those who are divorced let’s go into the New Testament the story of Jesus’s birth Joseph remember looks to divorce Mary quietly when he finds out that she’s had sex in his eyes she’s had sex with another man when they were engaged which
Clearly wasn’t the case because the baby that was inside her was conceived by the Holy Spirit as he Joseph and we discover we have Paul’s words to the church in Corinth in one Corinthians 7 which we’re going to come back to about a whole bunch of situations and sort of
Marital statuses uh and and including an unbeliever wanting to separate from a believing husband or wife nothing or to John’s gospel and little Snippets in the three synoptics Matthew Mark and Luke and again the focus is generally on someone who has divorced and then remarried committing adultery with the person they’ve
Remarried so not so much about the reasons for divorce we’re going to look at one passage which I think helps us unpack this a little more clearly so open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 19 and I’m going to try and walk us through these and then I’m going to try
And land with where I think I have landed on this and you may disagree and that’s okay you’re perfectly intitled to Matthew Chapter 19 Verse one when Jesus had finished saying these things he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the
Jordan large crowds followed him and he healed them there some Pharisees came to test him they asked is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason haven’t you read Jesus replied that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said for this
Reason a man will leave his father and mother and be United to his wife and the two will become one flesh so they’re no longer two but one flesh therefore what God has joined together let no one separates why then they asked did Moses command that a man give his wife a
Certificate of divorce and send her away that’s a reference to the verses that I just referred to in Deuteronomy Jesus replied Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard but it was not this way from the beginning I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife
Except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery the disciples said to him if this is the situation between a husband and wife it’s better not to marry Jesus replied not everyone can accept this word but only those to whom it’s been given for there are Unix who were born that way
And there are Unix who’ve been made Unix by others and there are those who chose to live like Unix for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven the one who can accept this should accept it loes in there so let me just see if I can try and help us understand it first
Of all we need to understand the question behind the question I’m married Natalie was up here earlier and uh there’s a couple of questions that Natalie asks me that I know are not actually the question she’s asking so she’ll say to me if I’m sitting down are you doing anything at the
Moment and both she and I know that’s not the question she’s asking she’s saying I’ve got some things I want you to do that’s the real question it’s the same if I’m sitting there and watching the say watching a football match or something on the TV she’ll come and say are you watching
That yeah maybe it’s the same in your household with somebody else and that’s not the question there’s a question behind the question which is I want to watch this I want to watch something else and so we need to understand the question behind the question here because the Pharisees have come and
Asked Jesus a specific question and it is incredibly specific and we need to understand there’s a debate raging at the time of Jesus around the circumstances under which divorce is permitted that people would have known about and there were two general schools of thought two kind of teachers two
Rabbis Rabbi Hillel argued that a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason including infamously burning the dinner yeah that was one of the stated reasons Rabbi shami argued the only unfaithfulness on the part of the woman note that was the only basis for a divorce so
So we need to understand the question behind the question Jesus asked a specific question about no fault divorce by the Pharisees who were told of testing him the question is is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason notice it’s a male perspective
Question no mention of a wife divorcing noticed it was for any and every reason noticed it is a legal not a paral question no mention of children here and behind this question was a patriarchal system that used and misused divorce to benefit men at the expense of women by making them
Dispensable that’s the culture and we need to understand that if a wife was divorced in this culture they were often left without any means of support there was no benefit system they would be destitute they would lose their place in society they would lose their protection and their provision there would be shame
There would be stigma there would be assumptions that they’d been unfaithful it was a system that was unfair and unjust and disempowered women and the Jewish law made provision for a man to divorce his wife as long as she was given a certificate that certificate was actually important it protected from some of
That so God’s law didn’t approve of divorce or even require it but it regulated largely to protect women so let’s look at what Jesus says the first thing he says when he’s asked this question is he affirms marriage note that he goes back before the law to Creation to God’s original intention to
The beautiful one flesh picture of Christ and the church reflected in husband and wife and we’ve spent time thinking about that together marriage is one of God’s amazing beautiful gifts as singleness is again I’ve said that many times God is for marriage it was his idea in the
First place he’s involved in it so he says don’t separate easily Jesus affirms marriage but look at what else he says Jesus recognizes the state of our human hearts and that impacts marriage our Genesis 3 condition the the crash the sin that’s impacted all of us infected all of us that human
Selfishness that’s built into US impacts marriage and so Jesus says because of our human selfishness there was some provision built into the law where divorce was permitted so he recognizes the state of our human hearts and then Jesus lands it by saying no you can’t divorce for any
Circumstance so he he he’s in the the shamai not the heli kind of school of thoughts he mentions sexual immorality specifically as the exception as he does earlier in his famous Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:31 so Jesus says these things look at the response of the followers all men remember they’re like
Wow it easier not to get married so note that Jesus is saying something here that is causing a reaction from those followers Jesus you are being super strict this is fundamentally different to what we think’s acceptable for us they see how tough it is to live out
What Jesus is talking about that they start to kind of join the dots to the implications Jesus is saying divorce is not a guaranteed privilege of disgruntled men he’s pointing out the serious commitment that is marriage I want you to flick on to 1 Corinthians 7 because we’re going to
Just look at the other exception before I try and uh share with you where I think we need to land with this and also come up with some sort pastoral support as well so the the exception that we we often see is sexual immorality adultery so divorce is permitted in that
Particular situation the other exception is mentioned by Paul and I haven’t got the time to go into the depth of this it’s a complicated passage 1 Corinthians 7 and to summarize Paul basically says however you are stay as you are unless you have to kind of change is is a very
Uh kind of simplistic summary but what he’s saying in in a situation where you’ve got one person who’s a Christian and one person who’s not so what we might call mixed marriages he’s saying if the if the unbeliever is willing to stay together that’s fine but if the unbeliever wants to
Leave that’s okay let them go or even if they have left let them go and you’re free to Remar so there seems to be these two exceptions if you can go to the next slide from there should be a table fi which I think explains some of these
Three position if you can’t see it I will explain it to you so how do we apply this today there’s three basic approaches to the whole area of divorce and remarriage the first is very very strict that marriage is totally permanent and there are no acceptable reasons for
Divorce the second is that the Bible states only two reasons for divorce for a Christian adultery and abandonment by an unbelieving Christian husband or wife now I don’t know about you but I confess I struggle a little bit with I have some questions shall I say if we
Hold to even the second position here what about those husbands or wives who are addicted to pornography have they actually according to what we’ve just characterized have they committed adultery in Jesus’s eyes obviously lusting after someone is what about those who formed strong emotional attachments elsewhere they might not
Have had sex but are emotionally attached to someone who’s not their husband or wife what about for example if a husband has neglected and downtrodden his wife has thrown himself into his job who never gives her time talks down to her demand sex and after years she feels she
Can’t keep going or the other way around what about those who are suffering domestic abuse what about those who are suffering emotional abuse who are living in fear in their own homes what about those who’ve been neglected what about if a partner was addicted to drink or another form of uh
Uh addiction with no desire to get the help that they needed what if staying in in a marriage would led to such unhappiness that one of the people was becoming depressed or even suicidal what about husband or wife that’s committed a crime and ended up in prison what about husband or wife who
Are in such continued ongoing conflict that it seems to be destroying their children yes separation has an impact on children but also ongoing conflict between husband and wife significantly impacts children’s well-being can you see why I’m a bit uncomfortable maybe you are too the Bible’s laws about divorce laws
That Jesus confirmed was specifically designed to protect women in the ancient world against abandonment so God gave strict laws to forbid divorce so women couldn’t be cast out on left destitute and in the perfect world that God intended it would not be necessary divorce would not be necessary
A man and woman would be faithful to each other their whole lives but we all know we don’t live in a perfect world sometimes I believe divorce is necessary sometimes in our modern world divorce is the way to protect women and men and I think it can be helpful when
We considering this to think about some of the things we know about God’s heart and character as revealed in the Bible around Justice around the weak and vulnerable too and so I’ve landed on the third view here which wants to widen out the exceptions for divorce to include
Those shall I say who’ve who’ve broken their vows should we put it like that who who’s who’s prevented uh that Oneness so actions and inactions that have led to an unhealthy or unsafe marriage so as well as adultery and abandonment I think abuse should be in there too physical emotional spiritual and
Neglect that’s where I’ve landed not all my fellow Elders may be in the same place with me you may not be in the same place with me but I think that’s where I’ve landed and so what should we do let me just try and bring this to a close and
Then get a little bit practical as we finish what should we do with all of this the first thing we should do is to continue to support marriage safe driving is good yeah we should continue like Jesus did and Paul did to promote and invest in the beautiful gift of
Marriage recognizing that those covenants are amongst the most pivotal commitments that we make so we should do everything within our power and with God’s help to ensure that we remain true and others remain true to those covenants but we also should care for those whose marriages have broken roadside assistance crash recovery
Emergency Services physiotherapy surely we need to be involved there too we should recognize there are crashes and there’s hurt and we should care and love and roll our sleeves up and not as sometimes we do condemn those who are going through a deep pain of separ ation and divorce as some kind of
Double punishment and judgment is common in the friends and families and Faith communities of those separating despite most not really knowing what’s going on people take sides they fuel the conflict a number of separated spouses have felt ostracized judged and unwelcome in their Church following separation they’ve been treated as if
They’ve been committed the unforgivable sin going Way Beyond what the Bible does and inevitably the result has been for them to leave the community and sometimes their faith too rejected and hurt we must continue to support marriage but we must care for those whose marriages that are breaking have
Broken so let me finish with just a few practical suggestions for us as a church I I’ve thrown a whole bunch of stuff out here lots for us to think about i’ encourage you to chew this stuff over to go back and and look at this passage
Again what can we do to help firstly I think we need to be honest about the challenges of marriage I don’t think we’re very good at that to be honest I think we can sometimes pretend in the church about our marriages and we can make out that it’s all great and actually it’s
Not and we can people who are having a tough time can feel there’s no room for them if we’re real about some of our struggles with each other I’m not share I’m not talking about coming up in God’s stories and talking about how bad your marriage is but I’m talking about being
Real and honest with people around you in your small group those that you connect with we need to talk and find ways to talk about the nitty-gritty of being married which includes failure and struggle and tension and not mislead or give the kind of wrong impression that if you’re a
Christian and you’re married it’s going to be brilliant because it’s not it’s hard graft it really is we’ve taken to Jacob and Megan my son daughter-in-law and they recently got married and they said we did the marriage prep course and it was really good but but but people
Didn’t tell us how hard some of the stuff was she is from a recently married couple be honest about the challenges of marriage early intervention too let me say to you if you’re married and things are really tough for you please please please go and speak to
Someone about it or a couple that you know and trust I remember one of the saddest moments in the start of my Ministry in my previous Church where a couple who had children uh probably in their teens came and sat in in our lounge with naie and myself
And uh they said our marriage is in bits and uh my heart broke for them but it was too late the wife had already left in her head and her heart she’d already gone and I was like I’m not saying we could have made it better but but if if
They’ SP Spen to someone 5 years 10 years you know I don’t know when the thing started to unravel a little bit early intervention is really important to encourage rebuilding and Reconciliation where that’s possible a lovely sort of mentor uh from my previous Church told me the story about
How there was a couple in our previous Church who who were struggling and they were both so fed up with each other they went to this lady and they said they were going to go to the solicitors so this lady would okay I’ll come with you
I was like that’s not quite the response I was expecting and she was right and clever because she took them to the solicitors and actually they both realized as they went up to they didn’t want to do this encourage rebuilding and Reconciliation that’s quite a creative
Way of doing that and also encourage the couple to separate well if a couple have decided to separate and divorce and that’s their minds are made up on that then surely our job or part of our job is to help them separate well can we honor God in separating
Well I think yes I know it takes a little bit of kind of getting our heads around there can we be witness to Jesus by the way that we separat yes I think so and then walk alongside be aware of the cycle of grief that comes with
Separation uh because it’s the death of a marriage it’s a vulnerable time remind those who are going through it and have gone through it that Jesus still loves them they’re still a child of God remind them that they’re still part of the Church community that we still love them
That doesn’t mean avoiding tough conversations but it doesn’t mean treating them as if they’re some kind of leper as they’ve committed the unforgivable sin it does not mean taking sides offer practical support what jobs can we do for them DIY holidays babysitting for those who are on their own
And then lastly awareness of what’s out there I love htb for lots of reasons they were the birthplace of the alpha course which has transformed so many so many people’s lives including within this church two people that we’re baptizing the week after Easter Sunday have come through the alpha course and
So I’m I think that’s great one of the other things I love what htb do is that when they see there’s a gap they do something about it and so a few years ago they they set up a course called restored lives so it’s kind of marriage recovery and walking alongside people
And so there’s lots of stuff out there there’s a your direction course for children there’s the separated parents Information Program which helps uh people learn more about the challenges of post separating parenting with a particular focus on the needs of the children so these are
Things that are out there as a church we should be encouraging signposting pointing so there’s some practical things that I think we need to do we’re going to pray together and if you are somebody who is currently going through a really tough time in your marriage can I encourage
You to speak to someone if you are somebody who is currently going through a separation or divorce I hope you’ve heard that you are loved by God and that we are here with you and for you if you on the back end of that I hope you know that there’s a God who
Forgives a God who heals a God who never lets you down whether you are the one who initiated that divorce for whatever reason or whether you are the one on the receiving end and I recognize we’re treading on some deep stuff here so let’s pray together before we finish our
Time father sometimes the as a speaker I’m very conscious of the the words that I so e easily spout and the Damage that can be done sometimes and so I pray father God that the right words with the right heart would land in the right lives I pray father God for our protection
On marriages I pray father God for your strength I pray for those Lord God who are or have been separated or divorced I pray for your Grace for them for children who get caught up in there I pray for your protection over them and
Lord I pray for us as a church that we would we would do the caring for the accidents a bit better forgive us father God for being uncertain at times to know how to care how to walk alongside and give us your strength your eyes your love to do it
Well we ask this in the name of Jes Jesus amen